THE NIEMEN RIVER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP08C01297R000500160032-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 5, 2012
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: January 23, 1943
• Content Type: REPORT

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Confidential
THE NIEMEN RIVER
T Document 221
January 23, 1943,
'SUMMARY
The Niemen or Memel River runs through the disputed
areas OfVilna?and the Memelland, and forms the nre-1039_.
boundary of Lithuania, and Germany for part of its course.
Access to the stream is difficult, and port facilities are
poor. From Memel, which is reached by traffic from thc
Baltic through the Kurisches Haff, the Niemen is navigable
for small beats. upstream for 479 kilometers- to the Polish-
Lithuanian border and, for timber rafts, some distance in-
to Polish territory. However, since the Niemen in Poland
is connected; with the .internal waterway system of eastern
Europe, .:it has potentialities for a somewhat greater volume
of trade, depending upon political arrangements.
? Before 1914, when the Niemen was an artery for Russian-
German commerce, it carried only about a million tons of
goods a year; in the decades between the twowars it carried
far less traffic, It ceased to serve as.an outlet for the
? Russian timber and grain trade. The Polish-Lithuanian border
remained- closed from 1923 to 1938. Lumber export underwent
a decline, and the river served no ponulous areas or heavy
industrie:s Despite a gradual increase in. volume, ? the pre-
1939 trade on the Lithuanian sector of the. river was only
ten to fifteen percent of the pre-1914 total. The trade
through the Prussian port of Tilsit reached only one-third
of its former volume. Of. it the great majority has always
consisted of timber and wood nroducts, the remainder mostly
of local traffic. A small but growing nassenger traffic
developed from Kaunas downstream. ,
The most imnortant commercial part of the Niemen system
is the bay into which it flows 7 the Kurisehes Haff
its three princiPal ports: Memel, Lankuniai and .Rusne.
Along this coast moved about a:millibn tons of goods a year,
again mostly lumber. ?
On the Polish sector of the river there was only a
trickle of trade, amounting to about 100,000 tons of timber
going to Points away from the riyer and about as much again
for purely local traffic. This low level of activity per-
sisted throughout the ore-1939 period, despite the fact that'
the river Niemen is connected by canals with the Vistula on
the west and the Pripet on the east.
I. GEOGRAPHICAL
? ,0 An
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I. FACT4RS
1. Location and Course
of the Niemen
:The Niemen(orMemel) river flows for nearly its
whble length through disPuted territories: Vilna,
.Memelland, and Lithuania. Under the. 1923 to 1938
boundary, it rose in the Soviet Union, traversed. the lower
...part of Poland's.:\Tilha territory, the southernmost corner
.,of. Lithuania; soUthern.Lithuania and Memelland (where it
formed,the boundarY:With .East Prussia) and. flowed into the
Kurisehes.Haff, and:thence into the Baltic Sea. The
recent .history of these areas has been a turbulent one.
The Vilna area was seized. by Poland in 1920, Memelland
was taken by ,Lithuania_from the Allied Powers in 1923 and
retaken by Germany in1939. In 1939 the Polish section
of the river was appropriated by Russia, ,and the
Lithuanian part LR,.1940.. ?
2. Navgabilitv of the
Niemen
The Niemen is. navigable for small ships and timber
rafts from the Polish-Lithuanianborder to Memel, a
distance of 478 kilometers; in practice, until 1938 it
was used only on,the 220-kilometer stretch from Kaunas
to Memel. Boats of up to 400 tons' displacement can pro-
ceed as far as Kaunas ,.during the ice-free period from
April to November. The port of Memel has the great ad-
vantage of being an ice-free port.
The Niemen is not suited, however, for large-scale
transportation development. Below. Kaunas and nearly to
JAemelland it banks ar'e lined with cliffs which make
access to the river difficult. ,In Upper Memelland
navigation is impeded by. rapicis,?in lower Memelland by
shifting sand bar's. 'It does not srsouire extensive
regulatory works, however.
3,.. Ports cfAhe_NieMen
The principal Niemen River ports in Poland are the
city of Grodno (poPUlation .50p0 in 1931) and the town
of
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of August6w (population 12,000 in 1931) located on the
August6w Canal connecting tributaries of the Niemen and
the Vistula.
In Lithuania the principal Niemen River ports are
Kaunas (population 152,365 in 1938), where the river
Wilija joins the Niemen, and the city of Memel (popula-
tion 47,189 in 1938'). Between these cities are the
river ports of Schmalleningken (Smalininkai), the.
former German-Russian border station, and the town of
Russ (Rusne), where the Niemen enters the Kurisches.Haff.
The port of Lankupiai is on the shore of the Kurisches
Haff. Both these last-mentioned towns are under 2,000
in population.
Between the two wars' Germany had possession of the
left bank of the river as it flowed along the boundary
of East Prussia through Memelland, The port of Tilsit,
together with nearby Ragnit, was the principal German
port on the river.
The Niemen in Poland is linked by connecting canals
with the Vistula and the Pripet Rivers, to the west and
east. The connection with the Pripet is made by the
Ojin,ski Clnal from the Szczara tributary of the Niemen
to the Pripet. The AugustOw Canal links the Niemen and
the Narew Rivers just south of the former Polish-
Lithuanian border; the Narew in turn flows into the
Vistula.
II. VOLUME OF TRAFFIC
The Niemen has never been a great artery of trade,
but it has had a certain importance for local industry
and for the lumber trade. The value of the Niemen for
the region it serves is best illustrated' by the data of
the pre-1914 era, when it was mainly used in the
Russo-German timber trade. The prosperity of Memel and,
of Tilsit, was bound up with the lumber trade, both
through its lumber and cellulose mills and its export
trade. Along the kurischeS Haff there was also a con-
siderable number of saw *mills.
After 1923 Lithuania developed some passenger and
goods trade, which showed a steady growth but never
attained
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attainOd first-rate importance. River traffic was
sharply curtailed by the closure of the Polish-Lithuanian
border, which remained in force until 1938, and by the
Blight developmerA.of industry in Lithuania. Besides
lumber, the chief items of river traffic were coal,
stone and some g'rainstuffs.
1. Pre-1914 Traffic
The figures fOr goods passing through the German-
Russian border station of Schmalleningken before 1914
show that imports from Russia in the ten years preceding
the outbreak of war regularly averaged just under a
million metric tons, of which 97 percent was lumber.
The balance was made up of grain and a small amount of
stone. Exports to Russia were negligible, varying from
six to twenty thoUsand tons, principally coal. Ship
traffic averaged about 5000 vessel stops a year. Approx-
imately 87 percent of the timber came by timber rafts.
(in
Traffic a
metric tons)
-TABLE I
Sohmalleningken 1901-1914 1/
Export
Imports from Russia
.Goods Timber Rafts
1901
5,200
123,100
511,700
1902
5,900
121,600
411,500
1903
10,400
116,800
.690,700
1904.
11,600
163,500
734,700
1905
6,300
211,500
702,600
1906-
10,900:.
248.,000
918,500
1907.
18,100. .
184,300
984,100
1908
17,200
249,500
554,800
1909
.13,100
381,800
708,200
1910
19,900
-.286,700
702,500
1911
23,300
265,117'
706,143
1912
28,800
358,000
737,971
A considerable
1/ Statistisches Jahrbuch, 1907, 1910; Stetistik des
Deutschen Reichs, vols, 255, 265.
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A considerable part of this trade was directed to
Tilsit, through which it entered East Prussia, In the
four years 1909-1912 an average of about 4000 calls
were made by ships carrying an annual average of about
330,000 tons to this port. Ninety percent of this trade
was carried in German boats.
TABLE II
Ship Traffic -at Tilsit, 1909-1912 2/
Number of-ships
:lions of freight
1909
3,365
331,698
1910
4,983
343,754
1911
4,254
331,101
1912
3,870
334,335
At that priod there were no other ports between TilSit
and Memel important enoughtto appear in German statis-
tical tables. Passenger traffic was so slight as not
to figure in the official German statistics.
2. Traffic Within
Lithuania
? The marked change which occurred in the character
of Niemen River traffic in the post-war- years 'was due
in part to the creation of an independent ,Lithuania,
but even more to the cessation of the former timber trade
from.the Polish and hussian hinterland. The latent state
of war between Lithuania and Poland- closed their common
boundary between 1918,and,1938, when the Poles brought
about its reopening by ultimatum. During the years of
closure the export of Russian timber was diverted to
Leningrad and Riga. 3 / Moreover; the Lithuanian timber
trade was hard hit in the depression. Its weakness was
due partly to poor marketing and shipping- facilities;
and partly to the poor quality of its timber. 4/ .All these
factors contributed to changing the nature of the ? river
-traffic. The principal trade developed- between Kaunas
and Memel consisted of passenger traffic and a smell but
steady flow of merchandise.
The sweeping
2 Statistisches Jahrbuch, 1910,1914.
3 / Ian Morrow, German-Polish .6orderlands, (Oxford 1936),
443.
4 / H. G. Wanklyn, The Eastern Marchlands of Europe
(London, 1941), p.128
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The sweeping change in the Niemen trade is shown by
the small amount of timber floated on the whola river in
Lithuania which reached a peak of 184,473 cubic metars in
1937. For the most pert the total annual trade stagnated
at about 120t000 cubic meters annually. This is in con-
.trast with annual totals of around a million tons before
1914.
TABLE III
TIMBER FLOATED ON' NIEMEN AND TRIBUTARIES
/
IN LITHUANIA 1928 - 1937
Wood for
Logs (cubic Parer nuln (meters)
Firewood
(meters)
? meters)
1928
22,116 2,553
7,516
1929
75,343 13,590
9,078
1930
62,133 15,739
9,003
1931
64,914 916
3,197
1932
70,591 4,323
21,946
1933
125,418 7,065
3,374
1934
123,901 22,765
7,900
1935
121,396 88,000
10,864
1936
133,088 15,735
35,444
1937
184,473 49,084
14,730
, The amount of merchandise carried on the river
and .the Kurisches Haff was rather slight despite the
? steady increase .that brought the'tontinge volume from the
1932 figure of 468,000 up to the 1938 reek of 1,818,000
tons. Two-thirds of these amounts were accounted for by
timber and wood products. The bulk of the tonnage was .
handled by the ports of Memel, Lallkuriai and Rusne (Russ)
along the KUriathes Haff. Memel was the largest port,
handling 554,000 tons of the 1938 total, . The other
ports along the shore were hot far behind in volume of
river
5 / Annuaire .Statistioue -Lithuanie, 1927-1937.
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river traffic, Rusne, at the mouth of the Niemen,
handling 500,000 tons in 1938. Each of these ports
handled from three to four hundred thousand tons a year
.from 1934 on, the bulk of which was timber or wood pro-
ducts.
The largest Lithuanian port on the river was
Smalininkai (Schmalleningken) which carried its greatest
volume in 1934. with 162,000. tons and in the years there-
after averaged around 140,000 tons. Usually somewhat more
than half of this trade was downstream traffic and lumber
comprised half of that. Minerals, including coal, com-
prised about twenty percent of the upstream traffic; no
significant volume of other goods Was carried. Kaunas, the
terminal for river shipping, handled only 94,000 tons at
the 1938 peak, two-thirds of this being in the timber trade.
This total was a sharp increase over the .52,000 ton total
of 1932. _a/
This weakness ?in river shinning particularly notice-
able since the railroad and highway facilities from the
coital to Memel were quite inPdeouPte until n railroad
was completed from TelsPi to Kretinga in 1938. A hard=
surfaced road between Kaunas and Memel was also completed
only in 1938.
One new development on the river was the passenger
trade which increased steadily throughout the 1930's.
Passenger service was most developed between Kaunas and
Smalininkai, a distance of just under 100 kilometers. It
reached n peak of 334,500 passengers at the port of Kaunas
in 1939. Although Kaunas Was the Principal terminal, the
port of Russ (Rusne) handled in the neighborhood of
10,000 Passengers in the last years' of Lithuania.. Second
in imnortrnce to Kaunas was Memel where river passenger
traffic reached P peak of 120,000 in 1934. During the suc-
ceeding years the number of lonssengers there ranged around
90,000 each year with slightly more than half being down-
stream travelers. 7/
Comparison of pre-1914 and Post-1918 trnde figures
for Schmnlleningken are meaningless, is that town had
ceased to be r frontier point and had become a small
Lithunninn river port.
The change in the Niemen trade is again clearly shown
by a coninarison of trade figures for Tilsit which handled
an overage of 161,23? tons in the 1932-1937 period.
Although
6/ Ibid., 1933-1938.
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Although this was a marked increase over: the amount of
traffic in the 1925-1932 period, it was about one-third the
trade handled in the pre-1914 years. Basic causes of this
drop in traffic were the decline in the timber trade and
the cesption of the former trade with Russia through :this
port.
Between the World War and 1928 no paper pulp, wood was
.imported into Tilsit, although this had formerly been a
principal item in its trade. After 1928 there were great
fluctuations in the amount of pulp wood imported. The totals
for this commodity ran from 1,236 tons in 1.929 to a high of
197,169 in 1936 The average yearly paper pulp trade, 1932-
1937, was 121;500 tons. 'About 25,000 tons of stone came into
'Tilsit each year, but very little else. A'further reason
for decline was that the cellulose factories' trade, which
had formerly moved through this port, was,/deliberately sent
through K6nigsberg, esPecially after 1933. _2/ The Nazis
deliberately stopped exports through Tilsit as part of the
economic pressure exerted on behalf of their claims on
Memel. 10/
3. The Niemen in. Poland ?
a. Pre-1914.--Before 1914 the course of the Niemen
?through?the Polish provinces was -an iMportant route for
sending. Russian timber to the sea; the volume varied.from-
one-half to a million tons of timber in rafts, as recorded ?
at Schmalleningken. A moderate trade in merchandise was
carried on through the same port. Imports to Germany reached
a peak in 1911 of 265,117 tons, while 23,306 tons were ex-
ported. This trade was carried in slightly more than 2,200
cargoes. 11/
b. 1918
8/ ? Arrangements had been, made with the Germans in 1928
which provided national treatment on nationals in internal
navigation and timber floating. Above Schmalleningken this
waS reserved to Russia with Germans enjoying most-favored-
nation status. Below that -point timber for German destina-
tions had to be floated by German wptermen. This ended a
long period during which no timber trade had been carried on
between Lithuania and. Germany.
? Department of Overseas Trade, Economic Conditions in
Lithuania in 1935, London 1936, p. 21.
0/ Morrow, op, cit., p. 443.
10/ Department of Overseas Trade, Economic Conditions in
Lithuania in 1935, London 1936, p. 21,
11/ Stptistik des Deutschen Reichs, vol. 255, p. 224.
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b. 1918 to 1938--13etween-the two, wars the Niemen
was not used for international trade, since the boundary
was closed as a result of the Polish seizure of Vilna and
Suvalki areas. Trade at the Palish ports of Grodno and
AugustOw stagnated. There Was a small amount of local
passenger traffic, averaging 12,000 passengers per year
(1932-1936), practically all downstream from Grodno. The
peak number of passengers carried was 14,352 (1936). Dur-
ing these years usually about 2,000 Passengers embarked
at AugustOw., 12/
. The Niemen was used:for some local carrying of timber:
annually between 160,000 and 200,000 tons were loaded on
Niemen and its branches between 1934 and 1936. About
75 percent of this timber was destined for some other point
oh the river or one of its tribUtaries. A small proPortion
of it--in recent Years a little over 10 percent--went to
Danzig and a somewhat smaller amount to points on the
Vistula. 13/
The larger part of the timber handled in Poland was
? in. the form of logs taken down the river in rafts, to be
cut,into lumber. The total amount of timber on the river
Was 204,000 tons in 1934, of which 147,942 WEIS in logs for
the SPW mills along the Vistula. This was a normPl proportion.
The largest pert of this timber came down the Sczarn River
tributary--119,315 tons in 1934, P peak year. The next most
important tributary Was the Al)gustOw canal.
. TABLE IV
12/ Poland, Statistiaue des transports) 1931-1936, D. 7.
13/ Ibid., p. 28.
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TABLE IV
Transport of Timber on Polish Niemen According to
Place of Loading and 'Types of Lumber, . 1934-1936 14/
(in tons)
Place of Loading: Total 'Lumber: Lumber: Firewood
Not Cut Cut
'Niemen and Branches
1934 204,100 147,942 14,062
1935 168,534 94,284 36,027
1936 191,653 131.,940 25,828
42,186
38,223
33,815
Of the above, the chief branches contributed':
Szczara, Stolbce
'and Tributaries.
17,561
1934 ' 119.315 ? 94,383 7,351
1935. 94,284 55,775 '17,103
21,406.
111,523 90,211 11,494
9,818
AugustOw Canal East
11.,643
of Augusto ? .
1934 46,882 31,189 6,050 ?
1935 26,823 18,605 506.
?
7,712
1936 40,060 -21,382 4,690
13,788
The merchandise traffic on the Polish Niemen was
negligible. In the best year (1936) six hundred tons were
loaded; for several years the figure ran in the two hundred
ton range, virtually all?in local transit. The absence of
populous areas and of any important manufacturing of min-
ing activities prevented the building of a water born traf-
fic.
c. Potential Value of the Polish Niemen.--The past
record of the Polish section of the Niemen establishes
the fact of its navigability, but in no way
indicates
11/ Ibid., p. 30,
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indicated its Possibilities under other political condition8.
Although the formerlY extensive lumber trade may never be
fully recaptured, because of heavy cutting over and the
changed demand for wood, some recovery might be e.xnected.
A certain amount of merchandise traffic might be carried
on, not only on the Niemen,-but also through its canals
connecting with the Vistula and the Pripet Rivers.
P S/TFPower , Jr. /VVP/1-/IRP/JRB
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