Battle of the RuhrThe Battle of the Ruhr (5 March – 31 July 1943) was a strategic bombing campaign against the Ruhr Area in Nazi Germany carried out by RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War. The Ruhr was the main centre of German heavy industry with coke plants, steelworks, armaments factories and ten synthetic oil plants. The British attacked 26 targets identified in the Combined Bomber Offensive. Targets included the Krupp armament works (Essen), the Nordstern synthetic oil plant at Gelsenkirchen and the Rheinmetal–Borsig plant in Düsseldorf, which was evacuated during the battle.
EssenEssen (ˈɛsn̩; Latin: Assindia) is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as the ninth-largest city of Germany. Essen lies in the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region and is part of the cultural area of Rhineland. Because of its central location in the Ruhr, Essen is often regarded as the Ruhr's "secret capital".
DüsseldorfDüsseldorf (ˈdʊsəldɔːrf , USˈdjuːs- ; ˈdʏsl̩dɔʁf; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: Düsseldörp ˈdɵsəldœʀ(ə)p; archaic Dusseldorp ˈdʏsəlˌdɔr(ə)p) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne, and the sixth-largest city in Germany, with a population of 653,253. Düsseldorf is located at the mouth of the Düssel into the Rhine.
DuisburgDuisburg (ˈdyːsbʊʁk; Duisborg, ˈdʏsbɔɐ̯χ) is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the 15th-largest city in Germany. In the Middle Ages, it was a city-state and a member of the Hanseatic League, and later became a major centre of the iron, steel, and chemicals industries.
Ruhr (river)NOTOC The Ruhr is a river in western Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia), a right tributary (east-side) of the Rhine. The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately . It flows into the lower Rhine at an elevation of only in the municipal area of Duisburg. Its total length is , its average discharge is at Mülheim near its mouth. Thus, its discharge is, for example, comparable to that of the river Ems in Northern Germany or the River Thames in the United Kingdom.
RuhrThe Ruhr ('rʊər ; Ruhrgebiet ˈʁuːɐ̯ɡəˌbiːt, also Ruhrpott ˈʁuːɐ̯pɔt), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km2 and a population of over 5 million (2017), it is the largest urban area in Germany. It consists of several large cities bordered by the rivers Ruhr to the south, Rhine to the west, and Lippe to the north. In the southwest it borders the Bergisches Land.
