A Hard Coal Miner at the Haarmannsbrunnen (Haarmann Fountain) in Osnabrück (Germany)

[...]it is an appropriate time to highlight a German mining-related monument erected in Osnabrück at the beginning of the twentieth century. Erected in 1909, the fountain is named after its donor, the steel mill director August Haarmann, who was born on August 4, 1840 in Blankenstein and died on August 7, 1913 in Osnabrück. While the Haarmann fountain does not depict an actual inundation event, it is an imposing reminder of the dangers associated with mine water inundation. Water splashes heavily on his bared torso, and the onlooker gets both an impression of the sometimes catastrophic effects of mine water inundation and the miner’s demanding working conditions, a fundamental insight into the problems of underground water management that hydrogeologists will never get in the classroom. [...]the fountain and monument are an appropriate memorial to the hard coal miner’s profession, which in Germany is ending in December, 2018.