Former hard coal colliery at Alsdorf, now partly preserved as heritage site with surviving headframe, pithead buildings, and the ENERGETICON energy and mining museum.
Grube Anna was a hard coal colliery of the Eschweiler Bergwerks-Verein (EBV) at Alsdorf in the Aachen coalfield, and for many years the largest mine in the region. Its grubenfeld covered 14.9 square kilometres beneath the valley of the river Wurm. Exploratory drilling in the 1840s located coal seams at approximately 85 metres depth; the mining concession was granted in 1848 and shaft-sinking on the Anna I site began in 1850.
First coal was raised in 1854. EBV acquired the mine in 1863–64 and expanded it continuously over the following decades. A second shaft complex, Anna II, was developed to the west, and the two installations were later combined as a Verbundbergwerk.
A coking plant established on the site in 1862 grew to become one of the largest in western Europe. On 21 October 1930 a firedamp explosion at the Eduardschacht on Anna II killed 271 miners outright and a further 28 died of injuries — the worst mining disaster in the history of the Aachen coalfield. After post-war reconstruction the mine reached its peak annual output of 1,977,200 tonnes in 1975.
Drawing operations at Alsdorf ended in 1983 following consolidation with the neighbouring Grube Emil Mayrisch. The coking plant was closed in 1992. Most surface buildings were subsequently demolished, but a listed headframe, the Fördermaschinenhaus, the turbine hall, and several pithead structures survive.
The ENERGETICON, an energy and mining museum, opened in 2014 in the preserved buildings on the Anna II site.
The coal reserves beneath Alsdorf were known from medieval shallow workings along the Wurm valley, but the water-bearing sands of the overburden prevented deeper access until improved sinking techniques became available. Exploratory drilling on behalf of Eduard Honigmann, Friedrich Bölling, and Leopold Schoeller located the first workable seams at approximately 85 metres depth in the mid-1840s. The concession for the Anna field, covering the communes of Alsdorf, Übach, Baesweiler, Merkstein, and Siersdorf, was granted on 12 July 1848 to a consortium led by the Aachen government councillor Theodor Jacob Bredt. The concession field measured 14.9 square kilometres.
Shaft-sinking on the Anna I site began in 1850, with the Josefsschacht and the Hermannschacht located on what is now the Bahnhofstraße. The sinking presented considerable difficulties: water-bearing quicksand in the overburden required the use of cast-iron tubbing, applied here for the first time in Germany. The first working level was reached at 150 metres in 1853 and coal production commenced in 1854. By 1864 the output from Anna equalled half the total coal raised across the entire Inde valley coalfield at Eschweiler. EBV purchased the mine in 1863–64 and set about expanding it as its principal production centre.
A coking plant was established at Anna in 1862 and grew rapidly. By 1913 it operated 342 coke ovens, making it one of the largest installations of its kind in Germany. The principal customer for Anna coke was the Luxembourg steel group ARBED (Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange), and long-term supply contracts with ARBED drove successive expansions of both the mine and the coking plant.
To handle growing output, the Franzschacht was sunk on the Anna I site from 1869; its first winding trip for personnel took place in 1885. To the west of Anna I, the Anna II complex developed around the Wilhelmschacht (sunk from 1860) and later the Eduardschacht (sunk 1904–1911). An air shaft, Anna III, was sunk at Neuweiler between 1911 and 1914 to improve ventilation of the expanded workings. The Hauptschacht on Anna I was sunk in 1921–1922. The two installations — Anna I and Anna II — were progressively linked underground and were formally consolidated into a single Verbundbergwerk after the Second World War.
On 21 October 1930 a firedamp explosion in the Eduardschacht on Anna II caused the worst mining disaster in the history of the Aachen coalfield: 271 miners were killed immediately and a further 28 later died of injuries, with 304 workers injured in total. The force of the explosion was sufficient to overturn the headframe at the shaft mouth.
After 1945, despite wartime damage, the mine was rebuilt and expanded. In 1952–1954, the Franzschacht was enlarged to six metres diameter and equipped with a 70-metre reinforced-concrete Förderturm (winding tower) which became a landmark of the Alsdorf skyline. The Franzschacht served as the single main production shaft from 1954; Anna II ceased winding coal in 1955, with its Eduardschacht retained for personnel transport. Production recovered strongly: in 1953, 6,653 employees raised 6,500 tonnes of coal per day. Annual output figures were 1,738,700 tonnes in 1955; 1,882,600 tonnes in 1960; and a peak of 1,977,200 tonnes in 1975. Between 1963 and 1968, the Hauptschacht, Eduardschacht, and Franzschacht were all deepened to a new main working level at 860 metres. In 1972 the neighbouring Grube Adolf at Merkstein was consolidated into Anna, with the Adolf shafts thereafter serving as air and personnel shafts. In 1973 a gas and steam turbine power station was completed at Alsdorf.
The structural decline of the German hard coal industry brought increasing difficulties. Production at Anna was consolidated with the new Grube Emil Mayrisch at Siersdorf, and the drawing of coal at Alsdorf formally ended in 1983. The Franzschacht served as the last main hoisting shaft until that date; thereafter Anna's shafts were used solely for personnel access to the Emil Mayrisch workings. The coking plant, which had survived until that point as one of the last in the Aachen coalfield, was closed and demolished in autumn 1992. The closure of Emil Mayrisch on 18 December 1992 ended coal mining in the Alsdorf area after one hundred and fifty years.
The city of Alsdorf adopted a development framework plan for the former Anna site in 1994, and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia took ownership of the land in 1995. Most of the approximately 130 surface buildings were demolished, and by 1995 the Franzschacht Förderturm and the hammerkopf tower of the coking plant had also been removed. Former mining land was redeveloped as the Annapark urban quarter, comprising housing, retail, a business park, and recreational open space. Surviving protected structures on the Anna I site include the Fördergerüst (headframe) of the Hauptschacht, its Fördermaschinenhaus, the turbine hall, and the electricity substation. On the Anna II site the surviving structures include the 1930 administration building, the pithead baths (Kauengebäude), the Fördermaschinenhaus of the Eduardschacht (1907), and the former smithy. A miners' information association, the Bergbaumuseum Wurmrevier, was founded in 1986 and worked to secure these buildings. In 2014 the ENERGETICON opened as an energy and mining museum in the preserved Anna II buildings, with two reconstructed underground roadways and interactive displays on the history of coal mining and energy. The site also hosts the Energielandschaft Anna e.V. community organisation.