Industrial heritage in Germany

In 1993, the Kokerei Zollverein coking plant was at the end of its rope: the steel crisis of the 1990s caused the demand for coke to melt away.

In the 19th century, the tentacles of the Walloon coal industry in Belgium reached deep into the German Ruhr area.

Three striking headframes from three different eras stand in the German Ewald coal mine, which closed its doors in 2000.

The iron headframe above the Pluto-Wilhelm mine in the German Ruhr area immediately evokes the Zollverein headframe in Essen, which has been declared a World Heritage Site. This counterpart is threatened with demolition.

Years of coal mining in Zeche Hugo in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, have left behind a one-hundred-and-fifteen-meter-high slag heap, the Halde Rungenberg.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the lung disease tuberculosis was rampant in Berlin. The Berliners preferred to see the contagious patients go rather than come. The Beelitz Heilstätten sanatorium was built on Berlin's outskirts in 1898.

The Berlin Wall has still not revealed all its secrets: only in 2018 were two forgotten sections of the Wall (re)discovered.

Instead of cars and trucks rushing by, grass, trees and shrubs grow on the A103 highway in Berlin's Schöneberg.