The Nordwolle or more correctly the Nordwolle museum or the Nordwestdeutsche Museum für IndustrieKultur is situated in and around the engine house of the former Norddeutsche Wollkämmerei & Kammgarnspinnerei in Delmenhorst. Nordwolle was a dominant company that processed wool and worsted, it closed between 1981 and 1984. The building and the factory housing is listed as a Denkmalschutz The museum is an Anchor point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage.[1]
In 1884, Christian Lahusen,[2] a textile manufacturer from Bremen, set up the Norddeutsche Wollkämmerei & Kammgarnspinnerei (North German Wool Combing and Worsted Spinning Mill) next to the railway line in Delmenhorst, which brought wool from Bremen docks. The family business expanded into a major concern producing a quarter of all the world's rough yarn and employed almost 4,500 workers in the complex. Labour came from Eastern Europe. Between 1885 and 1905 the population of Delmenhorst tripled causing a chronic lack of housing. The firm responded by building ever more company housing on the “Nordwolle” site.
Under his son, Carl Lahusen,[2] and his English born wife Armine Matthias,[a] the factory town provided cooperative stores, canteens and baths, a hospital,[3] a kindergarten and a library. The world slump and mismanagement bankrupted Lahusen's firm in 1931: though it continued in a smaller scale until 1981.[1]
The Nordwolle Factory Museum opened in 1996 in the turbine hall and adjacent sheds. A year later the Municipal Museum open in the “Lichtstation”, the first engine room of the disused textile works.[1]
The museum shows the production processes[4] involved in worsted spinning and the social conditions of the young immigrant workers.[1]
