Company

Hafen Halle GmbH has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Stadtwerke Halle GmbH since 1993 when the Port of Halle became part of the public utility company following extensive reconstruction work.

1917 - The municipal councillors of Halle approved the plan to build a new port on the river Saale in the north of the city.

1922 - The port project was presented to the national ministry of transport. One year later the national ministry of transport approved the port project.

1928 - The Mitteldeutsche Hafen-Aktiengesellschaft Halle [Central German Port Company Halle] was founded in 1928 to support the commercial development of the city on the Saale. The Halle municipal authorities hoped that taking over the businesses in Trotha would generate a new inflow of capital and establish new trade and businesses which would generate work and orders for the Halle economy.

1929 - The port project was turned down at the first reading by the municipal authority as it was regarded as a competitor by the owners of the existing Sophien harbour. The project was approved by a narrow majority at the second reading.

1930 - Work began in the first half of the year on a new harbour basin.

1931 - Work on the first harbour basin which measured 750 m in length and 46 m in width was completed in August. The basin was flooded in September. The entrance to the harbour was dredged clear in October. An oil storage tank facility was completed and work was started on the construction of a coke depot.

1932 - A grain silo with 5,400 tonnes storage capacity and a pneumatic suction unit was completed in December. 146,697 tonnes of goods were handled this year.

1937 - Construction of the large grain silo with 10,000 tonnes storage capacity was completed. 180,864 tonnes of goods were handled this year.

1945 - The harbour reopened to shipping in the autumn following the completion of initial clearing-up work.

1956 - 330,000 tonnes of goods were handled in the port.

1964 - 6 cranes, 4 conveyor belts, 4 grain silos, 40,000 m² of open storage area, 7,000 m² of covered storage area as well as a rail network of 5,000 m were available for handling goods.

1966 - A concentrated feeding stuffs mixer was constructed at the Saale port and went into production in 1968.

1975 - 600 ships were using the port and 250,000 tonnes of goods were handled.

1976 - There was a sharp fall in shipping traffic and in the volume of goods handled because of fierce competition from road and rail transport.

1981 - A final attempt was made to revitalise shipping traffic by reconstructing the port facilities but the attempt was a failure.

1991 - The volume of goods handled fell to just 38,000 tonnes of goods.

1993 - Transportation of goods by inland waterways was resumed with the shipping of large amounts of scrap metal. The Port of Halle became a subsidiary of the Stadtwerke (municipal utility companies) of Halle.

1996 - A 220 m long sheet pile wall for two ships’ berths and transhipment points was built.

1999 - 132,000 tonnes of goods were handled this year.

2000 - The volume of goods handled this year fell to 50,000 tonnes. Shipping was not possible on any significant scale owing to the low water from June to October. A 60 billion mark three year investment programme for the development of the Port of Halle was completed this year.

2004 - Hafen Halle GmbH opened the Container Terminal and received and dispatched the first container block trains. Only 5,000 TEUs of containers were handled – for details of the volumes of goods handled up to 2010 see the answer to the question: How has CTHS developed?

2009 - The Container Terminal Halle Saale (CTHS) formed the linchpin of the services offered by the Port of Halle. The brand name CTHS, Container Terminal Halle Saale, was presented at the Transport Logistic trade fair in Munich. The Port of Halle was represented for the first time at the logistics trade fair. The centre point of the trade fair presentation by the cargo transport centre in Halle was the establishment of the terminal and the container logistics services.





2009 - Rail services were also established with the introduction of the brand name Port railway. Hafen Halle GmbH now had 3 large diesel locomotives providing a wide range of shunting, delivery and nationwide rail services.





Our port okomotives

• Hafenlok I - MaK 1200 D
• Hafenlok II - BR 228 203-6
• Hafenlok III - BR 232 002-8

For thousands of years the Saale has run more than 413 kilometres from its source at the Großer Waldstein in the Fichtelgebirge mountains to its confluence with the Elbe near Barby. The history of the river is longer than its course and at least as multifaceted, with the appearance of the Saale changing as its use as a means of subsistence and livelihood has changed.

Millers were the first people to recognise the potential of the Saale, not primarily as a means of transport but also as a source of power to drive their millwheels. The oldest mill weir in Germany is believed to be at Alsleben and is said to date back to 941.

Reports about the transport of goods on the river go back to the year 1127. Timber rafting on the Saale was first mentioned in 1258 and commercial ferry services around 1479.

Fishing was another important occupation until the Saale was polluted by industries that had sprung up at the start of the twentieth century. Passenger shipping has also played a role at an early stage as well as the use of the river for commercial purposes. The “Viktoria” hoisted its anchor as early as 1862 for pleasure cruises on the Saale.

The appearance of the Saale has also changed dramatically in the twentieth century. In 1932 the river between Trotha and Calbe was widened to accommodate 1,000 tonne ships. To that end two dams, the Bleilochtalsperre (1932) and the Hohenwartetalsperre (1942), were constructed to regulate the water level. Small locks were replaced by large locks und tunnels were constructed.

Shipping on the Saale was badly neglected after 1977 because of a lack of investment. Although motorised barges operate from Halle to the confluence of the Saale with the Elbe, the widening of the Salle begun at that time has unfortunately still not been completed. As a result the stretch of river between Halle and the mouth of the Saale is not navigable by ships of the Europaschiff class, making an economically viable and profitable carriage of goods using that waterway impossible.

The VHdS (Association for the Promotion of Shipping on the Saale) is currently campaigning for the promotion and revitalisation of inland shipping in the region around the Saale. The association’s aim is to enable goods produced by the indigenous economy to be transported economically and cost-effectively to ensure that they remain competitively priced.

Handling of goods in the city on the Saale



The start of shipping on the Saale was marked by a rather sad event. As chroniclers report the body of the Archbishop Adelbert von Magdeburg was brought by ship in 981 from Halle to the present day capital of the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. Just 150 years later Otto, Bishop of Bamberg, initiated the commercial use of the Saale.

He arranged to have the goods he had purchased at the Halle fair transported by barge to Havelberg. The growth in importance of Halle as one of the key salt production centres in Germany was accompanied by a growth in the importance of the municipal transhipment points on the Saale. Their steady and continuous expansion ensured that salt could be transported from Halle to the rest of the world.

It was at this point that the merchants of Halle began to take an interest in the waterway as well. In 1826 they founded the “Committee for the Promotion of Shipping” in Halle which was followed in 1894 by the “Association for the Promotion of the Commercial Status of Shipping” which was incidentally the precursor of the present day Halle-Dessau chamber of industry and commerce.

The navigable depth of the lower Saale makes navigation conditions so complicated that ships cannot be operated with economic loading depths for large parts of the year.

No shipowner would run the risk of establishing a shipping line and making long-term plans unless they could rely on reliable navigation conditions throughout the year.

The “Tornitz” sluiceway is one of the possible solutions under consideration for making the Saale navigable throughout the year.

The following extract is from a report on the “Tornitz” sluiceway by the new waterways construction authority Magdeburg of November 2008

"The regional planning procedure for the “widening of the lower Saale –Tornitz sluiceway” has been completed and the statement relating to regional planning has been drawn up by the supreme state planning authority. The regional planning procedure was initiated on 10 March 2008 by the supreme state planning authority and was concluded in October with the announcement of the judgment relating to regional planning. According to the judgment the project “The widening of the lower Saale - Tornitz sluiceway” with the variant route II with connection to the Elbe is compatible with regional planning requirements including the environmental concerns and the needs of FFH compatibility subject to the implementation of a total of 11 requirements." (source: www.vhds.de)

  Click here to read a detailed account of the route variant

The logistics services of Hafen Halle GmbH are based on the operation of the public Container Terminals Halle Saale - CTHS. In developing this terminal Hafen Halle GmbH has specialised in seaport hinterland traffic and offers regular block train connections to the international ports of Hamburg and Bremerhaven.

CTHS provides services to the following international port terminals

• Hamburg: Eurogate / CTA / CTB / CTT
• Bremerhaven: CT1 / CT2 / CT3 / NTB

Apart from handling all currently used intermodal transport units in the terminal, Hafen Halle GmbH organises rail services using its own locomotives. Moreover, the services of the terminal include the organisation of integrated logistics chains from shipper to recipient. As a full service terminal Hafen Halle GmbH offers supplementary services such as the repair and cleaning of containers or transport by HGVs.

The logistics services of Hafen Halle GmbH

• • Container Terminal Halle Saale - CTHS
• • Port railway – rail services
• • The provision of services at the Terminal

A product brand - “CTHS” - was introduced in 2008 to reflect the concentration of the logistics services at the Port of Halle. This brand name stands for the Container Terminal Halle Saale and aims to convey the key services provided by the location. See also: What are the most important milestones in the history of the Port of Halle?



With a total of approximately 64,000 TEUs handled in 2010 the Container Terminal Halle Saale is one of the most efficient terminals in Central Germany.

All goods are transported using a combination of rail and road modes of transport because it is not possible to use the federal waterway Saale on a commercial basis.

The term intermodal transport refers to a transport chain that combines different modes of transport, for example road and rail and/or waterways. Intermodal transport is also termed combined freight transport, multimodal transport or combined transport.

The graphic illustrates how intermodal transport works.

The regular container block train connections provided by CTHS form the basis of a wide range of logistics services at the Port of Halle. Containers handled at CTHS are distributed throughout the whole of Central German by HGVs. Import and export of goods in standardised transport containers - the Container Terminal Halle Saale - your partner for container logistics you can rely on at all times.