Foreign aid encouraged mining and steel production, which shaped Witten for many decades. The Ruhr as a transport route, and the near-surface coal seams of the Ruhr Valley, provided traditional location advantages, however, only with foreign capital and know-how could a consistent expansion of the coal mining and iron and steel industry be achieved, paving the way for the industrial age.
The French Revolution also played a role: after 1789, a great number of aristocrats fled France fearing persecution. Among them was Chevalier de Wendel, a member of the French-Lorrainese steel dynasty de Wendel d’Hayange. He had valuable knowledge of smelting techniques; from 1800, de Wendel supported Friedrich Lohmann the elder in the construction of a coke-fired ironworks in Witten. Lohmann came from near Schwelm and in 1790, he leased the old manor Berge Castle – later called Haus Witten – to produce steel there. Even a steel mill for self-produced pig-iron was planned. Coke was intended to be used instead of charcoal, based on precedents in England, France and Belgium that Wendel knew. However, as de Wendel returned to France on account of the 1802 amnesty, the project lost its initiator and with him the know-how; the coke-fired blast furnace project failed. Through his own attempts, Friedrich Lohmann succeeded in 1812 to produce cast steel, with the same quality as the English model. This became the basis for an independent crucible steel plant.

A new generation began with the wealthy Dutchman Johann Jacob van Braam, who purchased Schloss Steinhausen by the Ruhr in 1851. Van Braam’s goal was to make a profitable investment there. The family Elverfeld, the previous owner of the castle, had engaged in the Witten pits as mining experts. Van Braam now acquired not only the castle, but also their shares in the nearby Nachtigall Mine - today a location of a LWL Industrial Museum. As a result of substantial investment by van Braams, this became one of the largest civil engineering mines south of the Ruhr. The Dutchman also backed Karl Ludwig Berger, who was attempting to produce cast steel in the basement of his villa in Witten. When this became a success, Berger built a cast steel plant in 1853 -1854 with the help of van Braam and others. Its location in the Ruhr region is still used today by the Deutsche Edelstahlwerke. (KP)