Industrial Heritage Devours its Children

Litterode is a small settlement built in 1933 on the eastern edge of the city of Essen, only a few fields away from neighboring Bochum. Little is known about its origins. Neither the architect nor the client has been documented, and the settlement does not even have an official name. Unlike most workers’ settlements in the Ruhr region, which were named after their builders or the mines they served, it is known simply by the name of the road that runs through it: Litterode. From the end of the Second World War until the 1980s, the settlement served as emergency housing for homeless families. That history has left its mark. In parts of the public and local political sphere,¹ persistent prejudices about the character of its residents continue to circulate.