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The Freiburg Bächle are small water-filled runnels or formalized rills in the Black Forest city of Freiburg. They are supplied with water by the Dreisam and can be seen along most streets and alleyways in the old city, being one of the city's most famous landmarks. The word ''Bächle'' comes from the German ''Bach'', meaning stream, with the Alemannic diminutive ending ''-le''. ==History== First documented in the 13th century, the Bächle once served as a water supply and were used to help fight fires. Today the Bächle are loved by children and tourists alike but in the 19th century they were seen as obsolete and most of them were covered with iron plates. The Bächle were seen by many (among them the ADAC) as a traffic hazard due to their original location in the middle of the road and as a consequence they were moved to the edge of the roads in 1852. It is local superstition that if you accidentally step in the Bächle, you will marry a Freiburger. The first documented mention of the Bächle dates back to the year 1220 when Count Egon I of Freiburg gave the Tennenbacherhof monastery permission to use a field which was irrigated by a Bächle. Another reference to the Bächle can be found in a document from the year 1238, according to which the Dominicans built a monastery adjoining the city wall ''inter duas ripas'' (Lat: between two (river)banks). Several archaeologists deduce from the outcome of excavations that the Bächle had already been in existence in 1120 when Freiburg was founded, some one-hundred years earlier than documented. The city of Freiburg was founded on the site of a previous settlement at the foot of the Schlossberg. The construction of artificial water courses, used to irrigate pastureland, was convenient because of the natural slope on which the settlement was built. Around the year 1180 some street levels in the city were raised by up to three metres with layers of gravel. Unlike in many other settlements this was not done to protect against floods since the riverbed of the Dreisam is significantly lower than the city. It is now believed that the entire system of Bächle was instead elevated in order to supply newer parts of the city with water. Thus, houses from the first half of the twelfth century are in line with a lower street level and all constructions after 1175 with a higher one. Those aggradations made the ground floor of a lot of houses impassable from the street, so that they were either raised or simply had front doors built at the level of their upper floors - which were then at street level. The amount of newly constructed buildings around 1175 thus surpassing the number expected by natural population growth, presumably also because the aggradations were used to substitute wooden constructions with stone ones. The “Bächle” were part of the dual water supply system of Freiburg: The provision of the city with drinking water proved to be difficult, since the ground water is located 12 meters under the ground and the few deeper wells could only last for emergencies. People directed mountain water from the bottom of the Bromberg in the east of Wiehre across Deicheln towards Freiburg and thus injected the urban running fountains. This system was sufficient for the supply of drinking water for the population, but it did not cover the demand of service water for animals outside of the city walls. Therefore, additional water was branched of the Dreisam and drained through the city's artificial waterstreams, called “Runze”. Since for a long time the term “Runze” was used for both the Bächle and for canals, it is not possible to properly distinguish the two facilities in historical sources. Ever since their existence the Bächle transported rainwater out of the town, carrying along all sorts of dirt. In order to be a positive sight at daytime, no „substances causing offence“ („Ärgernis erregende Stoffe“) were allowed to be disposed of at daytime. Council regulations from the 16th century then forbade the disposal of solid substance in the Bächle entirely: After their way through the town, the Bächle were used to irrigate fields. The water was funneled to the fields across the moat by wooden bridges called „Kähner“. The „used“ Bächle water increased the value of the fields massively by being a very nutrient-rich fertiliser. The Bächle floated snow out of the town and hereby extended crop cycles in spring. In case of drought they secured the continuance of the harvest. The Bächle originally ran down the middle of the road, which can only be seen today in the Market street. They were considered because of the massive increase in the population in the 19th Century as an obstacle for the rise in traffic. Between 1840 and 1851 they were laid at the edge of the road and the majority were covered with wood or iron plates or edged with stone chutes or pipes. It was recorded that the response was negative from some of the population: The Freiburg residents did not want to abandon the Bächle. New Bächle were even produced until 1858, for example, in the ‘Roß-’, ‘Engel-’, and ‘Kasernengasse’ (streets), and also the timber market place. (Die Amtszeit von Otto Winterer sah weitere Bächle in Stadt- und Tennenbacherstraße sowie die Offenlegung einiger verdeckter Bächle.() Die Planer der Straßenbahn ignorierten den eingeholten Rat des Oberingenieurs der damaligen Straßenbahn Hamburg, der im Jahr 1899 „die Führung des Gleises am Bach entlang ... unter keinen Umständen empfehlen“ konnte.() Neben der Deckung des Brauchwasserbedarfs und der Bewässerung der Wiesen ermöglichten die Bächle eine bessere Versorgung mit Löschwasser als die Tief- und Laufbrunnen. Die Brunnen hatten kein Reservoir, doch der Zufluss der Bächle konnte bei Bedarf rasch erhöht werden und die Läufe ließen sich zur besseren Wasserentnahme stauen.) For this task, according to the fire safety regulations of 1692, the townsfolk of Oberlinden had to appoint people of their group every year on the 1st of May who were supplied with studs by the city. For instance, in 1713, prior to the siege by the French army, 46 households were supplied by these. The fire regulations of 1838 again fortified the important role of the Bächle. It directly requested the fountain craftsmen to “instantly adjust the water in fountains and city streams according to the area of the blaze”. Since this way, there was fire water available directly available at the location of the fire, it wasn't necessary to build up long bucket brigades to the next water standpost anymore. The modernization of the drinking water and water network from 1850 () and the production of fire hydrants in the late 19th Century meant that the importance of the Bächle decreased as a source of water to fight fires. However, in the following Century they helped to extinguish fires during the British raid on the 27th of November (Operation Tiger fish), in which parts of the town centre were totally destroyed. Witnesses reported that after the raid, the Bächle came in handy, because the industrial streams were buried and the water pipes destroyed therefore deeming the hydrants useless. () Without the water from the Bächle, the area of Oberlinden, the historic department store, the Wentzinger house and other buildings wouldn’t have been able to be saved. By November 1945, mayor Wolfgang Hoffmann had already called for the courses of the stream to be cleaned in order to start using the Bächle again. Because of the cleaning work, the Bächle often couldn't flow properly, and at times, the Bächle themselves exacerbated the work. Due to these two factors it took until the beginning of the 1950s for the Bächle to be able to run again in the rebuilt city. In 1952, the FAC (“Freiburger Automobil-Club”) demanded the removal of these “traffic obstacles”. A visitor in 1956 proposed to attach references of the Bächle to the place-name signs. At roughly the same time a merchant filed a suit against the town of Freiburg after having driven into a Bächle in Salzstraße and consequently hitting the wall of a house. The lawsuit over the costs of 2360 DM was rejected. A similar thing happened 1964 to a tourist who sued the city after breaking a leg when he tumbled into the Bächle at Adelhauser Street. He was sentenced to pay a third of the damage himself. This was based upon the fact that the Bächle should have attracted his attention after a day in the city and that it should “so long as somehow possible keep holding on to such a characteristic, beautiful and hygienic quirk as presented by the Bächle”. At least, in consequence of the accidents at the end of the 1960s, the city instituted that the bottom plates of the Bächle, among others the ones in the Salz- and Bertholdstreet, were put higher. In 1973 the city centre of Freiburg was made a pedestrian zone with tram traffic. Since that time the Bächle didn't pose a significant traffic inconvenience anymore even though some of them actually run parallel to the tram tracks. The Bächle network between Rempartstraße and Martinstor was further enhanced and previously closed Bächle on Universitätstraße and Niemensstraße were reopened in 1986 following the Innenstadtkonzept 86 (“City Centre Concept 86”). Near the Neue Messe established in 2000 a Bächle was planned, but the idea nearly failed for financial reasons. Therefore, citizens and enterprises of Freiburg were appealed to sponsor: 500 DM for one meter of that particular Bächle. Thus even two kilometres from the city centre there now is a Bächle. It is completely independent from the ones in the city centre, however. The current version of the "Article for the cleaning of pavements ("''Gehwegreinigungssatzung''") issued on 8 March 2007 by the city administration mentions the Bächle in several passages: In pedestrian and traffic-calmed zones pavements are defined as the lateral areas separated by Bächle or gutters. Bächle are to be kept free of snow and rubbish. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Freiburg Bächle」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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