Knapsack (Huerth)
Knapsack is a district of Hürth and in particular an important industrial area . He is known for his power plants , the coal refining company Ville / Berrenrath (formerly "Briquette Factory United Ville"), the last of the formerly numerous coal refining companies with their own power plants in the city area, and for the concentrated chemical industry in his chemical park , which the appearance of Knapsack by many Chimneys , smoke and steam shape.
Knapsack was largely resettled due to environmental pollution and is the only place in Germany abandoned for this reason. In 2008 only 132 people lived in Knapsack, in 2011 there were 156 again.
history
Some Roman finds show that the area of today's district was already settled in antiquity. A settlement continuity through the Middle Ages cannot be proven. Knapsack, first mentioned in 1566, developed after 1900 through the opening up of the United Ville mine and the construction of two briquette factories in 1901 by the entrepreneur Friedrich Eduard Behrens as well as through the settlement and development of the chemical industry and power plants based on lignite as an energy source . In 1906 the Deutsche Karbid Aktiengesellschaft was founded. In 1909 the name was changed to AG for nitrogen fertilizers, which later became Knapsack-Griesheim AG, lastly Hoechst AG, now Knapsack Chemical Park . The Vorgebirgszentrale power plant was built in 1913 and has been named after the builder Bernhard Goldenberg Goldenberg Werk since 1920 . At that time it was the largest steam power plant in Europe. Knapsack became an important part of Hürth (now Alt-Hürth ), with which it was connected together with Alstädten until the creation of the large community of Hürth on April 1, 1930.
Since 1930 the economic strength of the Knapsack industry was the basis for the prosperity of what was then the largest rural community in Germany. Between 1969 and 1979, most of the almost 4,000 inhabitants were relocated due to environmental pollution.
Until the end of coal mining in 1988, Knapsack was dominated by lignite in Hürth with the last six briquette factories on the Villenhöhe, which, together with the mine power stations and the golden mine, pulled their coal from the nearby United Ville pit with inclined lifts to over the street that passed the factories later through the mine railways from the neighboring Theresia and Gotteshülfe pits or, as currently, with the north-south railroad (Garzweiler) from the pits further north. The Villebahn was responsible for sales until 1972. After its dismantling, this task was also taken over by the Black Railway .
Industry
The largest resident companies today include the operating company of the chemical park, YNCORIS GmbH & Co. KG (until 2019 InfraServ GmbH & Co. Knapsack KG), RWE -Power and Rheinpapier . Knapsack is the seat of the Rhein-Erft Academy, the former training and further education center of Infraserv Knapsack, which is also used by many other companies in the region and the city of Hürth. In 2009 the Rhein-Erft Akademie GmbH was taken over by the Education and Crafts Foundation from Paderborn. St @ rt Hürth, a successful start-up center, especially in the multimedia sector, can also be found there.
The foundation stone was laid at the end of September 2005 for the construction of the € 400 million, 800 MW gas and steam power plant of the Norwegian energy company " Statkraft ". The importance attached to this investment after lignite was shown by the participation of the North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Jürgen Rüttgers , the Vice-President of Statkraft, Ingelise Arntsen and the then Mayor Walther Boecker . The Knapsack power plant was officially put into operation on October 17, 2007 by the Norwegian King Harald V and again Jürgen Rüttgers.
In July 2006, plans were announced for a third 30 MW power plant to be built by Sotec , a STEAG subsidiary, on the Chemical Hill, which burns substitute fuels such as wood and other waste prepared by mechanical-biological waste treatment plants to generate electricity and process steam . The power plant went into trial operation at the end of 2008. On March 25, 2009 it officially went back into operation in the presence of Prime Minister Rüttgers. EBS-Kraftwerk GmbH is operated by E.ON's subsidiary Energy from Waste together with YNCORIS and is expected to generate a quarter of the chemical park's annual electricity requirements of 1.2 billion kWh and the necessary process steam (1.2 million t annually) for the Chemical companies produce. It is currently the largest substitute fuel power plant in Germany. The construction costs amounted to € 105 million. The two incineration boilers can burn 15.5 t of waste per hour and achieve an output of 33 megawatts with an efficiency of 67%. The garbage (280,000 tons per year) is brought in around 80 truckloads every day.
Landmark of Knapsack and the whole community Huerth were for many years the 127-meter high chimneys of the brown coal - power plant , the "12 Apostles". Up until the Second World War, four of them carried scaffolding with the “RWE” logo, which was lit up by hundreds of light bulbs at night . They have now been removed, the last four between November 2003 and April 2004; demolition was not possible. Only one stump is still used for a water tower. The Goldenberg power plant, which went into operation in 1914 (originally called “Vorgebirgszentrale”, since 1917 “Goldenberg Plant”) was for a long time the largest coal-fired power plant in Germany. The current Goldenberg power plant in the third generation with process heat extraction for the neighboring industry and for the district heating supply of large new building areas and public facilities in Hürth uses a large double chimney. An old cooling tower was converted into a parking garage. Well-attended flea markets take place here regularly. Right next to it is a listed bunker from the Second World War , a so-called Winkel tower by the Cologne / Duisburg designer Leo Winkel , from which the power plant was controlled in the event of an air raid alarm . With the currently oldest power plant, the mine power plant of the briquette factory Ville / Berrenrath , there are four quite different power plants in Knapsack. At the inauguration of the EBS power plant, the mayor of Hürth, Walther Boecker, described his city as a European energy center of high standing
From 2011, the Knapsack power plant was expanded to include a further power plant unit with an output of 430 megawatts and an efficiency of 60% (construction costs € 350 million) and opened on June 13, 2013. Both units of the gas-fired power plant have been shut down repeatedly in the past few years, because electricity is produced too expensively due to the rise in gas prices and sufficient electricity is available through photovoltaics.
The fourth generation Goldenberg plant with 450 MW was announced by RWE at the end of August 2008 for 2014 (planned construction period: 2010–2014). The plans are currently on hold.
Living space
Knapsack had 4129 inhabitants in 1922 (beginning of the separate censuses for Knapsack) and 3196 in 1961 (census). Due to the high level of air pollution , it was almost completely relocated from 1970 onwards. In 1969 almost 90% of the 187 private homeowners had spoken out in favor of relocating the town and 90% of them in favor of closed relocation to the Pescher Höfe , which is adjacent to the new town center . But this did not happen. Only 20% settled in the Pescher Höfe residential area, 30% in other Hürth districts and 50% even left Hürth. The tenants among the Knapsack residents dispersed to the wind anyway. The churches were demolished in 1976 ( Dankeskirche ) and 1980 ( St. Josef ), the school in 1979. 444 of the company apartments were also demolished. Apart from the street system, only a small, former factory settlement area between Alleestraße and Industriestraße / Grüner Weg remains from the old place, above all the so-called "Oberbeamtenkolonie" (senior civil servant colony) from the 1920s for the leading chemists and engineers in the garden and garden, which has been a listed building since 2005 Dr.-Krauss-Straße, which had to live near the factory because of the on-call and emergency services that were necessary at the time, and the listed former cemetery with a war memorial and a Russian memorial on the mass grave of Russian prisoners of war and forced laborers who died and were killed. Also listed is the after-work house of the former Knapsack-Griesheim AG, now YNCORIS, from 1956 (architect Karl Hell , Cologne), extensively renovated in 2004. In addition to theater performances, congresses and trade fairs, the Hürth clubs also host larger cultural events here.
The rest of the district is now used as an industrial park. The old local streets kept their name, which reminds of the old use. Knapsack is the only district with a church street, a cemetery street and a school street, but no church, cemetery and school. The water tower road does not lead to any water tower either. The Alleestraße (also the former main street, which was not left to the downsized town, was given this name) is not an avenue either. The former avenue trees on the road to the Ville were excavated with the road. In the eastern part it now leads through secondary forest on the abandoned building plots. Since the environmental impact of the structural change in industry has decreased significantly, the remaining residential areas are now being expanded again. The only remaining former company apartments are being restored and privatized. Except for the listed houses in the Dr. Krauss - and Gartenstrasse, this also applies to the newer, much smaller, 14 terraced company apartments on Grüner Weg and the Sieben Zwerge houses on what will become Alleestrasse, which date from 1953 to 57 and 61 (Grüner Weg), respectively. A few residential buildings are still in the Industriestrasse / Nachtigallenhof area.
Club life and church affiliation
The Knapsack local community has merged into the von Alt-Hürth just like the soccer club in the GKSC Hürth, but the Great Carnival Society of 1935 still exists. The solidarity of the Knapsackers with their old place was also evident in 2007 in the carnival motto and the corresponding carnival medal of the Great Knapsackers : Fastelovend fierekammer jot! in Knapsack un at the sugar boat On the medal, the angle tower at the golden mine is shown in front of the industrial backdrop.
As a replacement for the Catholic Church of St. Josef on the now so-called Kirchstrasse in Knapsack, St. Joseph was built in Hermülheim in the new city center of Hürth-Mitte. The Knapsacker resettled to the Pescher Höfe also belong to St. Joseph again.
As a replacement for the Knapsacker Dankeskirche in Kendenich with the Nathan Söderblom Church, which was demolished in 1950/1951 with the help of the industry opposite the factory villas on Dr.-Kraus-Straße, the church for the Alt-Hürth district / Knapsack / Kendenich related. The Knapsacker bell was there for a long time. Since this church was desecrated in mid-2008 , the Protestant Christians now have to go to the Martin Luther King Church in the new center of Hürth.
politics
The place is part of the city district Alt-Hürth / Knapsack. The mayor is Thomas Fund (CDU, from Alt-Hürth). The district is represented on the city council by Gudrun Baer, Björn Burzinski and Frank Rock (CDU all directly elected) and Katja Niewiesch (SPD), all from Alt-Hürth. Alt-Hürth belongs to the district electoral district Alt-Hürth / Knapsack / Kendenich / Fischenich, which is represented by Frank Rock (CDU, directly elected) and Friederike Seydel (Greens) and Martina Thomas (Die Linke) (via the reserve list).
Sights and culture
- After-work house ; The event and congress center in the Knapsack Chemical Park was designed and built in 1956 by the architect Karl Hell . It has supra-local meaning.
Sports
The former factory tennis club Tennis-Club Knapsack (TCK) with its tennis center Hürth-Knapsack (THK) on the site of the former Firmenich brewery on Industriestrasse is now a normal tennis club, but it is supported by local industry. The gymnastics club Eiche Hürth-Knapsack still exists today in 1909 .
nature
The remaining field of the former United Ville mine east of Knapsack is being left to its own devices as a nature reserve. From the western end of Alleestraße you can find a way to the reforested parts of the pit, which are otherwise inaccessible due to their steep slopes, to Bleibtreusee . The former Knapsack cemetery is now a green area and is a listed building.
Web links
literature
- Clemens Klug: Hürth - how it was, how it was , Steimel Verlag, Cologne undated (1962).
- Manfred Faust: History of the City of Hürth , ed. from Heimat und Kulturverein Hürth, Cologne, JP Bachem Verlag, 2009.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The city's brochure for new residents
- ↑ Birgit Lehmann: A signal in the crisis, power plant in Hürth inaugurated in Kölner Stadtanzeiger, Rhein-Erft edition, from March 26, 2009, p. 43
- ↑ Kölner Stadtanzeiger, Rhein-Erft, May 13, 2011, p. 41
- ↑ Britta Havlicek: Opened, but not used , Kölner Stadtanzeiger, Rhein-Erft, from June 14, 2013, p. 29 online since June 13, 2013
- ↑ Klug, pp. 154 and 159
- ↑ Faust, p. 186 f
- ↑ Volker Wirth: Living and Living in one of the Hoechst AG factory settlements Knapsack plant - today's Knapsack Chemical Park , in Hürther Heimat , issue 76 (1997) pp. 98-106
Coordinates: 50 ° 51 ' N , 6 ° 51' E
Alstädten-Burbach | Alt-Huerth | Berrenrath | Efferen | Fischenich | Gleuel | Hermülheim | Kalscheuren | Kendenich | Knapsack | Sielsdorf | Stotzheim