• Menu 
• Route actual 
• Anchor points 
  • The Zollverein pit 
  • Hall of the Century Bochum 
  • German Mining Museum 
  • The Recklinghausen Electricity Museum 
  • The Chemical Industry Estate Marl 
  • The Old Henrichenburg shiplift 
  • The Zollern II/IV colliery in Dortmund 
  • DASA 
  • The Hansa Coking Plant 
  • Maximilianpark 
  • The Linden Brewery 
  • Hohenhof 
  • The LWL Open-Air Museum in Hagen 
  • The Nightingale Mine 
  • Henrichshütte 
  • Railway Museum Bochum-Dahlhausen 
  • Villa Hügel 
  • The Aquarius Water Museum 
  • Duisburg Inner Harbour 
  • The German Inland Waterways Museum 
  • The North Duisburg Landscape Park 
  • The LVR Industrial Museum Oberhausen 
  • The Oberhausen Gasometer 
  • The Nordsternpark 
• Panorama Points 
• Worker's Settlement 
• Theme trails 
• Visitor Centre 

• Adventure for kids
• Route für handicapped people
• Facts & Backgrounds

• Downloads
• Newsletter

     | 1/3 |

The Zollverein pit

It was no accident that Franz Haniel’s search for suitable coal fields to cover the demand for coke from his iron and steel plants ended for a time in the Essen suburb of Katernberg. He not only found coal streaks there, but the nearby Cologne to Minden railway line guaranteed him long-distance transport facilities. In 1847 Haniel began work on sinking shaft 1 of the Zollverein colliery. It was named after the 1835 agreement to remove all internal customs tariffs between the individual German states. Regular mining began here in 1852.

The strong demand for coal from the iron and steel industry soon led to a powerful increase in output. But mining in the coalfields southeast of Zollverein shafts 1 and 2 did not appear to promise many returns. For this reason mining began at shaft 3 to the east of the coalfield in 1882 and in 1893 work began on shaft 4, north of the original pit. Shaft 11 went into operation on the same site in 1928: here the coal was further processed in the colliery’s own coal washing plant and coking plant. In 1897 mining began at shaft 6. This particular shaft did not have its own washing plant and the coal had to be transported over a cable bridge to shafts 1 and 2.

Around the turn of the century more than 5000 workers were employed at Zollverein, and around 1900 there are already 30.000 people living in the three local suburbs. Indeed the suburb of Stoppenberg was the largest in Prussia.

In 1932 shaft 12 went into operation. This was now the central shaft in the whole plant and could boast of imposing forms, functions and dimensions. The coal from the remaining fields at Zollverein was sent below ground to shaft 12 where it was taken to the surface for further processing in a fully mechanised manner. The opening of shaft 12 spelled the beginning of the end for all the remaining shafts at Zollverein. From now on the old plants, such as existed, were now used merely to take men and materials underground, or for ventilation.

| 1/3 |