Sutum Bridge

Death rises quietly over the banks

The construction of the Sutum Bridge in 1909 not only marks the safe connection between Gelsenkirchen and Buer: above all, it symbolises the taming of the Emscher. Due to mining and heavy industry, the river had become a deadly danger for people.

Ein Fluss schlängelt sich ruhig durch eine natürlich Landschaft.

The Emscher in its natural state

Before industry came to Schalke, the Emscher was a natural river.

Source: Sammlung Karlheinz Weichelt

Unter einer Brücke, die von einem Pferdegespann überquert wird, fließt ein Fluss. An der Brücke steht ein Haus, ansonsten ist die Natur unberührt.

Connection through bridges

As the Emscher was unpredictable, people started building bridges early on.

Source: Sammlung Karlheinz Weichelt

Ein kleines Boot mit sechs Personen an Bord fährt durch eine überflutete Stadt.

Constant risk of flooding

The Emscher repeatedly overflowed its banks and brought disease to the cities. To prevent this, it was straightened and set in a concrete bed.

Source: Institut für Stadtgeschichte Gelsenkirchen

Eine Luftbildaufnahme zeigt auf der linken Seite die Emscher. Rechts läuft parallel zu ihr der deutlich breitere Rhein-Herne-Kanal.

A new canal

The Rhine-Herne Canal was built between 1906 and 1914. It runs parallel to the Emscher. Goods and merchandise could now be transported by ship.

Source: Institut für Stadtgeschichte Gelsenkirchen

An den Uferhängen der Emscher grast eine Herde Schafe. Im Hintergrund steht ein Fördergerüst einer Zeche.

Industry and idyll

Along the Emscher, rural idyll and industrial backdrop lie very close together.

Source: Institut für Stadtgeschichte Gelsenkirchen

Zwei Familien sitzen mit ihren Kindern in Schwimmkleidung am Ufer des Rhein-Herne-Kanals um einen Campingtisch.

Leisure time by the canal

The Rhine-Herne Canal was and still is a popular destination on hot summer days. This is where people escape the heat in the streets.

Source: Institut für Stadtgeschichte Gelsenkirchen

Will they make it to Consolidation Colliery 1/6 in time for their shift? Or will the stretch of land between Schalke and the village of Buer be under water again? In 1863 - the year the Consolidation Colliery was founded - the Emscher was an unpredictable river. People have known this before the industrialist Friedrich Grillo was active in Schalke. Even in the Middle Ages, it repeatedly burst its banks and buried the meadows around the aristocratic residence of House Goor in mud. The cattle of the local farmers drowned and their fields were flooded for days. But Grillo is a businessman. He does not like incalculable risks. He has to be able to rely on his workers coming to Schalke on time. Therefore, he builds König-Wilhelm-Straße (today's Kurt-Schumacher-Straße) and bridges over the arms of the Emscher. Now people and vehicles can travel safely from one bank to the other. This problem is solved. But the growing industry on the banks of the Emscher soon causes new, deadly problems.

Industry, which gradually conquered the northern Ruhr area, used the Emscher as its sewer. Between Dortmund and Duisburg, companies channelled their dirt and waste into the river. The clear water turned into a viscous, stinking sludge. Added to this was the wastewater from the housing estates, discharged via many smaller rivers connecting the residential areas with the Emscher. In addition, the ground around the Emscher began to sink as a result of mining. An incredible amount of slurry collected in these sinkholes, which regularly flooded the streets of the towns. With the dirty water came pathogens that triggered epidemics. In 1901, 3,200 people in Gelsenkirchen were infected with typhus after one such flood. 350 died from the infection. The situation caused by the mining damage became so dramatic that the Emscher threatened to drown the entire Ruhr Area. To prevent this, the Emschergenossenschaft was founded in 1899. It tamed the river by regulating its course with a concrete bed.

Die begradigte Emscher läuft unter der Sutumer Brücke her. Links und rechts ist sie von Deichböschungen eingefasst.

Tamed river

Even today, the Emscher flows dead straight under the Sutum Bridge. The last major flood in Gelsenkirchen was in 1946.

Source: Olivier Kruschinski

Die Sutumer Brücke liegt im Sonnenlicht.

The old north-south connection across the Emscher

The bridge still bears its original riveted arches today. 100 years after its original construction, the Sutum Bridge was restored in 2008. The tram tracks that were no longer needed were also removed.

Source: mxr storytelling gmbh

Von der kleinen Sutumer Brücker aus sieht man im Hintergrund die vierspurige Brücke der Kurt-Schumacher-Straße.

In the shadow of its successor

Today, the Sutum Bridge is hardly used for traffic. Right next to it, the four-lane Kurt-Schumacher-Strasse crosses the Emscher and Rhine-Herne Canal.

Source: mxr storytelling gmbh

Connecting Buer to Schalke and damming up the watercourse: both developments are clearly recognisable on the Sutum Bridge, under which the dead straight Emscher flows leisurely today. A few years after construction of the bridge began in 1908, the Rhine-Herne Canal was opened just a few hundred metres away. In the coming years, the Emscher is to be freed from its concrete corset. The renaturalisation is intended to restore it to the way it was before coal mining and industry came to the Ruhr region: A meandering river with clear water teeming with fish. But the plans don't end there: Gelsenkirchen is dreaming of its own Emscher beach where people can lie in the sun.