Ruhr area.
The WAZ is 75 years old. For the anniversary, we are taking you on a reading tour of over 40 stories – in the future and in the past of the district.
For the 75th birthday of the WAZ we are going on a journey through time. More than 40 stories full of reading fun are about the change in the region and the newspaper – and of course about the future. Look forward to your anniversary edition. You can find the topics on this page, but you can also browse through the designed edition online as digital “Flipbook”.
“This is how we will live” is one of our focal points. How can problem districts like Marxloh develop? What future does the city center have? And how do we have to adapt our living environment to climate change? In fact, the city of tomorrow can already be visited today.
The next 75 years will challenge us, that much is clear. Be it because wars and the climate crisis are destroying old certainties – Jörg Quoos, editor-in-chief of the Funke central editorial office in Berlin, describes how the world is reorganizing itself. Or maybe because we can observe in fast motion how artificial intelligence is gaining new skills that can make them a valuable tool or even a threat to jobs and democracy.
We asked two Ukrainian colleagues who fled to the Ruhr area to write guest contributions. Vitaliia Tyshak tells of her personal moment of deciding to flee. What it was like when a rocket blast hit her in her own kitchen. Krystyna Selianskaya met helpers from Oberhausen and explained why diapers and animal feed as relief supplies send an important message.
Of course, a look at your own newspaper should not be missing on such an anniversary. In a comic, we tell how the founders Jakob Funke and Erich Brost found the printing press for the first issue in the post-war turmoil, or how photographers react when they see the publisher’s car parked in the parking lot. Last but not least, you, dear readers, have played a large part in this. We asked them about their memories with the WAZ and they sent us wonderful stories.
The focus is of course on the Ruhr area. How things have changed, both in business and in science! Amazing when you juxtapose old and new images. But we also dare to predict that there are a few constants in the area that will still be there in 75 years. And apparent disadvantages, such as the population aging earlier, could still be an advantage for the Ruhr health region.
More articles from this category can be found here: Rhine and Ruhr
