Krengeldants (village)

The company operating the Westphalian tram intended to conclude a contract with the Krengeldanz district for the construction of housing in which it would settle its staff who worked in the Witten-Krengeldanz tram depot. Since the tram staff began to work before the start of public transport, and ended - after, they could not get to work except on foot or by bicycle . In January 1913, the company formally turned to the city of Witten with a request to build a working village near Krengeldants station.

May 14, 1913 Westphalian tram and the city of Witten jointly founded the company "Gartenstadt Crengeldanz GmbH" ^[1] . The city acquired land, including part of the Glasfabrik Müllensiefen glass factory owned by the Dengoff family, and provided land at cost. The financing of the settlement, which included 75 apartments, was undertaken by the Westphalian Housing Development Assistance Association. The construction department of Witten's city building department was selected as the person responsible for planning and execution - for the general planning, drafting of individual houses and the direct construction management, an architect named Banz was appointed responsible for the construction department of the city administration.

After the construction permit was issued on September 1, 1913, it took a little less than five months to coordinate the design of the houses. All 73 apartments had a garden of about 120 m² and a barn for breeding small animals. With one exception, all of the first tenants were employees of the Westphalian Tram. After the Westphalian tram declared bankruptcy on December 12, 1932, Gartenstadt Crengeldanz GmbH was also closed - this happened on June 27, 1934. The apartments became the property of Siedlungsgesellschaft Witten mbH, after which, in 1939, they were transferred to the Wohnungsgenossenschaft Witten-Süd housing cooperative. Thus, obtaining an apartment in Krengeldanz was no longer associated with work in a tram depot.

During World War II, some Krengeldanz buildings were damaged by bombing a local glass factory (today part of the Pilkington Group Limited), but not one of them was completely destroyed. Even a 14-hour air raid on the plant, which took place on March 14, 1945, did not cause serious damage to the village: half-timbered houses could withstand shock waves better than stone buildings. After World War II, the restoration of the village began slowly.

Due to the spread of road transport that followed in the 1950s, the Witten-Krengeldants Tram Depot was closed on July 1, 1969; in 1979, only two public transport workers lived in the village. Since November 24, 1989, the “garden city Krengeldants” has been an architectural monument , although it is not a typical example of the implementation of such concepts at the beginning of the 20th century: there is no communal (public) property on its territory, since it was too small to accommodate such objects.

• Toytoburgia
• Mine " Mont Cenis "

• Peter Petersen: Gartenstadt Crengeldanz. (Diplomarbeit, Technische Universität Berlin, Fachbereich 08 Architektur, 1985). Selbstverlag, Berlin 1985.
• Heinrich Schoppmeyer: Witten. Geschichte von Dorf, Stadt und Vororten. Band 1.VOHM, Witten 2012, ISBN 978-3-00-040266-1 , S. 492.

• Straßenbahnbetriebshof Witten und Gartenstadt Crengeldanz (German) . route-industriekultur.ruhr . . Date of appeal April 14, 2019.