Industrial heritage in Germany

In 1938, the Organization Todt, the construction company of the German Third Reich, began constructing the West Wall (or Siegfried Line), a German defence line from the Netherlands to the Swiss border.

A 50-meter-high water tower rises from the ground between the former Tempelhof railway yard tracks in Berlin. With a capacity of 400 cubic meters of water, he could supply ten steam locomotives with the snap of a finger.

Barely a quarter of a century after constructing the Anhalter Bahn railway depot, the water reservoir was no longer sufficient to supply the larger and more powerful steam locomotives. That is why a completely new water tower was erected in 1908.

At the end of the last century, coal mining in the German Saarland seemed unlimited. For example, the Göttelborn mine was expanded in 1994 with a ninety-meter-high headframe, which was then the highest in the world. Göttelborn was ready for the future.

While the Krupp family ruled the roost in the German Ruhr area, the Stumm family was in charge in the Saarland. The cradle of their steel empire was in Neunkirchen.

The Prosper coal mine was the longest active in the German Ruhr area. The mining giant was named after its director, Duke Prosper Ludwig von Arenberg, in the nineteenth century.