Neby Dortmund (D)

Dortmund

Name origin

meaning disputed, possibly "Throtmanni" (Old Saxon, = "Trutzmänner" i.e. "defiant men") --> Dortmund

First documented mention

882 AD

Population

588,000

Area

280.71 km²

Federal state

Nordrhein-Westfalen

Administrative district (Regierungsbezirk): Arnsberg

District (Kreis): /

Vehicle registration: DO

River: Ruhr, Emscher

The Club Neby is located in Dortmund-Lütgendortmund/Germania.

"So where's the old town, then?", the unsuspecting visitor will wonder as he strides through Dortmund's inner city along the clearly recognisable line of the old Wallring, on and around the Westenhellweg in the heart of downtown - alongside Munich's Kaufingerstraße, Frankfurt am Main's Zeil and Cologne's Schildergasse one of the most frequented shopping streets in Germany. It simply no longer exists. The city with actually 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, had to endure a complete obliteration of its city centre even more thoroughly than other cities. On 12 March 1945 the heaviest conventional air offensive of the entire Second World War against any city in Europe was flown; Dortmund's inner city was smashed so violently that after the war there was debate over whether it might be better to rebuild the city somewhere else entirely. The four historic town churches in the old town, however - among them the Reinoldikirche, named after Saint Reinoldus, the city's patron saint who, according to legend, was said to have been a nephew of Charlemagne - survived miraculously.

Seen in that 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 which was incorporated into the Prussian state in 1815 as the Province of Westphalia with its capital at Münster. Meanwhile it is also, both in terms of area and population, the largest city in the Ruhr region, and ranks far ahead of the other cities in this region in the Zukunftsatlas 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. Known above all for steel (Hoesch), coal (Phoenix) and beer (DAB) - Dortmund has had an established brewing tradition since the Middle Ages - Dortmund is today, after many years of structural change, a centre of the insurance industry and of retail. Dortmund's six institutions of higher education, including the Technische Universität Dortmund, together with 19 other scientific institutions, are attended by over 50,000 students and contribute to the city's profile as a significant hub 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 (Kaiserpfalz). 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 municipal charter, which was confirmed in 1236 by Emperor Friedrich II for the imperial city [burgus] Tremonia - a name still occasionally 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, in the years 1388 to 1389, exposed to attacks and a siege by the troops of the Archbishop of Cologne, the Counts of the Mark, and 20 other cities. The costs of the feud and the subsequent peace settlement, around 60,000 guilders, were so high that it is widely believed 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 became completely indebted, Dortmund sank into insignificance.

With industrialisation in the 19th century, a new gigantic upswing began during the Prussian era. With the opening of the Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn in 1847, the city became an important transport hub, a role it has retained to this day, and it developed into a centre of coal mining and steel processing. A further significant contribution to economic development came in 1899 with 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. New jobs were created mainly in 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 leading industries were developed for the city; Dortmund now ranks among the leading logistics locations in Germany and is a major retail centre, as well as remaining one of Germany's largest locations for plant and machinery construction.

Dortmund's architecture is strongly shaped by post-war and postmodern style. From medieval times, practically only the Adlerturm and its adjoining watchtower, the Steinerne Turm, survive as a remaining section of the historic, more than 800-year-old city wall. Defining buildings in Dortmund today, besides a cluster of mid-rise buildings such as the Dortmunder U, the RWE Tower, the IWO-Hochhaus, the Sparkassen-Hochhaus, the Telekom-Hochhaus, the Harenberg City-Center, the Ellipson and the 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 a city park, the Westfalenpark, opened in 1959 for the Bundesgartenschau, is the venue for the summer music festival Juicy Beats (electro, worldbeat, indie, hip-hop, house, techno, reggae) with more than 50,000 visitors, and is one of several important spots for urban recreation. In keeping with its Westphalian tradition, Dortmund's city area contains numerous former noble residences, including the Hörder Burg, Haus Dellwig, the moated castle Haus Rodenberg and, in particular, Haus Bodelschwingh.

On Dortmund's periphery, along the borders with the Sauerland and Münsterland, lie the extensive woodland 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 let one forget big-city life. One of the most interesting spots and an important local recreation area is also the district of Syburg, with its castle ruins, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Denkmal, an open-air stage, a nature trail on mining history, and of course the Spielcasino Hohensyburg, the highest-turnover casino in Germany, which sits enthroned high above the Hengstey-See and from whose halls one can let one's gaze sweep far across the Ruhr valley 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.