Essener Turn- und Fechtklub e.V. (ETUF) is a multi-sport club with activities in popular, youth and competitive sports. ETUF was founded by Friedrich Alfred Krupp in 1884 and is now one of the leading tennis clubs in Germany. Since the beginning of its activities, the Foundation has maintained close contact with the ETUF, which is located below the Villa Hügel on Lake Baldeney. The club has been part of the “Route of Industrial Culture” since 2013.
The ETUF was founded by Friedrich Alfred Krupp in 1884. That is why the club bears the three Krupp rings in its logo. Friedrich Alfred Krupp used his financial resources in a targeted manner to advance the club. A new club building was erected in the vicinity of the existing Krupp “Beamten-Casino” (Civil Servants’ Casino) at Limbecker Platz, which could also be used for gymnastics. Friedrich Alfred Krupp assumed the maintenance costs for the building and also paid the fencing master. In 1893, the sport of tennis, which Friedrich Alfred Krupp had become acquainted with in England, was added. As the sports grounds in the city centre of Essen fell victim to industrial growth, Krupp looked for alternatives, which he found in the area around the company’s own waterworks on the Ruhr river below Villa Hügel. His newly awakened interest in rowing may also have played a role in the choice of location and the planning of a boathouse for recreational and representative purposes. The boathouse was handed over to the club on 13 June 1899, and just two months later Emperor Wilhelm II was a guest there during his visit to Essen. The club’s activities continued to expand in the years that followed: A hockey team was added in 1910, a winter sports and hiking section with a sports centre in Winterberg was founded in the 1920s and a sailing team was added to the sports programme in 1932. The club’s focus increasingly shifted to the Ruhr, where a permanent home for all sports programmes was finally found on today’s ETUF site upon the creation of Lake Baldeney.
Nowadays, ETUF manages a 36-hectare club site on Lake Baldeney. The club is divided into the following departments: gymnastics, fencing, rowing, tennis, hockey, sailing and golf. The club is increasingly committed to promoting young talent and has an extensive youth programme.
Since 1972, the Krupp Foundation has donated a total of around EUR 2.4 million to ETUF e.V. for 20 projects: In 2020, for example, the club-owned sports facility was extensively renovated. The Foundation partially funded the refurbishment.
In 2020, ETUF e.V. received funding in the amount of EUR 85,000 from the Foundation. The funding was a grant for an extensive refurbishment project for the club’s own sports facilities. The refurbishment comprised several individual projects and included the complete renovation of the large multi-purpose sports hall (2,000 m²), the tennis courts, the jetties for sailing boats as well as structural and technical renovations to the boathouse and the car park.
In 2018, the Foundation provided funding of up to EUR 80,000 for the refurbishment of the artificial hockey pitch. In order to avoid restrictions in training operations and forced relocation of the ETUF teams’ league matches to external pitches due to the risk of injury to the players, the measure was a matter of great urgency.
