Bergwerk Reden (Erlebnisort Reden)

Bergwerk Reden operated as a coal mine from 1846 until its closure in 1995, part of the wider Saar coalfield that powered heavy industry across the region for nearly a century and a half. The site's most visible surviving structures are the steel winding towers above shafts IV and V, which hauled coal and miners between the surface and underground workings and are now protected as industrial heritage landmarks visible from across the surrounding countryside. Following the mine's closure, the surface grounds were redeveloped rather than demolished, converting former processing buildings and stockyards into the Erlebnisort Reden recreation and heritage site, which combines preserved mining infrastructure with newer additions including a solar park built across reclaimed colliery land. The GONDWANA Das Praehistorium museum, built into a former coal-preparation structure on the site, uses the mine's own coal seams as a starting point to present a broader natural history exhibition on prehistoric life connected to the coal-forming Carboniferous period. Guided tours of the grounds cover the winding towers, headframes, and remaining pit buildings, explaining the extraction and processing methods used at Reden and the mine's role in the Saar coal industry's 19th- and 20th-century expansion and eventual decline as German coal mining was phased out. The juxtaposition of the historic winding towers with the modern solar installations reflects the site's transition from fossil fuel extraction to renewable energy use on the same land.