Witten

With its population fluctuating around 100,000, the town of Witten, idyllically situated in the Ruhr sandstone mountains, had been reaching for recognition as a city for decades. It managed it most recently in 1975. But its birth rate is probably much higher than the number of actual residents might imply, because many inhabitants from surrounding towns give birth in the Witten-Herdecke anthroposophical hospital. The influence of the private university can also be felt from the presence of the alternative stores and cafés in the city centre. Witten offers itself as an apt resonance space for meditations about the body in an increasingly digitalised world, and about its need for rest and its potential, while the River Ruhr gives the city a high recreational value. Witten has become internationally known for the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik (Witten Days for New Chamber Music), a festival for experimental contemporary music that – surprisingly enough since new music was then often considered degenerate – was founded during the National Socialist era in 1936. Since 1969 it has been organised in conjunction with the broadcaster WDR. There is also the Saalbau Witten, an imposing, terraced theatre and concert hall from the 1970s that seems somewhat oversized for current needs – but it certainly can also be deemed a potential asset.