Very recently, a small book came into our home. It is entitled " August Sander ", and describes a famous twentieth century German photographer. The book develops the fact that he was born in the Siegen area, and lived there for the first twenty years of his life. The book talks a bit about the events around Siegen, especially before the time of Sander, who lived from 1876 to 1964.
The type of society to be found around Siegen was different. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, the region was independent. It was a community of steelworkers, miners, and others who worked in a cooperative way. Two hundred years earlier, say in the 1600’s, the ruler had been William of Orange. He had to sell the hunting, fishing, forestry, and mining rights because of financial problems. (I believe because of work in achieving/preserving the independence of the Netherlands from Spain.) The local residents bought the mining and forestry rights. Of these two, the forestry rights were the more important, because of the great need for wood to make charcoal. With charcoal, they made iron and steel.
(Recently, we saw some of this reflected in the Haubergs which almost every head of household in Trupbach owned. This was a major asset of the families. These Haubergs were a community effort, requiring close cooperation. This cooperation extended to other areas as well.) The region was producing wealth, and it was being shared by the inhabitants. The miners were part owners, or profit sharers, in the system. They were also part-time farmers. (Apparently, at Trupbach itself, the citizens engaged in two activities, the production of wood and farming. A few of them, for example, Johann Jacob Richter, are mentioned as engaged in the metal working trades.)
In the middle of the 1800’s, some of the best steel in Germany, but of a limited quantity, was made in the Siegen area. The mass production of steel took place in the Ruhr, where coke was used in place of charcoal. When the railroads came into existence, it became easier to get coal into the Siegen area. The big companies flooded into the area and bought as much land and mineral rights as they could from the people.
It was during the 1800’s that the underground mines beneath Trupbach were developed. The combination of capital and technology made possible what had not been done before. So for a while, Trupbach became a mining town with a large work force engaged in the mining. The view of Trupbach today is suburbia and farming.
Other towns in the area had more mining and smelting before 1800 than Trupbach did. Their ore was more accessible. Eisern and Eisenfeld, neighboring villages in a valley just south of Siegen, had iron mines. Müsen to the north had a large iron mine.
Just because a family was from one of these towns, it is not an indication that its members were miners or iron processors. The Hofmanns from Eisern seem to be carpenters. Though mining and iron working are mentioned often for the region, the economy was still very mixed.
(13 Feb 01)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.