Wendener Hütte

The complete site, supported and run by Museumsverein Wendener Hütte e.V., is open to visitors from April to October.

The birth of a small scale iron processing industry in the district of Olpe, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany was favoured by deposits of iron ore and heavy spar as well as an abundance of water and woods.

The founders where Peter and Johann Ermert from Betzdorf to whom the Elector Clement August, Archbishop of Cologne, had given a concession.

Some years later Wendener Hütte came into possession of the Remy family which counts among the pioneers of the German iron industry.

In 1774 the first hammer capable of refining iron into steel was added to Wendener Hütte.