Fighting for the Heart of the SPD

The furnaces may have been extinguished and most of the coal mines shut down, but the Ruhr Basin in western Germany is still undeniably a working class region. Although workers gritty and smudged with coal dust are few and far between, the area’s industrial past continues to shape its people and landscape to this day.

In the postwar years, coal mining and steel manufacture were integral to Germany's economic recovery. In the densely populated Ruhr Basin, the heavy industry meant an almost certain guarantee for employment and economic prosperity. From all around Germany and Europe, workers came to the coal mines and steel mills of the "Ruhrpott" in hopes of making a living. And for decades the region flourished. But then the economy re-oriented itself, coal became less important for the country's progress; and a steady decline set in as companies folded, mines closed and the industry fell into a recession. Hundreds of thousands of workers were laid off.

For the last two decades, the region has worked to change itself structurally, to wean itself of its dependence on coal and attract new industries. However, the efforts have been without major success. In Gelsenkirchen, in the heart of the Ruhr Basin, one in every four people is unemployed today. Pockmarked by abandoned mines and industrial ruins, the conglomeration of cities is one of the poorest in western Germany.

Just as coal and steel were integrally connected to everyday life in the past, it was practically a law of nature that the Social Democrats (SPD) called the shots in the Ruhr Basin. For decades, the majority of the 5.5 million inhabitants between Bottrop and Duisburg, Oberhausen and Dortmund voted red. Even in the last state elections in May, when the Social Democrats saw their worst postwar result in North Rhine-Westphalia since 1954, the SPD remained the strongest party in the region.

But the people on the party basis see trouble brewing ahead, and they are tired, worn-out from campaigning. Even longtime SPD members are asking themselves if it's even worth it to vote for their party -- let alone rub their hands sore for the SPD in the September elections.

And if the core of the party is skeptical, what does that say about the SPD's chances as a whole? What do the grass-root members think about Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his policies? What are the expectations of the one-time heart of the party in this campaign? DW-WORLD visited three SPD members in the Ruhr Basin.