Schriften des Vereins für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung

The Schriften des Vereins für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung (abbreviated Schrr VG Bodensee, occasionally SVGB) is a scholarly journal published since 1869 by the Verein für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung (Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings). It is one of the oldest continuously published regional historical journals in the German-speaking world and serves as the association's flagship publication. The journal publishes contributions on the regional history and natural history of the Lake Constance area, with no strictly defined geographic boundary: it is open to any contribution with a connection to Lake Constance and its shore landscapes. For bibliographic purposes, the region is understood to include, clockwise from the north, the southern part of the Sigmaringen district (around Pfullendorf), the Bodenseekreis, the Ravensburg district, the Lindau district, the Austrian state of Vorarlberg, the Principality of Liechtenstein, the northern and eastern parts of the canton of St. Gallen (south to Sargans), the cantons of Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Appenzell Innerrhoden, Thurgau and Schaffhausen, and the Konstanz district. The journal was founded in 1869, one year after the association itself was established in 1868. Initially no regular journal was planned because printing costs could not be covered by membership fees alone; public subsidies in the following year made the first issue possible. The first editor was Gustav Reinwald, a pastor in Lindau, who enlisted his father-in-law Johann Thomas Stettner as publisher. In its early decades the journal focused on the prehistoric pile dwellings (Pfahlbauten) of Lake Constance, Roman-era sites, and local and personal histories of the Middle Ages and early modern period, while the natural history section was dominated by geological contributions. The Urkunden-Regesten (document regests) from archives around Lake Constance, published as supplements in the 1870s and 1880s, remain a valuable research tool. In the 1890s, contributions on prehistoric and Roman topics declined sharply, and most historical articles thereafter dealt with the Middle Ages and early modern period. In the natural science section, limnology became important — a then-new discipline that treated the lake as a coherent ecosystem rather than analyzing it from isolated perspectives. Inspired by François-Alphonse Forel's innovative research on Lake Geneva, the association's president Count Eberhard von Zeppelin prompted the governments of the five Lake Constance riparian states — the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Württemberg, the Grand Duchy of Baden and the Swiss Confederation — to commission a precise survey and scientific investigation of Lake Constance. The results, the Bodensee-Forschungen, appeared between 1893 and 1902 as supplements to the Schriften. From 1901 the journal was printed by Rudolf Huber in Frauenfeld, Switzerland. Because good paper was available in Switzerland, it could continue to appear in good quality even during World War I. The annual volume for 1918, an opulent commemorative issue for the association's fiftieth anniversary, brought the association to the brink of ruin because its treasury was held in depreciating German marks while the printing had to be paid for in stable Swiss francs. In the early post-war years the Schriften appeared irregularly, mostly thin and printed on poor paper. After the 1923 currency reform and the assumption of editorial duties by Viktor Kleiner, the Vorarlberg state archivist, the journal improved from 1925 onward.

The Schriften des Vereins für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung have been published since 1869 by the Verein für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung, which was founded in 1868. Initially, no regularly appearing journal was planned because printing costs could not be covered by membership fees alone. In the following year, public subsidies enabled the association to begin printing its Schriften. The editorial direction lay with Gustav Reinwald, a pastor in Lindau, who enlisted his father-in-law Johann Thomas Stettner as publisher. In the early decades, the lake's prehistoric pile dwellings (Pfahlbauten) were a thematic focus, as were Roman-era sites and local and personal histories of the Middle Ages and early modern period; in the natural history section, geological contributions predominated. The Urkunden-Regesten (document regests) from archives around Lake Constance, published as supplements in the 1870s and 1880s, remain a valuable research tool to this day. In the 1890s, contributions on prehistoric and Roman topics declined sharply; most historical articles thereafter dealt with the Middle Ages and early modern period. In the natural science section, limnology became significant — a then-new science that analyzed the lake for the first time not from individual perspectives but as a coherent ecosystem. The impetus came from François-Alphonse Forel's innovative research on Lake Geneva. This prompted the association's president, Count Eberhard von Zeppelin, to encourage the governments of the five Lake Constance riparian states — the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Württemberg, the Grand Duchy of Baden and the Swiss Confederation — to commission a precise survey and scientific investigation of Lake Constance. The results, the Bodensee-Forschungen, appeared between 1893 and 1902 as supplements to the Schriften. From 1901, the Schriften were printed by Rudolf Huber in Frauenfeld. Because good paper was available in Switzerland, they could appear in good quality even during World War I. The annual volume for 1918, an opulent commemorative issue for the association's fiftieth anniversary, brought the association to the brink of ruin because the association's treasury was kept in the depreciating German mark currency, while the printing had to be paid for in stable Swiss francs. In the first post-war years, the Schriften appeared irregularly; they were also mostly thin and printed on poor paper. After the currency reform of 1923 and the assumption of editorial duties by the Vorarlberg state archivist Viktor Kleiner, an upgrade occurred from 1925. The historical contributions of those years covered roughly the same thematic spectrum as before the war and showed hardly any search for new fields of knowledge. In contrast, the natural science section benefited from new research institutions around the lake, namely the Anstalt für Bodenseeforschung der Stadt Konstanz, the Verein für Seenforschung und Seenbewirtschaftung in Langenargen, the private Biogeologische Station Mooslachen near Wasserburg of the Austrian botanist Helmut Gams, and the Drachenstation am Bodensee (from 1933 the Aerologisches Observatorium) in Friedrichshafen. In response to the Nazi seizure of power, the Bodensee historical association declared itself ideologically neutral. Its Schriften remained largely free of ideology and even offered a forum to opponents of National Socialism such as Fritz Harzendorf and Helmut Wolfgang Faißt. After the outbreak of war, the Schriften were classified by the Wirtschaftsstelle des Deutschen Buchhandels as non-war-essential 'Heimatschrifttum' and were generally excluded from paper allocation. The editor and vice-president of the association, Bruno Leiner of Konstanz, pointed out to the Foreign Office the importance of the Schriften for cultural exchange between Germany and Switzerland; thereby he achieved that at least two volumes could still be printed during the war. Since the 1949/50 volume, the Schriften have again appeared in an annual rhythm. In the post-war decades, the late Middle Ages and early modern period as well as the decades around 1800 dominated thematically; several major art-historical essays are of lasting value. In more recent times, the Schriften have benefited from historical and natural science research at the University of Konstanz, founded in 1966, which opened up new fields. The Konstanz medievalist Arno Borst made the beginning. Early modern research contributed the results of a project on 'Regionale Transformation von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft' (Horst Rabe, Frank Göttmann, Jörn Sieglerschmidt). Today the journal is published by the Jan Thorbecke Verlag, part of the Verlagsgruppe Patmos, and the latest issue listed is volume 144 (2026).

• 2026

  Volume 144 (2026) published, priced at €19.90.

• 1966

  University of Konstanz founded, later contributing new research to the journal.

• 1949

  Journal resumes annual publication with the 1949/50 volume.

• 1933

  Drachenstation am Bodensee renamed Aerologisches Observatorium.

• 1925

  Viktor Kleiner becomes editor; journal quality improves.

• 1923

  German currency reform; journal resumes more regularly.

• 1918

  Opulent fiftieth-anniversary volume nearly ruins the association due to currency mismatch.

• 1901

  Printing moves to Rudolf Huber in Frauenfeld, Switzerland.

• 1893

  Bodensee-Forschungen supplements published (until 1902).

• 1870

  Urkunden-Regesten supplements begin to appear (through the 1880s).

• 1869

  First issue of the Schriften published, edited by Gustav Reinwald.

• 1868

  Verein für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung founded.

A long-established, ideologically independent scholarly yearbook for the history and natural history of the Lake Constance region, published by a learned society and distributed by a renowned academic publisher.

• Schriften des Vereins für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung, annual volume

  Annual scholarly journal with articles on regional history and natural history.

• Urkunden-Regesten (supplements)

  Document regests from archives around Lake Constance, published in the 1870s and 1880s.

• Bodensee-Forschungen (supplements)

  Results of the precise survey and scientific investigation of Lake Constance, published 1893–1902.

1. 1Shop des Jan Thorbecke Verlagsshop.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
2. 2Shop des Jan Thorbecke Verlags (category page)shop.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
3. 3Shop des Jan Thorbecke Verlags (category page)shop.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
4. 4Shop des Jan Thorbecke Verlags (category page)shop.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
5. 5Wikidata item Q19227494wikidata.org
6. 6Schriften des Vereins für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung – Wikipediade.wikipedia.org