Qualla: Hürth

Hürth: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HOWI, CC BY 3.0. Michael Schumacher was born in Hürth in 1969. Six years later, his brother Ralf followed. Between them the brothers would win seven Formula One drivers' championships, take ninety-one and six grand prix victories respectively, and be talked about for the rest of their lives. They both came from the same suburb of Cologne, a town of thirteen formerly independent villages stitched together in 1930 around a constellation of brown-coal mines and Roman aqueduct remnants. Hürth is the kind of place that is famous for who left it. It is also famous, quietly, for what stayed: a Roman water system still buried under the streets, a town hall that nearly belonged to Cologne, and Tower 93 of Facility 4101, a 75-meter electricity pylon that for thirty-three years had a public observation deck on it.

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Image: HOWI | CC BY 3.0

Hürth: Thirteen Villages and a Map

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HOWI, CC BY 3.0. Until 1930, Hürth was scattered. Berrenrath had been mentioned in records as far back as 922; Sielsdorf and Gleuel in 898; Hermülheim in 943; Kendenich in 941. Then on April 1 of that year, six rural communities were stitched together into one country community called Hürth. Konr...

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Image: HOWI | CC BY 3.0

Hürth: Knapsack and the Brown Coal

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alfredte, CC BY-SA 3.0. Knapsack first appears in the historical record in 1566 and stayed small until 1900. Then industry arrived: Knapsack-Griesheim AG was established in 1906 (it would later become Hoechst AG), and the Goldenberg-Werk brown-coal power plant followed in 1913. The Rhenish lignite belt ...

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Image: Alfredte | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hürth: The Kart Track at Kerpen

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HOWI, CC BY 3.0. Just west of Hürth, in neighboring Kerpen, sits a karting circuit that has trained more world-class drivers than any other in Germany. Michael and Ralf Schumacher started there as boys; their father Rolf managed the track. The Schumachers were not the only Formula One drivers Hür...

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Image: HOWI | CC BY 3.0

Hürth: The Tower with a View

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mabol!, CC BY-SA 3.0. Tower 93 of Facility 4101 is an electricity pylon. It carries four 380-kilovolt circuits on a steel lattice that rises 74.84 meters above the woods north of Bleibtreusee. In 1977, two years after it was built, someone installed a covered observation deck twenty-seven meters up, a...

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Image: Mabol! | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hürth: Roman Water, Modern Television

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HOWI, CC BY 3.0. Underneath all of this runs the Eifel Aqueduct, the Roman engineering work that brought drinking water from the Eifel hills to ancient Cologne. Sections of the aqueduct still survive in the Hürth subsoil, alongside springs and streams the Romans tapped before they built the bigge...

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Image: HOWI | CC BY 3.0