Coal, Steel, Beer and Football: Notes from Dortmund

Or: Adventures in the Ruhr

In the Phoenix-West area of Dortmund yesterday.

If I said the word “Dortmund” to you, what would spring to mind? For me, it would probably be: football, beer, steel and coal. In that order. Until this week, however, I had no mental image of Dortmund’s cityscape in my mind at all. Okay, this visit would be my first, but I’ve never been to San Francisco or Tokyo or Sydney either, yet I have some notion of what they look like. As I thought of Dortmund when I was on my way here on Monday, I drew a blank.

That’s strange for a number of reasons. I mean, Dortmund isn’t exactly insignificant. It’s the largest city of the Ruhr region in western Germany, which is in turn one of the largest urban areas in Europe and a former industrial powerhouse so central to German history that I write about it often in contexts ranging from the Kingdom of Prussia all the way to West Germany’s “economic miracle” after the Second World War. So why was there a white spot on my mental map of Germany where Dortmund should be?

I was determined to find that out and change it this week. I was in Dortmund with a radio producer to make a BBC documentary on how deindustrialisation has changed the city and how the city is responding to this. It’s been a fascinating journey in which I finally formed a view on Dortmund only to have it dispelled immediately. Let me take you with me on a journey deep into Germany’s old industrial heart.