The Westfalenhütte is an industrial site in the northeast of

Dortmund Dortmund (; ; ) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the List of cities in Germany by population, ninth-largest city in Germany. With a population of 614,495 inhabitants, it is the largest city ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It was established by the steel company

Hoesch AG Hoesch (; German: Hoesch AG; formerly also Eberhard Hoesch & Sons and Hoesch-Werke) was a German steel and mining conglomerate headquartered in Dortmund and several subsidiaries across the Ruhr region and Siegen. Founded in 1871, by Leopold Ho ...

in 1871. At the peak of the so-called

Wirtschaftswunder The ''Wirtschaftswunder'' (, "economic miracle"), also known as the Miracle on the Rhine, was the rapid reconstruction and development of the Economy, economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II. The expression was first used to re ...

approximately 25,000 people were working there. Following changes in the steel industry and a consolidation process in the sector, activities on the Westfalenhütte were reduced to a few, economically sustainable core areas. Today more than 1,000 people are working on the site of the Westfalenhütte. The Westfalenhütte stretches over approximately five

kilometer The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American and Philippine English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is the preferred mea ...

s from east to west, and nearly four kilometers from north to south. The territory is now owned by the

ThyssenKrupp AG ThyssenKrupp AG (, ; stylized as thyssenkrupp) is a German industrial engineering and steel production multinational conglomerate. It resulted from the 1999 merger of Thyssen AG and Krupp and has its operational headquarters in Duisburg and Ess ...

and is the largest abandoned industrial area in Europe.

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

leader

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

visited the Westfalenhütte in 1989 and spoke in front of 8,500 steel workers.
Vor 25 Jahren: Gorbi besucht die Westfalenhütte in Dortmund
' on thyssenkrupp-steel.com, 10th June 2014, retrieved on 11th February 2023. The Westfalenhütte had its own

railway stop A train station, railroad station, or railway station is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing such a ...

, called Dortmund-Hoesch, which was in use until 1992. A

light rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...

station from the U44 line is still called Westfalenhütte. The Hoeschpark, a recreational area for industrial workers of the Hoesch AG, was established in 1937 on the site of the Weisse Wiese, the first home stadium of

football club In association football, a football club (or association football club, alternatively soccer club) is a sports club that acts as an entity through which association football teams organise their sporting activities. The club can exist either as ...

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, often known simply as Borussia Dortmund () or by its initialism BVB (), or just Dortmund by International fans, is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is ...

References

External links

History and pictures of the Westfalenhütte
(in German) industriedenkmal.de
map ca. 1973
* Daniel Hinze
Westfalenhütte
(in German) dubtown.de * Harald Finster

(in German) * Ingo Bornemann

Hoesch-Arbeiter jubelten Gorbatschow zu
(in German) Ruhr-Nachrichten 15 June 2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Westfalenhutte Industrial parks in Germany Steel industry of Germany Dortmund