examples – 14 – Zeitgeist and Milieu in the steelworkers city Rombas

Zeitgeist and Milieu in the steelworkers city Rombas – 

Born in 1960 in the Federal Republic of Germany, I think in terms of the categories that totalitarian systems gave rise to in the 20th century. When I observe family dynamics, I ask myself what background led people to act in certain ways. But then one quickly realizes that one is dealing with historical periods that lie much further back in time. And one realizes: it’s about mentalities, the spirit of the times, societies in transition—beyond or entangled with the politics of great powers—in which this region stood like no other in Western Europe. Europe’s fate was decided in France.

@J.J. Sitek – Rombas in May/June 1936 – Workers’ strike at Gate 2, Moulin Neuf, Rombas

In the 1930s, some 6,000 workers were employed at the Rombach Steelworks alone. With death always in their sights, the workers cherished the simple, good life. They looked out for one another. This was true for the miners in the tunnels, for the steelworkers at the blast furnaces, and it was true for the railroad workers on both sides of the Rhine.

The Rombacher Steelworks / l’Usine Rombas—founded in 1888 by Carl Später—for iron ore extraction and processing. The pig iron, cast iron, and steel from the steelworks of Lorraine were exported all over the world by rail and ship. “Generally speaking, the factory workers were proud of their work, and despite the hard labor, they wouldn’t have traded their jobs—it was a different era; there was a sense of pride in belonging to a guild,” Jean Larché, a former steelworker, told me in 2019. In the 1990s, steel production ceased throughout the region.