Talk:Ruhr Area
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles related to Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please join the project and help with our open tasks. | |
| Start | This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.) |
|
Admitted. The photo is far worse than I thought. As soon as there is good weather again I'll go and make decent photos.
Contents |
[edit] Germn point of view
It seems to me that the part of the history section concerning the French occupation is told from a German point of view. "French forces occupied the Ruhr area as a means of reprisal after Germany proved incapable of fulfilling excessive reparation payments". Its presented as a fact that they were excessive. But this is an opinion. The French would probably call them insufficient. If someone could change the wording, that would be great. In the meantime Im just adding quotation marks.
- Actually, the payments were seen as excessive not only by the Germans, but by most neutral observers. Today there is little doubt among historians (German, British and French alike) that the reparation payments WERE excessive for the simple fact that Germany could not pay them without completely disrupting its finances. See the article on the Weimar Republic. Even French leaders of the time were doubtful about whether high reparation demands would do France's wish for a lasting peace any good. French Marshall Foch, in a display of tremendous foresight, commented on the issue by saying that these (the Versailles) regulations wouldn't bring peace, but merely an armistice for 20 years.
[edit] Population of the Ruhr Area
There are only some 5.31 million inhabitants in the area not 9 million
- 5.31 million seems impossible to me since North Rhine-Westphalia has over 18 million inhabitants and it's hard to believe that less than one third of them live in the Ruhr Area. But the German article says 5.3 million too, go figure! Maybe it depends on which regions count as parts of the Ruhr Area and which don't.
[edit] City "Ruhrstadt"
in the text is mentioned that the Ruhr Area is often ment to be one city. It's true that it's not but there's a dicussion in politics about creating a single city "Ruhrstadt". Other ideas are to integrate cities like Mülheim to Duisburg or sth. like that. It would be good if someone could put this in here. :)
- There have been lots of integrations of minor communities into major towns in the second half of the 20th century, but integrating two cities is unlikely to happen because town councils won't make decisions which might cost their own jobs. It's also unpopular among citizens. (Financially it would be a good idea, though, because almost all Ruhr Area towns and cities are in a desperate financial situation (heavily indebted).
[edit] Popular name "Ruhrpott"
I added the information on the very top of the page about "Kohlenpott" because my German teacher is from Bochum and told us in class that's the region's popular name. It means literally "coal pot" because of all the coal mining operations that used to take place in the area. Da nuke 07:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
- Well, I'm from Bochum as well and the term Pott actually derives from "Pütt", which is German miner's slang for "mine", related with the English expression "pit". It does not derive from the word Pott (pot). The Ruhrgebiet is usually referred to by us locals as Pott, Ruhrpott, or sometimes "[Das] Revier". (Revier is another mining term derivate, s. article). The term Kohlenpott is known, but much less frequently used. (It's probably too long! :))
[edit] history
Dortmund for example was a reichsfreie town. It also was a Hanse town. That's why it's wrong to say before the Industrial Revolution the Ruhrarea would have been "uninteresting".
[edit] Good, but needs work
"In the 19th century the Ruhr area pulled up to 500,000 Poles from East Prussia and Silesia due to the event referred to as Ostflucht. Almost all of their descendants today speak German only and consider themselves Germans, with only their Polish family names remaining as a sign of their past."
That could be inaccurate in two ways. First of all, <q> "Almost all of their descendants today speak German only" <q> is, IMHO, kind of incorrect. Can you find ANY Germans of Polish descent in Ruhrgebiet who don't speak German as their mother tongue? I don't think so... thus, "almost all" might need some work ;)
Secondly, it should be mentioned that out of those 500,000 people (or more?), probably a majority returned to Poland after 1918. Both my grandparents returned as children after 1918, so I don't really know what the scale of the migration was, but I assume it wasn't minor.
Anyone with reliable data on this topic here?
Regards, LMB 20:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if I'm talking through my hat, but as far as I know the "Ruhrgebiet" is known as the Ruhr, Ruhr Basin or Ruhr Valley in English and not as "Ruhr Area" - that is too literal a translation of the German "Ruhrgebiet". Perhaps someone else knows better.Lazylad 10:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
