Essen is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr district, the largest urban area in Germany. Because of its central location, Essen is often regarded as the Ruhr's "secret capital".

The city dates back to the Essen women's monastery founded before 850. In addition to this monastery, Werden Monastery, founded by Liudger around 800, was a center of late antique and early Christian textual tradition. Elevated to the status of a free imperial city by Emperor Charles IV in the 14th century, Essen had been an arms manufacturer since the late Middle Ages and, with industrialization, rose to become one of the most important centers of the mining industry. After a massive decline in heavy industry from the mid-1960s onwards, Essen developed a strong service sector as part of structural change.

The cinema "Lichtburg" opened in 1928, and had around 2,000 upholstered folding seats. At the opening, the Wurlitzer cinema organ, which cost 150,000 Reichsmarks and was the largest ever installed in a European cinema, was played for the first time. It could already imitate traffic noise and thunder. The Lichtburg had hired two American organists to play this instrument. The 30-member Lichtburg Orchestra, under the direction of Italian conductor Franco Fedeli, some of whose musicians were borrowed from the Cologne Philharmonic, played Orpheus in the Underworld.

During WW II, the Lichtburg was almost destroyed. The screening hall burned down completely, but the facade survived.

The cinema was rebuilt between 1948 and 1950 in the style of the early 1950s. The reopening took place in 1950. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Lichtburg was considered the most important premiere cinema in Germany. When the Lichtburg was used as an event hall, artists such as Louis Armstrong with Velma Middleton , Count Basie and Juliette Gréco performed.

Today the Lichtburg has a hall, which seats 1,250 spectators, can also be used for cinema, theater and cabaret events, as well as readings and concerts.