FKK Ludertreff Dortmund [RTC] (D)

Dortmund

Name origin

meaning disputed, possibly "Throtmanni" (Old Saxon, = "Trutzmänner") --> Dortmund

First documented mention

882 AD

Population

588,000

Area

280.71 km²

Federal state

Nordrhein-Westfalen

Administrative region

Arnsberg

District

/

Vehicle registration

DO

River

Ruhr, Emscher

The club FKK Ludertreff is located in Dortmund-Aplerbeck.

"Where's the old town here, then?" the unsuspecting visitor will wonder as he strolls along and around the Westenhellweg in the heart of the city centre - alongside the Kaufingerstraße in Munich, the Zeil in Frankfurt am Main and the Schildergasse in Köln one of the most frequented shopping streets in Germany - as he walks through Dortmund's city centre within the clearly recognisable course of the Wallring. It no longer exists. The city that is actually the one with the richest tradition among the three great economic and trading centres of the Ruhr region (Dortmund - Essen - Duisburg), once an important imperial and Hanseatic city along the Hellweg, has had to endure a more complete erasure of its city centre than most other cities. On 12 March 1945, the heaviest conventional air offensive against any city in Europe during the entire course of the Second World War was flown; Dortmund's city centre was smashed so massively that after the war there was debate about whether the city should instead be rebuilt at another location entirely. The four historic city churches in the old town - among them the Reinoldikirche, named after Saint Reinoldus, the city's patron saint, who according to legend is said to have been a nephew of Charlemagne - miraculously survived, however.

Seen in this light, the once bombed-out Ruhr metropolis has developed magnificently. It is the largest city in Westphalia, a territory originally ruled by Saxon tribes, which, after their Christianisation in Carolingian times, gave rise around 1180 to the Duchy of Westphalia and Engern, and was incorporated into the Prussian state in 1815 as the Province of Westphalia with its capital Münster. It is now also the largest city in the Ruhr region both in terms of area and population, and ranks well ahead of the other cities in this region in the Zukunftsaltlas Deutschland ranking. Its best-known flagship is the top-flight football club Borussia Dortmund, which for years has been, alongside FC Bayern München, the most successful German football club, but the city has far more to offer than that. Known above all for steel (Hoesch), coal (Phoenix) and beer (DAB) - Dortmund has a brewing tradition established since the Middle Ages - Dortmund, after years of structural change, is today a centre of the insurance industry and retail trade. More than 50,000 students are enrolled at Dortmund's six universities, among them the Technische Universität Dortmund, and a further 19 scientific institutions, contributing to the city's profile as a major centre for science and high technology. The city's landmark is the Dortmunder U-Turm, a high-rise building erected in 1926/1927 as the "fermentation and storage cellar" of the Dortmunder Union Brauerei on the western edge of Dortmund city centre, which today houses, among other things, the Museum Ostwall and the Hartware Medienkunstverein.

Dortmund's beginnings lie in the 10th century, when the settlement developed into an imperial palatinate. The first mention of Dortmund's market rights dates from the year 990. In the 11th century, according to legend, Reinoldus became the city's patron saint. A city wall existed by 1150, and in the middle of the 12th century Konrad III granted Dortmund its city rights, which were confirmed in 1236 by Emperor Friedrich II for the imperial city [burgus] Tremonia - a name that is still sometimes used for the city of Dortmund in Romance-language countries today. In 1293 the city was granted brewing rights, and an unparalleled development of the beer industry within the city began.

In the Great Dortmund Feud, the imperial city of Dortmund found itself, from 1388 to 1389, subjected to attacks and a siege by troops of the Archbishop of Köln, the Margraves of the Mark and 20 other cities. The costs of the feud and the peace settlement, around 60,000 guilders, were so high that it is widely assumed this event triggered Dortmund's temporary decline over the following centuries. At the latest after the Thirty Years' War, in which the city suffered severe damage and was completely in debt, Dortmund sank into insignificance.

With industrialisation in the 19th century, a new gigantic upswing then began in Prussian times. With the opening of the Cöln-Mindener railway in 1847, the city became an important transport hub, which it remains to this day, and developed into a centre of coal mining and steel processing. A further significant contribution to economic development was made in 1899 by the opening of the Dortmund-Ems-Kanal and, with it, the harbour.

Today Dortmund is a city that has undergone a highly praised structural transformation. Between 1960 and 1994, the number of industrial employees fell from 127,000 to 37,000 people. New jobs were created mainly in the field of information processing as well as in banking and insurance. In 1984, close to the university, the Technologiezentrum was opened as one of the first of its kind in Germany. With initiatives such as the Stadtkrone-Ost project or the dortmund-project, new key industries were developed for the city; Dortmund is now among the leading logistics locations in Germany and is a major retail centre, as well as remaining one of the largest locations in Germany for plant and machinery engineering.

Dortmund's architecture is strongly shaped by the style of the post-war and postmodern era. From medieval times, practically only the Adlerturm and its outlying watchtower, the Steinerner Turm, survive as a remaining section of the historic city wall, which is over 800 years old. Defining buildings in Dortmund today, alongside a cluster of mid-rise buildings such as the Dortmunder U, RWE Tower, IWO-Hochhaus, Sparkassen-Hochhaus, Telekom-Hochhaus, Harenberg City-Center, Ellipson and Westfalentower, include the Konzerthaus Dortmund, the Thier-Einkaufsgalerie and, of course, the Westfalenhalle, built in the 1920s, which was for a time the largest hall building in Europe. Important city squares include the Alte Markt, the Friedensplatz, the Hansa-Platz and the Borsig-Platz; as the city park, the Westfalenpark, opened in 1959 for the Bundesgartenschau, is the venue for the Juicy Beats music festival (Electro, Worldbeat, Indie, Hip-Hop, House, Techno, Reggae) held every summer with more than 50,000 visitors, and is one of several important places for urban recreation. In keeping with its Westphalian tradition, Dortmund's city area contains numerous former noble residences, including Hörder Burg, Haus Dellwig, the moated castle Haus Rodenberg and, in particular, Haus Bodelschwingh.

On Dortmund's periphery, at the borders with the Sauerland and Münsterland, lie the extensive wooded areas of Bolmke, Stadtwald Bittermark, Schwerter Wald, Niederhofer Wald, Grävingholz, Kurler Busch, Rahmer Wald and the Wannebachtal. These are excellently accessible via hiking and cycling paths and quickly make you forget big-city life. One of the most interesting spots and an important local recreation area is also the district of Syburg, with castle ruins, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Denkmal, an open-air stage, a nature trail on mining history and, of course, the Spielcasino Hohensyburg, Germany's highest-turnover casino, which sits high above the Hengstey-See and from whose halls you can let your gaze wander far across the Ruhrtal near Hagen.

Among Dortmund's well-known sons and daughters are Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus, Wilhelm Overbeck, Gustav Mallinckrodt, Wilhelm Canaris, Helene Wessel, Rudolf Platte, Arnold Marquis, Dettmar Cramer, Hans Tilkowski, Lothar Emmerich, Siegfried Held, Dieter Pfaff, Dietmar Bär, Yasemin Şamdereli, Annegret Richter, Jörg Thadeusz, Peter Thorwarth, Michael Zorc, Thorsten Fink, Christian Nerlinger, Lars Ricken, Kevin Großkreutz and Marco Reus.