Essen     


- The turn of century -



From the "Simplicissimus"




A time period of 1900:

Until the turn of the century the Ruhr area and because of that Essen as well had developed to an industrial landscape of which the scenery was decisively characterized by mines and factories. So the cast steel factories of Krupp had developed to the biggest ordnance factory of the German Reich. However, the consequence of this exceedingly strong concentration of industry and the pollution involved was that the Ruhr area was regarded as a hotbed for typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery and malaria. This was above all caused by the unrestrained pollution of the rivers and of the air. ( Against this background you can see the caricature at the beginning of the page. ) The rapid population growth in Essen could above all be put down to the immigration of young men from Eastern Europe. This led to conflicts between the different sections of the population though. However, the conflicts between the different sections of the population did not only occur increasingly often, but they also occured between the social strata. So some people e.g. lived in spacious, exclusive residential areas, some people however lived in a district only occupied by workers. There was also the fact that in spite of numerous house building projects, especially by the company Krupp, there were about 30 "apartment-hunters" for each newly built apartment. The problems resulting from this are obvious. The demand for workers simply grew too fast.


1902 the new main station of Essen (picture 17 KB) was opened.
1903, after Friedrich Alfrid Krupp's death the company Krupp was changed into a joint-stock company as one of the last large German concerns.


Social strife:

At the turn of the century the people in the companies striked as well, e.g. on January 7th, 1905. The miners of the coal mines went on strike because of a half-hour shift prolongation planned by the employers. Until January 11th, 1905 about 50,000 miners in the whole Ruhr area were on strike. The planned shift prolongation however was just the moment that triggered the strike off. The actual reason goes some years back. After the wages rised slightly in the 90ies of the past century they dropped again since 1902 while the cost of living rose. A further reason was the shut-down of numerous small mines in the Ruhr valley. In addition to that there were bad working conditions like e.g. maltreatment by superiors.


In the year 1911 a further settlement project of the company Krupp came true. It was started with the construction of the district Margarethenhöhe in Essen.
1912 the company Krupp (picture 20 KB) celebrated a jubilee: 100 years Krupp cast steel factory. Meanwhile Krupp employed about 74,400 workers.
1914 World War I broke out.