Germany on Friday eventually splits from coal, has new project

When “Prosper ) Hainel” closes on Friday, it will be in the hands of federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to drop “the death bomber of the coal mining industry that was once the backbone of postwar Germany.

But as the 200-year-old coal industry in Germany is coming to an end, the promise of its transformation, which took place decades ago, is finally taking shape, Koha Ditore writes today.

As close to half a million people once worked in the coal and iron industry, the slow process of deindustrisation has caused great unemployment and poverty around mining cities in western Germany. This is where the culture and tourism industry have made their steps.

When Angela Merkel had declared in 2007 that the coal industry would be closed in 2018, the race was to create a cultural transformation that was in Ruhr in the early years of dealt with by artists using abandoned industrial spaces.