Wassergarten Grube Reden

Cooling down in the Reden coal mine

The Reden coal mine's coal preparation plant has partly made way for water basins that regulate the water management of the mining area.

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However, the steel skeleton structure of the plants and other mining heritage was preserved. Today, the skeletons of the complexes cast their shadow on the five water basins of the Reden Adventure Park, which opened its doors to the public in the summer of 2012.

Geothermal

The first basin collects rainwater from the slag heaps and the mine site and is buffered there before it is discharged into the Klinkenbach.

A second pelvis has an entirely different function. This is where the water pumped up from the subsurface is cooled. A geothermal power plant in Reden pumps the warm mine water 800 meters up and reuses it for heating.

The warm groundwater pours via waterfalls into this second basin, a misty setting where you can walk on slippery stones.

To descend to the water installation, headframe IV is still operational. Dozens of employees from Ruhrkohle AG are working there.

Headframe IV

Shaft IV (in the background) was built in 1939. The skeletal structure is filled with steel plates, making it the oldest construction of that kind in the Saarland mining region.

At that time, the mine had been in operation for almost a century. Coal has been mined here since 1846. The mine was named after the former Prussian Minister for Mines, Friedrich Wilhelm von Reden, one of the pioneers of the mining and iron industries.

Zechenhaus

After the First World War, the entire German Saarland, including this mine, came under French control. After the Germans regained power in 1935, Grube Reden soon received a visit from Hermann Göring, who would later become Nazi Minister of Aviation. He opened the money floodgates to modernize the mine.

The Reden mine was expanded just before the Second World War with the Zechenhaus, one of the rare preserved relics of the architecture of the Third Reich. The sleek geometric building housed the administration, social areas and a canteen.

In front of the neoclassical porch of the building, there is a highly idealized statue of a miner, namely 'Der Saarbergmann' by sculptor Fritz Koelle.

Headframe V

The new headframe V was built next to the Zechenhaus in 1949. Both the unloading floor and the screening plant were constructed in steel frame construction and closed with bricks, something that you can clearly see thanks to the renovation.

Although Reden emerged as one of the most modern mines in the Saarland at the start of the Second World War, production was significantly reduced in the 1950s. The decline lasted decades. In the 1980s, Grube Reden eventually merged with several neighboring mines, including Göttelborn.

On December 19, 1995, Reden's song was finished for good. From that year onwards, the mining activities were concentrated in Göttelborn, but not for long. Göttelborn itself went bankrupt on September 1, 2000.

A new destination

From 2006 onwards, Grube Reden was reorganized and made accessible to the general public. Headframes IV and V and the associated winding engine houses are protected as monuments, just like the Zechenhaus and the Koelle statue in front of it. Yet more have been preserved than that, such as a chimney, the unloading floor buildings, etc.

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Six blast furnaces you can visit today

In the early nineteenth century, the industrial revolution swept across continental Europe and one steelworks after another rose from the ground. Europe had hundreds of blast furnaces, but since the mid-twentieth century, Europe's steel industry has been slowly going downhill.

Cooling down in the Reden coal mine

Geothermal

Headframe IV

Zechenhaus

Headframe V

A new destination

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Industrial Heritage

Dark tourism