Culture of Steel: Germany's Ruhr Valley Looks Back to Its Future

• Print
• E-Mail
• Feedback

These and other problems have raised a fundamental question: How can a region develop and try its hand at change if even the basic infrastructure is unaffordable? And how, all financial problems aside, can structural change even take place in this working-class region, where hundreds of thousands of people are rooted in a traditional mining culture?

"Roots and wings," says Elmar Weiler. "These two words best describe the tension that has prevailed in the region for decades." Weiler, the vice-chancellor of the Ruhr University in Bochum and a winner of the Leibniz Prize awarded to top researchers working in Germany, knows what he is talking about. He comes from Bochum. People in mining regions form particularly strong roots, because the minerals that are locked into the earth there are so important, he says. "And people with such strong roots have trouble flying."

Weiler lists five experiences that have been instrumental in shaping the mentality in the Ruhr region: That work meant triumphing over the natural world under the most difficult of conditions -- with the hands, not with the mind; that a rapid rise was followed by a rapid decline; that a person's efforts were considered dispensable; that solidarity was critical to survival; and that survival also depended on government support.

These are the experiences of gigantism and progress, of identity, solidarity and charity. And when retired miner Seifert takes visitors on tours through the former coal mine, these experiences are all that matter.

A Strong Wind

On this Sunday, his group consists of 16 tourists, from southern Germany, from the north and from the Lower Rhine, wearing dark wool coats and cream-colored cashmere scarves. Seifert is wearing his helmet. A strong wind is blowing across Zollverein.

The grounds cover an area the size of 140 football fields, and the frame that supports the conveyor belt is 55 meters (180 feet) tall. Visitors to Zollverein are dwarfed by a backdrop of angular structures made of steel grids and red brick. This was precisely the intention of the architects, who created the site in the 1920s as a monument to the New Objectivity movement.

"Imagine you are living in the year 1847," says Seifert. "That was when a man named Haniel hit pay dirt at this mine." The first shaft was 116 meters deep, but quickly filled with groundwater. "As a result, Haniel was forced to dig a second shaft," says Seifert. "Then he added three more shafts, a coking plant and a coal-washing plant. There were close to 2,000 people here by the turn of the century. New technology arrived in the 1950s and, finally, in the 1980s: additional production volume of 800 freight cars!"

Seifert's description is an account of the powerful motifs of modernity: the red-hot firepower of the blast furnaces, the grim work in the inhospitable underground world of the coalmines. These motifs have endured with unparalleled force. In no other part of Germany did industrialization proceed as rapidly as forcefully as in the Ruhr region.

Within a few decades, the marshy landscape was transformed into a colossal production zone. While poets and painters in the nearby mid-Rhine valley were still lionizing legends and castles, a new age marked by a faith in technology was taking shape in the Ruhr region.

From Cars to Weapons

Seven billion tons of coal were mined before the industry entered a deep crisis. For many years, world events were responsible for a furious pace of production. To fight two world wars, the German weapons industry required large amounts of steel, and bituminous coal was needed to produce that steel. World War II was followed by Germany's economic miracle and the Cold War, a time when steel was an essential ingredient in everything from cars to weapons.

Workers flocked to the region by the hundreds of thousands, first from the eastern European regions of Masuria, Silesia and Poland, and later from Italy, Turkey, and Arab and Asian countries. The last large wave of immigrants consisted of ethnic German repatriates. They formed immigrant cities and worker cities surrounding the industrial plants. A broad middle class that could have served as a basis for urban high culture never developed. In a landscape dominated by mine shafts and blast furnaces, there was little demand for academic pursuits. The region's first university opened in 1965.

New methods made it possible for miners to work at an increasingly fast pace. At first, progress came as a blessing to miners, making their work easier, but eventually it deprived them of their jobs. In places where 40 people once kneeled in front of coal seams, soon there were only eight. At depths of 1,000 meters, the miners encountered temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Absenteeism was on the rise and regulations became more stringent, but it was impossible to cool the tunnels sufficiently. Coal mining also faced growing competition from natural gas and petroleum production.

The last shift ended on Dec. 23, 1986. No one at Zollverein was let go. The miners were simply transferred to jobs in the surrounding mines. Nevertheless, 80 percent of jobs in the Essen mining industry had already been eliminated by then.

Concept of Solidarity

Despite its difficulties, the miner's life was long seen as a secure and straightforward way of living. On his first day at work, Seifert became familiar with the proverbial concept of solidarity. As he was crawling through a low, 40-centimer tunnel, he heard a cracking noise in the rock and was overcome with claustrophobia. But he returned to work nonetheless. "You could hate someone's guts, but you knew that if something happened, the guy next to you would save you and you would save him." The miners' association provided for many of the miners' needs, including hospital care, childcare and even bus transportation during vacations. Working in a coalmine gave miners a feeling of self-worth and created structure in their lives.

Which is why university vice-chancellor Weiler interprets all the guided tours, concerts and exhibitions in the former industrial plants as a form of mourning for days gone by. "The fact that these worn-out symbols are now being glorified as cultural destinations helps people overcome their demise and preserve their own identity," he says.

In 1986, a ministerial decree prevented the demolition of Zollverein. Twenty coalmines had already been shut down in Essen, once Europe's largest mining city. And now, under a new master plan, this monumental symbol of labor was to be used as a way to continue making money.

As a result, the coalmine turned into what the entire Ruhr region is slated to become: a center of creativity. Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas designed a luminous orange escalator as the new entrance into a visitors' center. His British counterpart Norman Foster redesigned the boiler house, and the design museum that it now houses is the world's largest center for modern design. Japanese architects designed a cube-shaped building heated by hot water from deep inside the mine, which now flows through pipes in the walls. The building will soon contain classrooms for design students. Pianist Alfred Brendel has given concerts at Zollverein, there is now an exclusive restaurant on the grounds, and the new Ruhr Museum opened its doors there in January.

Painful to Watch

So far, the number of visitors has been rising every year, and about 1,000 jobs were created at the site. Seifert's son holds one of those jobs. He has a degree in mining engineering, and he helped develop the animated films his father shows visitors in the former coal-washing plant. They depict the path coal travels through a labyrinth of tunnels, conveyor belts, separating drums and tanks. The Seifert family has undergone its own version of structural change. "My son is the fourth generation in the mine," Seifert says proudly.

Nevertheless, the Zollverein complex is not a model for the entire region. There is too much empty industrial space, far more than the museums, cafes, studios and project offices can ever hope to fill. Zollverein costs the European Union, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the City of Essen €155 million in investments. Such a sum cannot be raised for other, similar facilities.

For Weiler, it is painful to watch the region struggle to grow wings. He experiences the region's legacy on campus every day. Entrepreneurial spirit is not as prevalent among students here, he says, as it is in other parts of Germany. "They have a stronger sense of security," he says. They have grown up with the collective experience that companies offer jobs and the government helps out in times of crisis. "We have few students," says Weiler, "who say: I'll just go ahead and do my thing, and I'm sure something will come of it."

Many are the first members of their families to attend a university. They learn quickly and pragmatically, but they often have little experience with intellectual curiosity and the creative and chaotic flow of ideas. At the Ruhr University, says Weiler, students see it as a positive character trait when someone is not intellectually aloof. In a sense, he adds, their attitudes are anti-intellectual.

One Has to Live With It

Nevertheless, he sees the special culture of the Ruhr region as an asset. In a region heavily influenced by blue-collar workers and immigrants, it is easier to climb the social ladder than in traditional middle-class areas. And residents of the Ruhr region, says Weiler, have already experienced in their everyday lives what it means to be a country of immigrants. "We are a global village. In our region, people from 140 religious communities and more than 100 nations are demonstrating how to live together peacefully."

In the visitors' center at Zollverein, Seifert is concluding his tour. A photographer is scurrying around the old miner in his white helmet, taking pictures and using his flash.

"Seifert is the name," Joachim Seifert says to him after a while. "If you like, I can pose properly, and then you can take my picture."

No thanks, the young man says. He prefers taking pictures as they arise, he adds. Spontaneously.

Seifert nods. Then he turns to the escalator and takes it down to the courtyard. His apartment is just outside the grounds. This creative-artistic way of doing things is a completely different type of work, he says. Well, okay, he adds, one has to live with it.

• Back
• 1
• | 2

• Part 1: Germany's Ruhr Valley Looks Back to Its Future
• Part 2: The Effort to Preserve a Blue-Collar Identity