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People’s Council Kapitelberg

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[transcript]

In 1876 the Stoppenberg Town Hall was built on the corner of Ernestinenstrasse and Schwanhildenstrasse, as a representative administrative building. Prior to the Ruhr uprising of 1920, the administration consisted solely of the mayor and his secretary. But in the Ruhr Republic, the number of people discussing politics in the “People’s Council House Kapitelberg” multiplied. A few years later the architecture changed as well, to accommodate the new influx of workers who sought an autonomous existence in the mining industry. The first workers’ councils solemnly decided to rename Stoppenberg Town Hall the “People’s Council House Kapitelberg”, in order to commemorate their self-determined history. Due to a growing need for space, in 1927 the forecourt was converted into an “agora”, where all residents could attend the general council meetings. In 1942 and again in 1974 the seating was expanded, and in 2021 it was supplemented by distance-communication devices. The People’s Council House Kapitelberg has been the venue for the cosmopolitan Solicitude Festival every five years, as part of its membership of the “Solicitude” delegate conference. The projections on the smoke walls depict the current solicitude goals, which are realized in a rotating cycle. In the Council Hall on the second floor of the People’s Council House, now restored, the first council decided to remove the portraits, hanging instead stone tables engraved with the names of each individual who wished to be a citizen. Since 1927 a list of residents has thus hung in the council hall, where today the permanent council of the Republic Ruhr District VI represents the boroughs Katernberg, Stoppenberg, and Schonnebeck.

Photo: Essen picture archive

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