Castle of KambachCastle of RoethgenEschweiler Central StationThe Leather PietàCastle of PalantCastle of KinzweilerOld TownhallEschweiler's power plant next to the A 4
Eschweiler (German pronunciation:[ˈɛʃvaɪlɐ],Ripuarian:Eischwiele) is a municipality in the district ofAachen inNorth Rhine-Westphalia inGermany on the riverInde, near the German-Dutch-Belgian border, and about 15 kilometres (9 mi) east ofAachen and 50 kilometres (31 mi) west ofCologne.
1800: French municipal rights and capital of the Canton of Eschweiler in the FrenchDépartement de la Roer.
1816: Given toPrussia. The French Cantons of Burtscheid and Eschweiler are put together to form the Prussian Kreis Aachen.
1838: Foundation of the first joint stock company in the then Kingdom of Prussia: Eschweiler Bergwerksverein (i.e. Eschweiler Coal Mining Company) EBV.
1858: Prussian municipal rights. Its quarters Hehlrath, Kinzweiler and St. Jöris are released in order to form the new municipality of Kinzweiler.
1932: Hastenrath and Nothberg become a part of Eschweiler.
1944: Heavily destroyed inWorld War II, the last coal mine was flooded during the war and never been re-opened.
1960s: Complete modernization of Eschweiler's downtown and regulation of the Inde in order to prevent regular flooding.
1972: Reorganization of administration in North Rhine-Westphalia: Eschweiler increases overnight from some 38,000 inhabitants to about 55,000 by receiving the villages Dürwiß, Laurenzberg, Lohn and Weisweiler. Kinzweiler, after 114 years, comes back.
1970s: Eschweiler loses seven quarters because of the brown-coal opencast mining: Erberich, Hausen, Langendorf, Laurenzberg, Lohn, Lürken and Pützlohn.
Eschweiler has three municipal halls (Dürwiß, Kinzweiler and Weisweiler), a cinema, a municipal art collection and the so-called Culture Centre Talbahnhof for cabaret and music events. Every summer theEschweiler Music Festival EMF takes place. People go to the numerous pubs around theMarket Place and in the old-town alleySchnellengasse as well as to the large-scale discothèqueKlejbor's.
Eschweiler is a center of Rhinelandcarnival. It has more than 20 activecarnival clubs, and every Monday before Lent it has the third of Germany's longest carnival processions.
Eschweiler is home to the St. Antonius Hospital with 443 beds and 13 departments. Every year, there are some 15,000 in-patients and 25,000 out-patients. The Euregio Breast Centre is part of the hospital.
Thelignite (brown coal) deposits in the region are formerMiocene swamp forest dominated byCastanopsis, a type of chinkapin. Such plants do not occur naturally in Europe. A type offossil wood has been described from logs found in Eschweiler mines. It was namedCastanoxylon eschweilerense in reference to the town; the name would translate as "Eschweiler chinkapin wood", as it probably belonged toCastanopsis but perhaps to some othergenus of chinkapin.
Eschweiler has six railway stations:Eschweiler Hauptbahnhof (central station),Eschweiler-Aue (from 2009),Eschweiler-West,Eschweiler-Talbahnhof,Eschweiler-Nothberg,Eschweiler-Weisweiler andNothberg (till 2009).Eschweiler-St. Jöris is planned.
Eschweiler has two bus terminals and bus lines in every quarter and in its whole vicinity.Autobahn exits on the A 4 includeEschweiler-West,Eschweiler-Ost andWeisweiler. The city can be reached also by three exits on the A 44:Aldenhoven,Alsdorf andBroichweiden.
August Thyssen (1842–1926), founded the Thyssen-Foussol & Co. in Duisburg in 1867, and later on other steelworks. The company entered theThyssenKrupp AG in 1997
Joseph Thyssen (1844–1915), industrialist and the younger brother of August Thyssen
