Car Hire Gelsenkirchen-Buer - Mini guide to Gelsenkirchen-Buer

Gelsenkirchen is a city located in the North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany and is situated in the northern part of the Ruhr area. Before the 19th century Gelsenkirchen was a small village, but the Industrial Revolution led to the growth of Gelsenkirchen. When the mining of coal began in 1840 the population in the city began to rise and in the early 20th century it became the most important coal mining town in Europe.

Gelsenkirchen was called “the city of a thousand fires” because of the flares of mine gasses being burned in the night. In 1928 the town merged with the city of Buer and Horst and it was renamed Gelsenkirchen-Buer, it was renamed again in 1930 and became Gelsenkirchen. It was an important area for coal mining and oil refining during the Nazi era and as a result it became a target for bombing raids by the Allied Forces during World War II. Gelsenkirchen has many attractive sites. Gelsenkirchen’s most important historical building is the Horst Castle, which is a venue for conferences and events as well as housing the local government offices. Tourists can also visit the first church in the town, the ecclesia Buron (“church at Buer”).

The Emscher River is a small river and tributary of the Rhine that flows through the Ruhr area in North Rhine-Westphalia. Another attractive place to visit is the city forest of Buer which is located in the Buer region of the city of Gelsenkirchen. Tourists to the city will find many of the old air-raid shelters that were used to protect the civilian population during World War II. In Germany these took the form of high-rise bunkers or Hochbunkers. They are unique to Germany and were built above ground rather than below it. They took many forms but all consisted of large concrete blocks. Some of the official buildings in the city such as the Hans-Sachs-Haus and the Buer town hall still have their air-raid shelters in their original form.

The synagogue in Gelsenkirchen is another tourist attraction. The original synagogue was burnt down during the anti-Jewish riots of Kristallnacht. Work on the new synagogue was started in 2004 and it was officially opened in February 2005. The Gelsenberg Lager was a subcamp of the concentration camp KZ Buchenwald. Approximately 2,000 Hungarian Jewish women were held in the camp and assigned the task of clearing rubble from the area of the Gelsenberg Benzin AG. The Gelsenzentrum contains historical documents associated with the camp.

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