History

The ‘Königliche Versuchsanstalt für Wasserbau und Schiffbau’ (Royal Research Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Shipbuilding) was founded in Berlin on 7 July 1903. The founding marked the beginning of an almost 120-year scientific tradition which has shaped the BAW as a research institution. Over the course of time, and as a result of the division and reunification of Germany, the organisation and the tasks assigned to it have changed again and again; but its central concerns have remained the same: consultancy and research for waterways engineering and shipbuilding.

The reconstruction and reorganisation of the Waterways Engineering Administration after the Second World War began with the search for a suitable location for a research institute in the western occupation zones. The choice fell on Karlsruhe. Ultimately, the decisive factor was the spatial and professional proximity of the long-established Theodor Rehbock Institute of the then Technical University of Karlsruhe.

In the early 1950s, the BAW acquired an office in Hamburg for hydraulic engineering in coastal areas. The Hamburg office began constructing special ships for civilian purposes on behalf of the federal government in the mid-1990s.

Today, the BAW is the scientific consultancy and departmental research institution for waterways engineering and for the construction of special ships for civilian purposes on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Digital and Transport.

An overview of the history of the BAW is available here.

Here you will find an information graphic on the history of BAW (only in German).