3.1Ruhr Valley and its Industrialisation

3.1 Ruhr Valley and its Industrialisation

The Ruhr Valley, which is also known as Ruhrgebiet, is located in the west of Germany and a part of state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). Ruhr area is one of the old regions in Europe, whose structure was changed and shaped in Early Industrialization. At Present, this area is the most significant metropolitan area in Germany and the fifth-biggest in Europe (Götting, 2014b). Around 5.5 million people live here in around 4400 square kilometres. This Ruhr area was a functional area rather than any historical or political significance.

Figure 5: Ruhr Valley and its location, Graphical Illustration by Author

Three rivers confine the area of Ruhr; theRhine in the west, Lippe in the north and Emscher in between. Three of the four zones comprising the towns and cities of Ruhrgebiet are named after those rivers; Ruhr Zone, Emscher Zone, and the Lippe Zone. Another zone is Hellweg Zone. The hearth of Ruhrgebiet is located in between Emscher zoon and Lippe Zone(Hospers, 2004).

The Ruhr Valley we know is not more than 150 years old hardly. Although the coal excavation started at 14th century for heating, the Industrial mining started at the last of 18th century. Initially, coal was used for the regional purpose, such as domestic heating or blacksmith’s fire. The famous Krupp and Thyssen firms started large scale coal mining and steel production at the beginning of the 19th century. People from different area started to come to work at the Ruhr Area (Götting, 2014b). Mines were built in more and more cities day by day. Primarily the Ruhr area was very rural, and people used to live in small villages. In the time with the growth of mining industries, people tended to move into cities as the work opportunities were there. The housing area for workers was being developed in close proximity of their workplace. The leisure and shopping facilities were also made in nearby. Employers usually provided the recreational facility to the miners’community. So, the life of the workers was confined in those small settlements and living structures (ArcGIS StoryMaps, 2020).

Figure 6: Miners going beneath the surface for extracting theCoal (Stehkämper, 2018)

Figure 7: Industries in Ruhr area at 1950s, Image by JosefStoffels(Reucher, 2018)

Gradually the landscape changed into an industrial landscape. The infrastructure got stretched to all the relevant area. The introduction and extension of the rail network were one of the most

criticalfactors behind the industrialisation. Road, rail started to put its mark on the newsoil.More and more people started to move in here, and soon the Ruhr area became an economic centre. The population rose in 3,800,000million in 1925, which was 400,000 in 1850. In the time of the First World War, a lot of man worker joined in the war, so the workforce became low. At 1915, women started to join in industrial work. Prisoners from Belgium and the Netherlands were used as labour in underground. After the war, the situation got worse. A considerable number of mine was closed because of the obligation from the Treaty of Versailles. (Götting, 2014b). The Second World War became devastating for this area. This Ruhr Valley played a vital role in the preparation of WW2 and result;it became an obvious target for allied bombing. All the industrial structure and hosing were damaged. The coal production started again in 1945, while it became indispensable to survive in winter. With the help of the USA and UK, the Ruhr area got importance to rebuilt Europe. It started to become modernised. The condition of coal workers improved in 1950. Foreign workers started arriving at that time, and around 670,000 people were working at the mine in the mid-1950s. Ruhrgebiet was called Germany’ s “Economic Miracle”at the 1950s, for its extreme support to rebuild the country’ s economy. In 1956, coal mine reached its pick, and it produced around 124,600 tons ofcoal this year(Hospers, 2004).