“Welcome to Hunger Town” is how we would have welcomed you if communist town councillor Witte had had his way with a proposal he made in 1929.

A few months previously a law had been passed merging the valley’s various towns and the council was looking for a name for the new, bigger city which encompassed Barmen and Elberfeld together with Vohwinkel to the west and Ronsdorf and Cronenberg on the southern heights.

Eventually they settled on a name: “Wuppertal”. However, this merger has never been a love marriage for the currently approx. 360,000 residents. The original boroughs continue to defend their individuality carefully – and at times very doggedly. And if you ask a native if he is from Wuppertal, then expect to get an answer like: “No, I’m from Barmen!”