Railway headquarters in Essen

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Deutsche Bank Essen, former office building of the Essen head office

The service building of the Essen Directorate was built for the Essen Royal Railway Directorate founded in 1895 . In 1922 it became the Essen Railway Directorate . After partial destruction in the Second World War and significantly modified reconstruction, the building was the seat of the Essen Federal Railway Directorate between 1951 and the 1994 rail reform . After that, the distinctive but not listed building stood empty for a few years. Since October 2010 it has housed a Deutsche Bank service center .

Views from different eras

  • Headquarters around 1920

  • Bismarck memorial on the forecourt of the headquarters building around 1914

  • Facade of the Essen Federal Railway Directorate , 1951 to 2008

  • Building front with Bismarck monument after renovation in 2010

  • Overall complex

  • Portrait of the original gable on the current building

history

Essen Royal Railway Directorate

On April 1, 1895, parts of the Royal Railway Direction to Cöln (on the right bank of the Rhine), which had been repealed at that time, became the Royal Railway Directorate Essen. This made it the central railway administration in the Ruhr area with a route network of 941 kilometers in length and extending to Hagen , Unna and the Elberfeld directorate . The management was responsible for the administration of all railway lines belonging to the district, in operation or under construction, as well as the representation of the state in all matters within its business areas.

The building was built under the direction of government builders Behrendt and Jaffke over a construction period of two and a half years. The first groundbreaking took place on June 19, 1895. The construction cost 1.06 million marks , of which the city of Essen took over 400,000 marks and provided the property. On March 15, 1898, the representative building on Bismarckplatz between Bismarckstrasse and Kruppstrasse was occupied. This meant that all the offices of the railway management, the wagon office, the main railway cashier and the acceptance office for the wagons and materials were located here.

The monument to Otto von Bismarck was erected in front of the main entrance in 1899 and was intended to emphasize the importance of the building. In 1993, the Bismarck monument on the granite base, on which there are bronze reliefs with heroic scenes from the city's history, was placed under monument protection.

Reich Railway Directorate Essen

On April 26, 1920, the designation was introduced in the Essen Railway Directorate (ED) . This was followed on July 6, 1922 by the renaming to Reichsbahndirektion Essen with the number 10. On April 1, 1927, all railway offices and railway offices became Reichsbahn offices and Reichsbahn offices. During the Second World War, the headquarters building was badly damaged or partially destroyed, and in the post-war period it was rebuilt in a way that changed significantly in line with the spirit of the times and the economic situation. After the end of the Third Reich , the former Reichsbahndirektion received the name of the Essen Railway Directorate back until 1949 .

Federal Railway Directorate Essen

On September 7, 1949, the Deutsche Reichsbahn became the successor to the Deutsche Bundesbahn . This gave the Essen directorate the name Deutsche Bundesbahn - Eisenbahndirektion Essen . From April 1, 1953, this operated as the Federal Railway Directorate Essen . In 1974 parts of the disbanded Federal Railway Directorate Wuppertal came to Essen and on January 1, 1975 parts of the disbanded Federal Railway Directorate Münster . On January 1, 1994, the Federal Railroad merged with the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the corporation Deutsche Bahn AG, which is organized under commercial law . As a result, the Essen Federal Railway Directorate was dissolved and divided into new regional areas. For example, some segments moved to offices in the Gildehofcenter . Little by little, all railway employees moved out here, so that it had been empty since 2003.

Remodeling for Deutsche Bank

After the building had been completely unused for six years since 2003, extensive construction work began in early 2009. In the old complex, new and modern offices were built on 18,500 square meters for a central service center of Deutsche Bank , which created around 1000 jobs. In the course of this, the facades and the cross vaults on the lower floors were renovated, a new spacious foyer was built and the many small offices were combined into several open-plan offices. On the front facade, the image of the war-damaged central gable was integrated into the glass facade in the form of the Weser Renaissance . At the same time, an upgrading of Bismarckplatz and an expansion of the parking areas in the neighboring parking garage are in planning. These measures are said to have cost 25 million euros.

On October 8, 2010, the bank's service center was inaugurated in the newly converted office building.

literature

  • Rolf Ostendorf: The history of the Essen Railway Directorate. Vehicles and management from 1895 to the present day . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-87943-931-1 .

Web links

Commons : Office building, Essen Directorate  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ T. Kellen: The industrial city of Essen in words and pictures. History and description of the city of Essen. At the same time a guide through food and the surrounding area. Fredebeul & Koenen, Essen 1902.
  2. ↑ Entry in the list of monuments of the city of Essen (PDF; 685 kB) last viewed on June 7, 2018
  3. ^ " Clear the way for the bank", article in the Neue Ruhr Zeitung NRZ from June 24, 2009, last viewed on July 6, 2015
  4. ^ "Deutsche Bank will move into ex-railway administration by mid-2010", article in the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung WAZ from July 8, 2009, last viewed on July 6, 2015
  5. ^ Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Essen regional section, October 10, 2010 edition

Coordinates: 51 ° 26 '54.9 "  N , 7 ° 0' 24.1"  E