Gelsenkirchen was first documented in 1150, but it remained a tiny village until the 19th century, when theIndustrial Revolution led to the economic and population growth of the region. In 1840, when the mining ofcoal began, 6,000 inhabitants lived in Gelsenkirchen; by 1900 the population had increased to 138,000. In the early 20th century, Gelsenkirchen was the most important coalmining town in Europe. It was called the "city of a thousand fires" for the flames of mine gases flaring at night. In 1928, Gelsenkirchen was merged with the adjoining cities ofBuer andGelsenkirchen-Horst [de]. The city bore the name Gelsenkirchen-Buer, until it was renamed Gelsenkirchen in 1930. The city remained a center of coal mining and oil refining during theNazi era, so was often a target of Allied bombing raids duringWorld War II: nevertheless, over a third of the city's buildings date from before World War II.[6] There are no longer coalmines in and around Gelsenkirchen; the city is searching for a new economic basis, having been afflicted for decades with one of the country's highest unemployment rates.
Although the part of town now called Buer was first mentioned byHeribert I in a document asPuira in 1003, there were hunting people on a hill north of theEmscher as early as theBronze Age – earlier than 1000 BC. They did not live in houses as such, but in small yards gathered together near each other. Later, theRomans pushed into the area. In about 700, the region was settled by theSaxons. A few other parts of town which today lie in Gelsenkirchen's north end were mentioned in documents from the earlyMiddle Ages, some examples being:Raedese (nowadaysResse), Middelvic (Middelich, today part of Resse),Sutheim (Sutum; today part of Beckhausen) andSculven (nowadaysScholven). Many nearby farming communities were later identified asiuxta Bure ("near Buer").
It was about 1150 when the nameGelstenkerken orGeilistirinkirkin appeared up for the first time. At about the same time, the firstchurch in town was built in what is now Buer. Thisecclesia Buron ("church at Buer") was listed in a directory ofparish churches by the sexton fromDeutz, Theodericus. This settlement belonged to theMark. However, in ancient times and even in the Middle Ages, only a few dozen people actually lived in the settlements around the Emscher basin.
Up until the middle of the 19th century, the area in and around Gelsenkirchen was only thinly settled and almost exclusively agrarian. In 1815, after temporarily belonging to theGrand Duchy ofBerg, the land now comprising the city of Gelsenkirchen passed to theKingdom of Prussia, which assigned it to theprovince of Westphalia. Whereas the Gelsenkirchen of that time – not including today's north-end communities, such as Buer – was put in theAmt ofWattenscheid in theBochum district, in the governmentalregion of Arnsberg, Buer, which was anAmt in its own right, was along with nearby Horst joined toRecklinghausen district in the governmentalregion of Münster. This arrangement came to an end in 1928.
After the discovery ofcoal – lovingly known as "Black Gold" – in theRuhr area in 1840, and the subsequentindustrialisation, theCologne–Minden Railway and the Gelsenkirchen Main Railway Station were opened. In 1868, Gelsenkirchen became the seat of anAmt within the Bochum district which encompassed the communities of Gelsenkirchen, Braubauerschaft (since 1900,Gelsenkirchen-Bismarck [de]), Schalke, Heßler, Bulmke and Hüllen.
Friedrich Grillo founded the Corporation for Chemical Industry (Aktiengesellschaft für Chemische Industrie) in Schalke in 1872, as well as founding Vogelsang & Co. with the Grevel family (laterSchalker Eisenhütte Maschinenfabrik), and also the Schalke Mining and Ironworks Association (Schalker Gruben- und Hüttenverein). A year later, and once again in Schalke, he founded the Glass and Mirror Factory Incorporated (Glas- und Spiegel-Manufaktur AG).
After Gelsenkirchen had become an important heavy-industry hub, it was raised to city in 1875.
Former Nordstern CollieryContrasts in the inner-city
In 1885, after the Bochum district was split up, Gelsenkirchen became the seat of its own district (Kreis), which would last until 1926. The cities of Gelsenkirchen and Wattenscheid, as well as theÄmter of Braubauerschaft (in 1900, Bismarck), Schalke,Ückendorf [de],Wanne andWattenscheid all belonged to the Gelsenkirchen district. A few years later, in 1896, Gelsenkirchen split off from Gelsenkirchen district to become anindependent city (kreisfreie Stadt). In 1891, Horst was split off from theAmt of Buer, which itself was raised to city status in 1911, and to an independent city status the next year. Meanwhile, Horst became the seat of its ownAmt. In 1924, the rural community ofRotthausen, which until then had belonged to theEssen district, was made part of the Gelsenkirchen district.
In 1928, under the Prussian local government reforms, the cities of Gelsenkirchen and Buer along with theAmt of Horst together became a newkreisfreie Stadt called Gelsenkirchen-Buer, effective on 1 April that year. From that time, the whole city area belonged to the governmental district of Münster. In 1930, on the city's advice, the city's name was changed to 'Gelsenkirchen', effective 21 May. By this time, the city was home to about 340,000 people.
In 1931, the Gelsenkirchen Mining Corporation (Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-Aktien-Gesellschaft) founded the Gelsenberg Petrol Corporation (Gelsenberg-Benzin-AG). In 1935, the Hibernia Mining Company founded theHydrierwerk Scholven AG GE-Buercoal liquefaction plant. Scholven/Buer began operation in 1936 and achieved a capacity of 200,000 tons/year of finished product, mainly aviation base gasoline.[7] After 1937, Gelsenberg-Benzin-AG opened the Nordstern plant for converting bituminous coal to synthetic oil.[8]
The9 November 1938Kristallnacht antisemitic riots destroyed Jewish businesses, dwellings and cemeteries, and asynagogue in Buer and one in downtown Gelsenkirchen. A new downtown Gelsenkirchen synagogue was opened on 1 February 2007.
From 1933 to 1945, the city's mayor was the appointedNazi Carl Engelbert Böhmer. In 1994, the Institute for City History opened the documentation centre "Gelsenkirchen under National Socialism" (Dokumentationsstätte "Gelsenkirchen im Nationalsozialismus").
On 17 December 1953, theKokerei Hassel went into operation, billed as Germany's "first newcoking plant" since the war. TheScholven Power Station was built in the late 1960s with further development until 1985, one of the largest in Europe at the time.[13] Its 302 metres (991 ft) chimneys are among the tallest in Germany. Whenpostal codes were introduced in 1961, Gelsenkirchen was one of the few cities inWest Germany to be given two codes: Buer was given 466, while Gelsenkirchen got 465. These were in use until 1 July 1993. The firstcomprehensive school in North Rhine-Westphalia was opened in 1969. Scholven-Chemie AG (the old hydrogenation plant) merged with Gelsenberg-Benzin-AG to form the new corporation VEBA-Oel AG. In 1987,Pope John Paul II celebratedMass before 85,000 people at Gelsenkirchen'sParkstadion. The Pope also became an honorary member ofFC Schalke 04.
In 1997, the Federal Garden Show (Bundesgartenschau orBUGA) was held on the grounds of the disusedNordstern [de]coalmine in Horst. In 1999, the last phase of theInternationale Bauausstellung Emscher Park, an undertaking that brought together many cities in North Rhine-Westphalia, was held.Coke was produced at the old Hassel coking works for the last time on 29 September 1999. This marked the shutdown of the last coking plant in Gelsenkirchen, after being a coking town for more than 117 years. In the same year, Shell Solar Deutschland AG took over production ofphotovoltaic equipment. On 28 April 2000, the Ewald-Hugo colliery closed – Gelsenkirchen's last colliery. Three thousand coalminers lost their jobs. In 2003, Buer celebrated its thousandth anniversary of first documentary mention, and FC Schalke 04 celebrated on 4 May 2004 its hundredth anniversary.
TheJewish community of Gelsenkirchen was officially established in 1874, relatively late compared to the JewishAshkenazi communities in Germany. In a list of 1829 to determine the salary for theChief Rabbi ofWestphalia,Abraham Sutro [de], three families were named: the families of Ruben Levi, Reuben Simon, and Herz Heimann families.[14] With the growth of the town during the second half of the 19th century, its Jewish population also grew bigger, with about 120 Jews living in town in 1880, and asynagogue established in 1885. With the growth of the community, a bigger building was built to serve as the community school.[15]
The community continued to grow and around 1,100 Jews were living in Gelsenkirchen in 1901, a number that reached its peak of 1,300 individuals in 1933. At the turn of the 20th century theReform Jewish community was the most dominant among all Jewish communities in town, and after anorgan was installed inside the synagogue, and most prayers performed mostly in German instead of traditional Hebrew, the town'sorthodox community decided to stop attending the synagogue and tried to establish a new orthodox community, led by Dr. Max Meyer, Dr. Rubens and Abraham Fröhlich, most of them living on Florastraße.[14] In addition, another Jewish orthodox congregation of Polish Jews was found in town.[16] In 1908, a lot on Wanner Straße was purchased and served the community as its cemetery until 1936, today containing about 400 graves.[14] In addition, another cemetery was built in 1927 in the suburb of Ückendorf.
With the rise ofHitler andNational Socialism in 1933, Jewish life in Gelsenkirchen was still relatively unaffected at first. In August 1938, 160 Jewish businesses were still open in town. In October 1938, though, an official ban restricted these businesses and all Jewish doctors became unemployed. In the same month, the Jewish community of the town was expelled. Between 1937 and 1939, the Jewish population of Gelsenkirchen dropped from 1,600 to 1,000. DuringKristallnacht, the town's synagogue was destroyed, after two thirds of the town's Jewish population had already left. On 27 January 1942, 350 among the 500 remaining Jews in town were deported to theRiga Ghetto; later, the last remaining Jews were deported to Warsaw and theTheresienstadt concentration camp.
On 31 March 1942, a Nazi deportation train set out from Gelsenkirchen and, carrying 48 Jews from the town area, made its way to theWarsaw Ghetto. The train was the first to deport Jews to Warsaw and not toTrawniki concentration camp in southern Poland, as used before. After it left Gelsenkirchen, the train was boarded by other Jews fromMünster,Dortmund and a few other stops along the way, and mostly by the Jews ofHanover, 500 in number. The arrival of this transport from Westphalia and Upper Saxony was recorded in his diaries by Adam Czerniakov, the last chairman of the Warsaw GhettoJudenrat. He stated that those older than 68 were allowed to stay in Germany. The majority of these deportees were killed later on the different death sites around modern-day Poland.[17]
In 1946, 69 Jews returned to Gelsenkirchen and in 1958, a synagogue and cultural centre were built for the remaining community. In 2005, about 450 Jews were living in town. During the last decade of the 20th century, a noted number of Jews came to the town, after emigrating out of the former USSR. This situation made it necessary to extend the synagogue. Eventually, a new and bigger synagogue was built to serve the increasing Jewish community of Gelsenkirchen. The current community practices Orthodox Judaism, even though no family practices it at home.[14] On 16 May 2014, antisemitic graffiti were painted on the town synagogue.[18]
The building at Husemannstraße 75 belonged to Dr. Max Meyer, who built it between 1920 and 1921. Amezuzah sign can still be seen on the top right side of the door.[14] On Florastraße, near Kennedyplatz, (formerly Schalker Straße 45), stands the house of the Tepper family, a Jewish family that vanished during theHolocaust. As part of the nationalStolperstein project, five bricks, commemorating the Jewish inhabitants, were installed outside the house.[19]
Headquarters of the Gelsenwasser AGHighways and main roads in GelsenkirchenTwo vintage trams on hand for the reopening of the Essener Straße stop in HorstStadtbahn at main railway station
Gelsenkirchen presents itself as a centre of solar technology. Shell Solar Deutschland GmbH produces solar cells in Rotthausen. Scheuten Solar Technology has taken over its solar panel production. There are other large businesses in town:THS Wohnen [de],Gelsenwasser,e.on, BP Gelsenkirchen GmbH, Shell Solar Deutschland GmbH andPilkington.ZOOM Erlebniswelt Gelsenkirchen is azoo founded in 1949 as "Ruhr-Zoo" which is now operated by the city.
TheRhine–Herne Canal has a commercial-industrial harbour in Gelsenkirchen.Gelsenkirchen Harbour [de] has a yearly turnover of 2 million tonnes and a water surface area of about 1.2 square kilometres (0.5 square miles), one of Germany's biggest and most important canal harbours, and is furthermore connected toDeutsche Bahn's railway network at Gelsenkirchen Hauptbahnhof.
Local transport in Gelsenkirchen is provided by theBochum/Gelsenkirchen tramway network and buses run by theBochum-Gelsenkirchener Straßenbahn AG (BOGESTRA), as well as by buses operated by Vestische Straßenbahnen GmbH in the city's north (despite its name, it nowadays runs only buses). SomeStadtbahn and tram lines are operated byRuhrbahn [de]. All these services have an integrated fare structure within theVRR. There are three tram lines, one light rail line, and about 50 bus routes in Gelsenkirchen.
Gelsenkirchen is the headquarters of theVerband Lokaler Rundfunk in Nordrhein-Westfalen e.V. (VLR) (Network of Local Radio in North Rhine-Westphalia Registered Association). REL (Radio Emscher-Lippe) is also headquartered in Gelsenkirchen.
Among newspapers, theBuersche Zeitung was a daily till 2006. TheRuhr Nachrichten ceased publication in Gelsenkirchen in April 2006. Now, theWestdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung is the only local newspaper in Gelsenkirchen. The local stationRadio Emscher-Lippe [de] also reports the local news.
There is also a free weekly newspaper, theStadtspiegel Gelsenkirchen, along with monthly, or irregular, local publications called theFamilienpost and theBeckhausener Kurier.
Gelsenkirchen has 51elementary schools (36 public schools, 12 Catholic schools, 3 Protestant schools), 8Hauptschulen, 6Realschulen, 7Gymnasien, and 5Gesamtschulen, among which theGesamtschule Bismarck, as the only comprehensive school run by the Westphalian branch of the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church, warrants special mention.
Results of the second round of the 2020 mayoral election.
The current mayor of Gelsenkirchen is Karin Welge of theSocial Democratic Party (SPD) since 2020. The most recent mayoral election was held on 13 September 2020, with a runoff held on 27 September, and the results were as follows:
The Gelsenkirch city council governs the city alongside the mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows:
Ernst Kuzorra (1905–1990), footballer and manager, 12 caps and 7 goals forGermany, 6x German Champion, 450 Appearances and 419 Goals forSchalke, part of their 'Team of the Century'
Fritz Szepan (1907–1974), footballer with 34 caps and 8 goals forGermany, 6x German Champion, 434 Appearances and 309 Goals forSchalke, part of their 'Team of the Century'
^The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust: A–J by Shmuel Spector and Geoffrey Wigoder, New York University Press 2001,p. 422,ISBN9780814793565
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