All eyes are on Kaub, a critical point on the Rhine near Frankfurt often used as an indicator for whether the waterway remains navigable for freight ships. According to the Federal Institute for Hydrology, shallow draught vessels are still able to pass at a level of 35-30cm, but if it drops below 30cm, “shipping on the Rhine will stop”. Reported levels on Monday were 32cm.

Companies like Reederei Deymann, whose barges carry coal, grain and diesel, are already feeling the squeeze as the water levels only allow it to partially load the ships. Some are currently only at 20 per cent capacity. Deymann’s Managing director Hendrik Stöhr told Spiegel magazine that “only the old hands” among his skippers dare navigate the shallow waters. “We look at the next few weeks with great concern.”

There is huge frustration in the industry with the lack of political will to do something about this recurring crisis. The last drought in 2018, which saw record lows in water levels on the Rhine, caused a recession of 1.5 per cent in German industrial production. Thyssen-Krupp, which produces steel in Duisburg and needs coal and iron ore shipped to it on the Rhine, made losses in the hundreds of millions.

“We have been asking for the critical points to be deepened for over 20 years,” an industry representative told Spiegel. But a spokesman of the parliamentary Green Party argued that such demands reflect “short-term thinking” and that any deepening of the Rhine needs to be “limited to an absolute minimum”. Wary of such criticism from green activists and politicians, the government has shown little enthusiasm to develop the Rhine and other waterways.

But with this outlook, Germany’s Greens are entirely at odds with the EU’s plan to slash carbon emissions by “increasing transport by inland waterways and short sea shipping by 25% by 2030, and by 50% by 2050”. Something will have to give. If we want to future-proof comparatively green modes of transport, then the infrastructure for them will need to be expanded.

The war in Ukraine, increasing conflict with China, supply chain problems and other issues have highlighted the vulnerability of a German economic model that had once seemed invincible. It will take investment and a major rethink. There couldn’t be a more iconic place to start rebuilding German industrial strength than the Rhine.

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Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and writer. She is the author, most recently, of Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990.

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