Ausgewählte Darstellungen des Neuen Tiefs in gedruckten See- und Landkarten des 16. bis 19. Jahrhunderts

Abstract

"South-east of the island of Rügen is a narrow channel which provides access to the Western Pomeranian ports. Known as the Neues Tief, this shipping lane bore major significance from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. The first cartographers to record this difficult-to-navigate territory were the Dutchmen Lucas Jansz Waghenaer, Willem Jansz Blaeu, Johannes Janssonius and their copyists. ln 1623 the Neues Tief underwent revaluation as a subject for publication through a separate, detailed chart by Blaeu. The designation Neues Tief appears repeatedly in a wide variety of atlases, although it does not always refer to exactly the same geographical feature. During the period in question, the reliable and systematic recording of marine morphology was a science as yet unheard-of. As if to compensate, the scantiness of information concerning the true conditions of the waters off the Pomeranian coast was frequently disguised by the decorative or aesthetic effects of early sea charts. This circumstance was changed substantially by the first hydrographic surveys - undertaken by Swedish marine cartographers in the first half of the seventeenth century - as weil as by the publication in 1644 of Johann Mansson's survey results. Yet the disclosure of these re sults was short-lived, for the Swedish Admiralty was quick to recognise the strategic significance of the Neues Tiefas a means of access to the Western Pomeranian territories and sea ports. The Neues Tief was accordingly earmarked as a barrier against conceivable enemy attacks, and the detailed investigations carried out after Mansson's death (1659) by Captain Sparre, Werner von Rosenfeldt, Petter Gedda, Nils Strömcrona, Jonas Hahn and many others were subject to utmost secrecy for decades. Thus it is hardly surprising that the inaccuracy and informational deficits of early depictions were adopted uncritically by the copyists Gerard van Keulen, Johann Himmerich and others. ln the case of the Neues Tief, the precision and reliability of information so important for every nautical journey remained a desideratum for centuries. The results of Germany's own investigations did not appear in the form of reliable sea charts until the publication of the Prussian Sea Atlas in 1840/41, a delay which might strike many as incomprehensible. It must be added, however, that with regard to cartography a large number of other marine territories remained shrouded in darkness for similarly long periods of time." (author's abstract)