Coal, Transport, and Industrial Development: The Impact of Coal Mining in Lower Silesia

Abstract

If you are visiting Lower Silesia today, you can still find relics of mining, like the shaft towers of the former mining area to the south of Wroclaw. The smell of domestic coal is still present in the air and harks back to a time when the mining industry was the most impor-tant employer and the leading sector for economic growth in the region around Waldenburg. Coal was the most important resource of Lower Silesia, as well as for European industrialization. The former mining sites are hidden in the hilly landscapes in an environment that now seems more agricultural than industrial. Small streets criss-crossing this area connect the small settlements around Waldenburg. Not until you get closer do you find the old mining sites, where dilapidated shaft towers are a reminder of former workplaces and bear witness to the decline of the local mining industry today. It seems that nothing has taken its place. With the decline of this sector the region lost its most important industry, its most important employer and in the end the symbol of its identity. During industrialization, coal had become the core of this region as well as the most important energy source of industrial develop-ment, but when this driving force of development dried up in the 20th century, this region lost its economic base and faded into oblivion.