Nordhorn - History

History

Nordhorn's landscape was shaped millions of years ago by climate changes, especially the ice ages. The oldest sediments from a depth of about two thousand metres come from the Carboniferous. With the onset of the Cretaceous and Tertiary, the Earth's crust here formed itself into drape folds. In the mid-Tertiary, subtropical temperatures held sway on Nordhorn's plains. Thereafter began the gradual cooling, which reached its high point in the ice ages. After the last ice had melted, lowlands developed. Strong winds swept dunes up in the lifeless surface. Even today, the remains of such dune complexes can be found at the nearby Tillenberge (mountains). Archaeological finds from the Old Stone Age and the Bronze Age that followed bear witness to human settlement on Nordhorn's sand plains more than 6,000 years ago.

In the rainy and colder Ice Age, early people settled on the dry riverside heights along the river Vechte. Archaeologists come across traces of Iron Age settlements, the foundations of later farming communities such as Frensdorf, Bookholt, Altendorf, Hesepe and Bakelde, in almost every field.

From 12 BC to AD 10, the Roman commanders Drusus, Tiberius, Germanicus and Varus undertook in all thirteen campaigns in what was then still free Germany. From their camp in Xanten, these Roman troops would have undertaken forays into the lands of the Chamavi and Tubanti who then dwelt in the Nordhorn area. It is believed that the Romans used the prehistoric banks of the Vechte and sandy paths along the moors as military roads. This east-west overland connection would later become an important trade road, joining cities such as Brussels, Amsterdam, Bremen and Hamburg.

In the late 4th century, with the onset of the Migration Period (or Völkerwanderung), the Saxons were pushing in from the north and towards the west. They forced the Tubanti farther westwards into Twente. After Charlemagne's conquest of the Saxon lands, the first border between the Frankish Empire and Saxony, albeit as an internal boundary, came into being. This line has largely survived history's changing fortunes and still forms the German-Dutch border today.

In 687, Bishop Wilfrid of York sent missionaries across the sea to Christianize the former Tubanti land. Willibrord founded the Bishopric of Utrecht and Werenfried spread Christianity into the Vechte Valley. About 800, the settlement at Nordhorn was assigned to the Bishopric of Münster. Bishop Ludger built a wooden church on a spur of ground that thrust into the river's floodplain. About 900, the settlement's name was first mentioned in the Werden an der Ruhr Monastery's Heberegister as Northhornon.

About 1180, the Counts of Bentheim acquired the Nordhorn Gogericht (Regional Court). They built a castle in the middle of the river Vechte on an island. Until 1912, parts of this castle were still maintained. Nowadays, the Catholic St.-Augustinus-Kirche (church) stands there. After building a milldam and two mills, it became possible to regulate the river's water flow, thereby also making it possible to settle the island. Other waterways were built – it is supposed under Dutch builders’ influence – which, it is believed, divided the island into six smaller ones. Once two gateway bridges were built and the castle was protecting it, it became easier to defend the settlement against attackers than was so for the old settlement around the market church. Today's main street, which has now grown into an attractive buying and selling place, might have already passed over the island at that time. Merchants and shipowners put down roots here; a marketplace arose. The name Nordhorn was henceforth used for the newer settlement, now standing on the threshold of becoming a town, whereas the old settlement around the market church came to be known as the "Old Village", and is indeed still known as Altendorf ("Old Village").

Nordhorn had taken a key place on the Flemish Road, the area of today's Bundesstraße 213 and 403 crossroads. Goods from Scandinavia and the Hanseatic towns found their way through Nordhorn into the trade centres to the west all the way to Paris. The Vechte was navigable as far up as Schüttorf.

The Vechte is roughly 167 km long and in the Middle Ages emptied directly into the sea: it flowed by Zwolle into the Zuider Zee, which at that time had not yet been cut off from the North Sea and was the centre of Dutch sea trade. Since modern land reclamation projects have been put in place, the river flows north of Zwolle into the Zwarte Water, which itself empties into the IJsselmeer, the lake that arose from the old Zuider Zee once the Afsluitdijk was completed.

Already by 1160, the first loads of Bentheim sandstone were being shipped into the Netherlands. Up to 1,200 freight cranes, scows and barges lay each year at anchor and brought their goods to Holland. The Steinmaate (street) became a staple market. The like-named street still recalls today that Bentheim sandstone was shipped from here to many other countries. From it were built stately buildings such as the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, but also many mills, churches, locks, town halls and other public buildings. The returning ships brought spices, textiles, paper and foods as well as luxury articles such as coffee, tea, cacao and tobacco. Trade, crafts and agriculture were the region's economic foundations until the mid 19th century. Shipping on the Vechte and the canals (the Ems-Vechte-Kanal, the Nordhorn-Almelo-Kanal, the Süd-Nord-Kanal and the Coevorden-Piccardie-Kanal) together with the transported goods formed an important source of earnings at this time, when the town was also home to wealthy merchants, shipowners and mariners.

On the ninth day after Whitsunday in 1379, Count Bernhard I granted Nordhorn town rights, and in 1416 also gave it privilege. The small settlement between the arms of the Vechte had grown to be important to the Bentheim Counts as a goods handling centre. With the economic upswing, cultural life also reached a high point in these years. Augustinian canons established the Marienwolde Monastery in Frenswegen in 1394. Through endowments and donations the monastery became well known as "Westphalia's Paradise" beyond borders. After secularization in 1806, brought about by Napoleon, monastic properties passed to the Bentheim Counts’ ownership. The settlement spanning thousands of years and the town's thus far 628-year history have left behind very little in the way of buildings, besides the Marienwolde Monastery, as witness to earlier times.

In imitation of the Late Romanesque churches in neighbouring Westphalia, churches were built in the 13th century out of Bentheim sandstone. The only artwork preserved from this time is the baptismal font in Brandlecht. Bearing witness to the 15th century is the Alte Kirche ("Old Church") at the market. It was built in the Late Gothic style under Dutch influence and to honour Saint Ludger, who founded the town's first church, and in whose name this newer church was consecrated. It is likely that three generations worked on this impressive three-naved hall church. Originally, the tower was 102 m tall and fell under town council's stewardship as a watchtower and firetower. A violent storm toppled the steeple, which came down in the marketplace before the building. The new steeple was considerably shorter – about 70 m – and was designed to let wind pass through it. During restoration work inside the church in 1967, some paintings were uncovered in the sanctuary, the Nordhorner Apostelbilder ("Nordhorn Apostle Pictures"). They show the Twelve Apostles and various Biblical scenes. The paintings were preserved because it could not be agreed what should be done with them, since the Calvinist Church order of the Reformed Creed introduced by Count Arnold II at Bentheim in 1588 forbade pictures and adornment in church rooms. During more restoration work in the late 1990s, these pictures were rediscovered, and the church council decided to cover the pictures over with rice paper, as they seemed too valuable simply to paint over.

Sharply decimated by war and epidemics, the town had to deal with several occupations and troop movements in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the Eighty Years' War waged by the Dutch against the Spaniards, Nordhorn was a way station for Spanish troops because the neighbouring county of Lingen was Spanish territory. It is said that once, the Duke of Parma camped around Nordhorn with 6,000 soldiers.

During the Thirty Years' War, Swedes, Hessians, Lüneburg troops and Imperial forces passed through Nordhorn on the old Flemish army and trade road. They all wanted to feed on the scanty crop yields. The harried town, however, was left hardly any time to recover from the war's ravages. Only a few years later, the warlike Bishop Christoph Bernhard Count of Galen from Münster waged a war against the Dutch on the plains outside Nordhorn, which was brought to an end in 1666 by the Peace of Nordhorn.

In Napoleonic times there was once again much afoot in Nordhorn. In these years, the trading place on the Vechte grew and the two harbours defined the town's image. Napoleon's continental blockade against British trade made Nordhorn into a smuggling centre by 1806. The broad moors and heaths abetted this lucrative trade.

As a result of Europe's new political landscape in the wake of the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815, the hitherto flourishing transit trade in Nordhorn was once again disrupted. The border became a customs barrier, stripping Nordhorn of its trading, which had been oriented towards the west. In the years that followed, the town became poorer. Because the Vechte could not be upgraded and modernized, and because it silted up, shipping was disrupted. The townsfolk turned to farming small plots and traders and shippers left town. Only home weaving still afforded some earnings. Whole families emigrated to the New World.

It is said that 1839 was the year when Nordhorn's textile industry was founded. The first mechanized weaving mill, established by Willem Stroink from Enschede, sprang up on the trade road. Here, cotton was processed and calico and watertwist were woven. Later mills were founded in 1864 by Jan van Delden and in 1851 by Josef Povel and Hermann Kistemaker. Textile manufacturing came to set the pace for the languishing economy. Progress came with gradual industrialization. The groundwork for the town's growth into one of Germany's biggest textile-producing towns had been laid.

The town's mayor between 1843 and 1872 was the apothecary and chemical manufacturer Ernst Firnhaber, whose house on the main street stood in the middle of what then was the town's business life. With its classicist building elements it is the last architectural example of a stately townsman's house from the 18th century. After the apothecary came Germany's first quinine plant. In 1843, 32,403 Pfund – roughly 16 metric tons – of cinchona was processed and exported. The manufacturers Ludwig Povel, Bernhard Rawe, Bernhard Niehues and Friedrich Dütting founded further textile businesses in the years from 1872 to 1897, some of which are still supplying domestic and international markets in the early 21st century.

In the 1890s, Nordhorn was incorporated into a network of man-made waterways. Through the river Ems, the Dortmund-Ems Canal and the Ems-Vechte Canal, coal was transported from the Ruhr area to the up-and-coming textile centre. The Nordhorn-Almelo Canal saw to it that the town was also connected to Dutch inland waterways, and the North-South Canal spurred the peat trade. Even if today all these canals have no further use for shipping, they can still be prized for their worth as sources of leisure.

The Bentheim Railway brought a rail connection to the international network in 1896. Roughly 1,500 people were working in the various textile companies in these years. The Great Depression in the 1920s led many jobseekers from all over Germany to Nordhorn. By 1939, the population had reached 23,457, and it is worth noting that just under a third of those people had actually been born in town. This unusual economic upswing earned Nordhorn the nickname Klein Amerika – "Little America".

Even the Third Reich left its mark on Nordhorn. The small Jewish community was annihilated. The synagogue was utterly destroyed, an event recalled by a memorial plaque on the street still called Synagogenstraße. The old Flemish Trade Road was used by German troops, who on 10 May 1940 marched into the Netherlands, as a military road. Some of the townsfolk lived through this time with very mixed feelings – were they not, they thought, bound to their Dutch neighbours by friendship and blood? These bonds were something upon which those seeking to fight persecution and the Nazi régime itself could build. Adolf Pazdera and Ferdinand Kobitzki, Nordhorn KPD functionaries and trade union secretaries, were persecuted many times and in 1943 and 1944 respectively, they were murdered in concentration camps.

After the Second World War ended, nearly ten thousand people from Germany's lost eastern territories poured into Nordhorn, where they found a new home, soon bringing the town's population to more than 40,000. There arose a new community within the town housing 13,000 inhabitants, called die Blanke.

Non-commercial housing building companies and private initiatives made Nordhorn into "the town of the privately owned home". The enormous building accomplishments called for the municipal administration to be expanded and modernized. Thus, Nordhorn built itself a new town hall, and buildings for district administration, the employment office and the Amt court arose on the town's ring road. The court now stands on Seilerbahn.

Northwest Germany's first indoor swimming pool after 1945 could be dedicated, new schools, sport halls and fields, the concert and theatre hall and the town park led to the townscape's revival.