For a long time, it was not necessary to build a Harbour in Vienna, because the existing natural landing points were sufficient for the level of trade on the Danube. It was only when steamships began to arrive in great numbers that a harbour offering safe berths became essential. Even then however, goods were for the most part loaded and unloaded at an unenclosed river harbour that was established at the end of the 19th century.

During the Habsburg monarchy

At the time of the Habsburg monarchy, it was possible to berth at the natural landing points along the Danube, and at the harbour in the Wiener Neustadt Canal. This harbour was originally located near where the Wien Mitte train station now stands; in 1847, it was moved to the site of the Aspangbahnhof.

Natural landing points

At first, ships could land in Vienna at the naturally occurring landing points on the Danube. These were flat sections of river bank with a surface of sand or gravel, onto which ships could be dragged to be loaded or unloaded.

Such landing sites required access to the adjoining ground further inland so that the goods delivered by boat could be transported further afield using horses and carts.

Landing points were located inter alia in Heiligenstadt, Nußdorf, Roßauer and Brigittenau. The Salzgries was also used as a landing site, primarily for ships carrying salt (Salz in German).

The unenclosed river harbour

Not a lot is known about the construction of the unenclosed river harbour.

The harbour was established sometime after the regulation of the Danube in 1875 on the right-hand bank of the Danube. As the Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft essentially commanded a monopoly over cargo and passenger transport on the Danube at the time, it seems likely that the company was the sole owner of almost the entire harbour until the end of World War I and the subsequent collapse of Austria-Hungary. After this time, the shipping companies of other states on the Danube had berths with warehouses, storerooms, and sheds as well as the necessary equipment to load and unload ships. The City of Vienna also owned refrigerated warehouses here.

Farthest upstream was an oil and petrol storage facility. This stood on a section of the river bank that was approximately three kilometres long and was the site of 50 tanks belonging to the oil companies Vacuum, Shell, Nova, Fanto AG and Redeventza.

The river harbour occupied a stretch of river bank some 12 kilometres long. It offered ships no protection whatsoever when the river flooded or froze over. The harbour was connected to the surrounding area by the Donauuferbahn and the Handelskai, which ran parallel to the Danube, thereby limiting the space available to the harbour to a thin strip some 75 metres across.

The Danube Canal

The expansion of the Danube Canal into a freight and passenger harbour offering protection from flooding and winter weather was enacted in an 1892 law concerning Vienna's transport facilities. The law also called for the building of a local rail network.

The works were to include the creation of a flood control structure near Nußdorf. Wilhelm von Engerth's floating barrier, the Schwimmtor, which entered service in 1873, did not provide sufficient protection. Three, possibly four weirs with locks were also planned to ensure the necessary water depth for passing ships. Another flood control structure near the point where the Danube Canal joined the Danube was to be considered in order to prevent floodwater from the river washing back into the canal.

The law envisaged the creation of temporary quays between the Augartenbrücke and the Franzensbrücke on both sides of the Danube Canal. Near the mouth of the Wien River, an area 95 by 200 metres was dug out to create a basin in which ships could turn around. This was however later filled in again and the Hermannpark was established in its stead.

The authorities did not have the money to build both the rail network and to carry out the envisaged work on the Danube Canal at the same time. The army also lobbied for the rail network, which connected the various military installations in Vienna. As a result, the Wiener Stadtbahn was built first.

By 1923, when the project manager, engineer Ludwig Brandl, reported on progress in number 13 of the trade magazine Die Wasserwirtschaft (Water management), the flood barrier in Nußdorf (which had been built between 1894 and 1898), the Kaiserbadwehr (a weir and lock built between 1904 and 1908) and the quays downstream of the Augartenbrücke had been completed, but the money required to turn the Danube Canal into a proper harbour had not been made available.

Otto Wagner was tasked by the Kommission für Verkehrsanlagen (Commission for Transport Facilities) in December 1896 with the design of the quays. In line with his plans, the 15-metre wide quays were built with sites for a fish market, a berth for passenger ships and loading bays for freight. Wager also designed the Nußdorf and Kaiserbadwehr locks and weirs and the attached houses.

Although there was no money to finance the running of the facilities in Nußdorf, they were necessary to protect against flooding and were kept in operation. Because the income required was too great to be obtained through charging a usage fee for the locks, the construction of a hydroelectric plant near Simmering was proposed. According to the proposal, the electricity that the plant produced could have been sold to generate the finances necessary to operate the flood control mechanisms.

The harbour in Freudenau (the winter harbour, river kilometre 1920.1)

The harbour in Freudenau, which was designed as a winter harbour, had been envisaged in an arm of the Danube between the Danube and the Danube Canal as part of the regulation of the river in the 19th century. A lack of funding had however prevented the construction of the harbour and only preparatory works could be completed.

When part of the preparatory works was destroyed in a flood and ships that had been moored here for the winter were later damaged by ice on the river, it became necessary to increase the level of protection that the site offered.

Construction began on 8 August 1899 and the harbour was opened on 10 October 1902. Even before it had been finished, it was being used during the winter months by ships seeking a safe haven.

In 1925, the winter harbour was also home to a landing site for flying boats and seaplanes, which was used by the Austrian airline Österreichische Luftverkehrs AG and the Hungarian company Aero-Express.

Seaplanes were stationed here during World War II. Their task was to eliminate mines that had been dropped on the river by Allied aircraft; the mines were intended to prevent the transport of oil from Romanian oil fields to the oil refinery in Lobau and are supposed to have sunk as many as 300 tankers. The harbour in Freudenau was furthermore used as a stop-over point for flying boats en route between the Mediterranean Sea and northern Germany.

The harbour in Kuchelau

The harbour in Kuchelau was created between 1901 and 1903 by building a harbour wall that separated it from the Danube. It was intended to serve as a holding point for ships waiting to pass the lock near Nußdorf on their way towards the Danube Canal.

Plans to expand Vienna's harbours during the Habsburg monarchy and the First Republic

Although Vienna was no longer the centre of an empire after the collapse of Austria-Hungary, thought was still put into the possibility of constructing further harbour facilities. Only plans that had already existed during the Monarchy were finally realised, adapted as and where necessary to meet new demands.

In 1923 the project manager, engineer Ludwig Brandl, wrote an article entitled "Die Ausgestaltung der Hafenanlagen in Wien" ("Plans for harbour facilities in Vienna"), in which he presented the different possibilities. These were as follows:

A freight harbour near Albern

This plan envisaged the creation of a freight harbour near Albern between the Danube Canal, the Donauuferbahn and the right-hand flood barrier along the Schwechat River. The new harbour, which would have boasted three basins and the necessary rail connections, would have been accessible from the Danube Canal.

An industrial and freight harbour in Simmering

The industrial and freight harbour in Simmering was planned between the Ostbahnbrücke and the Donauuferbahn. It would have stood to the rear of the former artillery barracks in Kaiserebersdorf where the waste processing plant now is.

This plan also envisaged the construction of a basin alongside the Danube Canal with five subsidiary basins and a range of rail connections.

An industrial harbour in Freudenau

The lower reaches of the Danube Canal were to be widened, so that ships could moor there without blocking the path of other ships passing through. The additional harbour basin that the plan envisaged would have been in the area of the Galopprennplatz Freudenau.

An overflow sluice

The plan for an overflow sluice was a precursor to the Donauinsel. In his article, Brandl describes the state of the plan in 1923, but the basic idea of digging an overflow canal to protect the city of Vienna from floods had been around since 1911.

In the plan, the approximately 80-metre wide overflow sluice would have branched away from the Danube near Langenzersdorf. It would have made its way through the flood plain and would have joined the river again some 12 kilometres downstream of Vienna.

In the case of a flood, the sluice was meant to be able to draw in 2,400 cubic metres of water per second.

The banks of the river which would have been raised could have been used as loading bays and for industrial installations.

Furthermore, the plan envisaged dividing the sluice into three sections by means of two weirs, and using it in addition to its role as a canal for ships and as a harbour to generate electricity, which would have made it more profitable.

The project manager of the Lower Austrian Donau-Regulierungs-Kommission (Danube Regulation Commission) also reported on the proposal to dig an overflow canal through the flood plain and then to turn the canal into a harbour in 1920, although not in as much detail.

It is not known why none of these projects was realised, but it can be assumed that they were victims of a lack of funding and/or of the Great Depression.

During the First Republic

Following the collapse of Austria-Hungary, the winter harbour in Freudenau, which until then had been the property of the state, came into the possession of the City of Vienna. The city, which was already suffering from a shortage of funds, was not able to invest anything in the city's harbours, which only cost money and did not directly generate any income.

1938 – 1945

In a document from 1942, Otto Broschek, the head of the harbour administration, described the state of Vienna's harbour facilities (the unenclosed river harbour and the winter harbour) and their qualities, projects (the harbour in Simmering) and works that had actually been realised (the harbours in Albern and Lobau), as well as the plans to expand them following victory in the war (Endsieg).

Broschek's report was intended as a summary of the plans for the time after the final victory, when Vienna was to have an important role for shipping on the Danube, but it also highlights the difficulties that were being experienced in the immediate realisation of this goal due to the war.

The harbour near Albern (River kilometre 1918.3)

The construction of a freight harbour near Albern, the plans for which engineer Ludwig Brandl had described in 1923 as one of several possibilities for the expansion of Vienna's harbour facilities, was selected for realisation by the Reich Ministry of Transport () from amongst several available options on 2 January 1939.