Mill ditch

The Gera mill ditch is the right side arm of the White Elster, which runs exclusively within the city limits of Gera.
Originally, the mill ditch was a natural side arm of the Elster, which also collected water from the Gessenbach along with Zaufensgraben, as well as from the Leumnitzer Bach and Bieblacher Bach. Alternatively, the original mill ditch can also be viewed as the lower course of the Gessenbach, into which a branch of the Elster and the aforementioned streams flowed. Its course changed just like that of the Elster several times, especially after floods in the relatively wide and shallow Elstertal. Straightening and channelization during the settlement of the valley were further factors that influenced the course of the mill ditch. Before it was piped in the mid-1960s, the mill ditch flowed as an open stream for 6,350 meters. It began as it does today above the large Elster weir in Gera-Zwötzen, which was built in the 17th century. It flowed through the city from south to north, crossing the center just a few meters west past the Goethegymnasium and Museum. In Gera-Untermhaus, it entered the Elster again with two arms around the Pheasant Island. The railway line built through Gera in the 19th century crosses the mill ditch twice. Since the Gessenbach often washed sediments from the Gessen valley after heavy rainfall, affecting the water quality of the mill ditch, it was diverted over the mill ditch across a trough bridge and then flowed directly into the Elster. With the reconstruction and redesign of the central part of Gera starting in the mid-1960s, the mill ditch was increasingly piped and disappeared from the cityscape. With the construction of the Southeast Road bypass, the mill ditch was directed straight west into the Elster. In connection with the Federal Garden Show 2007 in Gera, there were efforts to renaturalize the mill ditch and reintegrate it as an open body of water into the urban and landscape image, but the riverbed remains largely dried out even today.

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