Solingen audiotours

Solingen has been making blades since at least 1067, which is when the city was first mentioned in records, though the blade-smithing tradition is certainly older. The water power of the Wupper and its tributaries, the local charcoal supplies, and the inherited knowledge of generations of smiths turned this Bergisches Land city into the world capital of fine edged tools. Swords, scissors, razors, knives, scalpels -- if it was sharp and made in Europe before the 20th century, there is a reasonable chance it came from a valley outside Solingen. The city's nickname, Klingenstadt, means City of Blades, and it wears it without irony.

The old town itself was completely destroyed in November 1944 when Allied bombing killed 1,800 people in a single raid.

The postwar reconstruction left Solingen without the medieval core that might otherwise have anchored it touristically. What remained was the industrial culture, the craft traditions, and some extraordinary infrastructure: the Müngsten Bridge, completed in 1897, soars 107 meters above the Wupper valley on stone arches and is the tallest railway bridge in Germany. From below, on a clear day with a train passing over it, it is genuinely spectacular.