Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

🇩🇪 Hagen is a city in Germany. The municipality is located in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the south eastern edge of the Ruhr area, 15 km south of Dortmund, where the rivers Lenne and Volme meet the river Ruhr. The city is home to the FernUniversität Hagen, which is the only state-funded distance education university in Germany. Counting more than 67,000 students, it is the largest university in Germany.

History Hagen was first mentioned around the year 1200, and is presumed to have been the name of a farm at the confluence of the Volme and the Ennepe rivers. After the conquest of Burg Volmarstein  in 1324, Hagen passed to the County of Mark. In 1614 it was awarded to the Margraviate of Brandenburg, according to the Treaty of Xanten. In 1701 it became part of the Kingdom of Prussia.

After the defeat of Prussia in the Fourth Coalition, Hagen was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Berg from 1807–13. In 1815 it became part of the new Prussian Province of Westphalia.

The city developed more rapidly in the 19th century, stimulated by industrialization: the mining of coal and the production of steel in the Ruhr Area. In reaction to the Kapp Putsch in March 1920, when rightists tried to overthrow the elected government and restore the monarchy, tens of thousands of leftist workers in the Ruhr Valley, Germany's most important industrial area, rose up in protest. They were known as the Red Ruhr Army.

Thousands of workers went on strike and fought during the Ruhr Uprising, 13 March – 2 April 1920. Government and paramilitary forces were ordered against the workers, suppressing the uprising, and killing an estimated 1,000 workers. A memorial to the uprising was installed in Hagen.

By 1928, Hagen had developed into a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants.

During World War II, Hagen was bombed repeatedly, by both the Royal Air Force and the United States Eighth Air Force. On the night of 1 October 1943, 243 Lancasters and 8 Mosquitoes from the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command attacked the city. According to the Bomber Command Campaign Diary, "This raid was a complete success achieved on a completely cloud-covered target of small size, with only a moderate bomber effort and at trifling cost". Hagen sustained severe damage from that raid, and hundreds of civilians were killed.

After World War II, the city was included in the new state of North Rhine-Westphalia in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, also known as West Germany).

Recent discoveries In August 2021, discovery of a cache of Nazi artifacts from a house was announced. A history teacher revealed a painted portrait of Adolf Hitler and medals decorated with eagles and swastikas, a newspaper from 1945, a pistol, gas masks, brass knuckles, and stacks of documents. It is also found out that the house once served as the headquarters of the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt.

Economy Owing to the extensive use of water power along the rivers Ruhr, Lenne, Volme and Ennepe, metal processing played an important role in the region of Hagen in and even before the 15th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries, textile and steel industries, as well as paper production were developed here.

In the early 21st century, Hagen is the home of the Suedwestfaelische Industrie- und Handelskammer, as well as Sparkasse Hagen, the local municipal savings bank.

The city also exports a wide variety of breads, most notably Hagenschmagenbrot, a traditional dark bread.

Education One of the five branches of South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences is located in the city (also: Fachhochschule Südwestfalen (FH SWF)), which offers various engineering programmes. This institution was founded in the city in 1824.

Attractions Hagen is home to the LWL-Freilichtmuseum Hagen, or Hagen Westphalian Open-Air Museum, a collection of historic industrial facilities. Trades such as printing, brewing, smithing, milling, and many others are represented, not only with static displays, but as living, working operations that visitors may in some cases participate in. It is located near the Hagen community of Eilpe.

The Historisches Centrum Hagen includes the city museum and Werdringen castle. In the Blätterhöhle cave in Hagen, the oldest fossils of modern people in Westphalia and the Ruhr were found. Some date to the early Mesolithic, 10,700 years B.C.E. It seems that the descendants of Mesolithic people in this area maintained a foraging lifestyle for more than 2000 years after the arrival of farming societies.

Transport The Autobahnen A1, A45 and A46 pass by Hagen.

Hagen has been an important rail junction for the south-eastern Ruhr valley since the first rail line opened in 1848. The marshalling yard of Hagen-Vorhalle is among Germany's largest, and the central station offers connections to the ICE network of Deutsche Bahn as well as to local and S-Bahn services. Since December 2005, Hagen has also been the starting point for a service into Essen, the Ruhr-Lenne-Express, operated by Abellio Deutschland. Since 2022, it has been operated by DB Regio.

Local traffic is handled by Hagener Straßenbahn (Hagen Tramways), which, despite its name, offers only bus services, as the last tramway route in Hagen was abandoned in May 1976. All in all there is a large-scale network of 36 bus lines in Hagen. All local rail and bus services operate under the transport association VRR.

Sport The German Basketball Federation (DBB) is based in Hagen.

Sport clubs in Hagen: • TSV Hagen 1860 - largest club (multiple fistball champions) • SSV Hagen (1974 basketball champions), later known as Brandt Hagen • SSV Hagen, a sport club for football, cycling, jiu-jitsu, weightlifting and jazzdance. The football team plays its home matches in the Ischelandstadion. • Phoenix Hagen, Basketball Bundesliga - ENERVIE Arena im Sportpark Ischeland • Hasper SV • Hohenlimburger SV (multiple women water polo champions)

Hagen is also famous of its annual equestrian show 'Horses & Dreams' in April at Hof Kasselmann. It is one of the greatest equestrian shows in Germany and abroad. In 2005 they were the host of the European Dressage Championships after Moscow withdrew. In 2021 Hagen is again host of the 2021 European Dressage Championships for seniors and U25.