Segeroth

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The Segeroth was the 19th to mid-20th century from the end of an industrial and working-class neighborhood in the city of Essen , often as Wilder North called. It was northwest of the city ​​center between Altendorf , Bochold and Altenessen . In its place is now part of the north quarter with the campus of the University of Essen .

history

With the boom in coal mining, especially the sinking of the Victoria Mathias colliery in this area in 1840, and later also due to the enormous expansion of the Kruppwerke , the population of Essen rose sharply due to the immigration of workers, and with it the demand for cheap housing. This is how the working-class district of Segeroth came into being within a few years where cattle pastures and fields were previously located. Initially from Central Germany and soon mainly from the east of the German Reich, the settlement received an influx of the different ethnic groups living there, including Eastern European Jews and Roma . The food at that time, which was still characterized by small towns, was overwhelmed by this onslaught. Since the 1870s, an ethnically diverse quarter with "workers' settlements, dormitories and lodging houses, tenement houses, industrial plants, railway lines and cemeteries" has emerged in a mixed situation and unplanned urban development. Above all the industrialists Alfred Krupp and his son Friedrich Alfred Krupp , but also the Essen building contractor Piekenbrock, were the builders of the mostly primitive tenements with a high population density.

While 8,000 people lived in Segeroth in 1886, by 1930 there were more than 40,000 people. In addition to social fringe groups, Krupp skilled workers as well as petty bourgeois and medium-sized merchants and small businesses lived here.

The place was limited in the west by the Kruppschen Gussstahlfabrik , in the north by its cemetery and the municipal gas station, the mechanical engineering union and the power station, in the east by the Victoria Mathias colliery, and in the south by the railway line with the Essen-Nord station. Later, south of the railway line with the wholesale market, a barrier to Essen city center was formed. The development was kept within narrow limits and could not expand or mix with other parts of the city. Segeroth offered the advantage of having a job close by, cheap accommodation and avoiding disputes with the local population, as one was among oneself here . Even if the rent was cheap, some tenants had to pay it by taking in bed and boarders. The majority of immigrants were single men, which consequently favored prostitution in the neighborhood. With the prevailing westerly wind, soot and dust from the nearby cast steel factory came straight into the quarter.

In Segeroth there was the Catholic parish of St. Marien with an attached monastery. The Marienkirche was rebuilt after the Second World War in 1957/1959 by Fritz Schaller , the last service taking place on February 10, 2008.

On November 1, 1868, the freight railway line from Altenessen station to the now defunct Essen-Segeroth freight station (roughly on the site of today's university car park) opened, not to be confused with the Essen-Nord freight station to the south, which opened on the same year Route to Bergeborbeck lies.

At the old Segeroth cemetery , today's Segeroth-Park, miners from the mining accident of October 20, 1921, were buried at the Victoria Mathias colliery . Essen's largest Jewish cemetery is located in the northeastern part of the site. Today it is a listed building. The Segeroth was badly damaged by the heavy bombing of the war in March 1943 and was only rebuilt sporadically after the war. After the end of the war, the cast steel factory was destroyed and dismantled, the mine gradually closed, the wholesale market demolished and the train stations closed. Most of the residential buildings then disappeared in the 1960s, the last remains in 1972 when construction began on the university.

politics

In Segeroth, the socialist labor movement was the dominant political force. It remained so until the National Socialists came to power . During the 1920s, the quarter became a stronghold of the KPD . Even after its rise to a mass party at the beginning of the 1930s, the NSDAP remained the second strongest party here. There were militant clashes between the political camps.

After the National Socialists came to power, the city administration began the political, racial and sanitary "cleansing" of the district. In 1937, the specially established city redevelopment office presented a concept under the aspects of fitting into the "national community", performance behavior and "racial value", which differentiated between three population groups with a different fate:

  • Those “who remained healthy in spite of the anti-social environment, and therefore particularly immune to urban corruption” should continue to live in Segeroth, which would be redeveloped through demolition and new construction.
  • Some of the families should be able to prove themselves in "peripheral settlements", be evacuated and "placed" in emergency shelters.
  • The “not able to improve and the racially inferior” are to be “segregated or exterminated”. This was aimed primarily at the "worst part of Segeroth", the Roma quarter at Schlenhof. Some of these Roma belonged to the KPD.

Of these, only the second and third projects were implemented. There was no structural renovation, but it was partially demolished.

In 1938 about a hundred Roma were brought "elsewhere to a closed camp". It can be assumed that this meant the deportations to the concentration camps in the course of the action against Reich . Some families were deported to the General Government in May 1940 . In March 1943 those who had been spared were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau . Few survived. Between October 27, 1941 and September 9, 1943, nine transports took place from Segeroth train station and Essen central train station , bringing Jews from Essen to extermination camps in Eastern Europe.

Current situation

Nothing is left of industrial plants or old residential areas. Only the prostitutes have been given a domicile in Stahlstrasse where the Nordhof workers' colony had previously been located since 1873 . The University of Duisburg-Essen occupies the largest place in Segeroth. In addition, some post-war residential areas close to the city center have been created. Further renovation and redesign plans, also on an ecological level, are being discussed. Today most of the site belongs to the Nordviertel district .

The 13 hectare site of the former Essen-Nord freight yard and the former wholesale market belong to the Westviertel today . It will be converted into the university district of Grüne Mitte Essen , a residential and work quarter with a park. This 560 meter long park between Segerothstrasse and Rheinischer Platz was officially opened on July 2nd, 2010. Condominiums and rental apartments as well as smaller office buildings have been under construction since mid-2011. The task of the district should then be to finally abolish the decades-long division between the city center and the northern district.

Remarks

  1. ^ Michael Zimmermann, Public as Closed Space. Gypsies in the Ruhr area 1900 to 1945, in: Forum Industrial Monument Preservation and History Culture, 2/2005, pp. 43–48, here: p. 49.
  2. ↑ Press release from the Catholic City Church in Essen
  3. ^ Michael Zimmermann, Public as Closed Space. Gypsies in the Ruhr area 1900 to 1945, in: Forum Industrial Monument Preservation and History Culture, 2/2005, pp. 43–48, here: pp. 49f.
  4. ^ Commemorative plaque of the city of Essen in front of the north side of the Essen main train station
  5. ↑ The park for the Essen university district is ready. In: DerWesten.de. July 6, 2010, accessed June 30, 2015 .

literature

Coordinates: 51 ° 28 ′ 14 ″  N , 7 ° 0 ′ 53 ″  E