Erkelenz


Erkelenz is a town in the Rhineland in western Germany that lies southwest of Mönchengladbach on the northern edge of the Cologne Lowland, halfway between the Lower Rhine region and the Lower Meuse. It is a medium-sized town and the largest in the district of Heinsberg in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Despite the town having more than 1,000 years of history and tradition, in 2006 the eastern part of the borough was cleared to make way for the Garzweiler II brown coal pit operated by RWE Power. This is planned to be in operation until 2045. Over five thousand people from ten villages have had to be resettled as a result. Since 2010, the inhabitants of the easternmost village of Pesch have left and most have moved to the new villages of Immerath and Borschemich in the areas of Kückhoven and Erkelenz-Nord.

Geography

Landscape

The area is characterised by the gently rolling to almost level countryside of the Jülich-Zülpich Börde, whose fertile loess soils are predominantly used for agriculture. Settlements and roads cover about 20 per cent of the area of the borough and only 2 per cent is wooded. The Wahnenbusch, the largest contiguous wooded area, is located south of the town of Tenholt and covers. In the north the börde gives way to the forests and waterways of the Schwalm-Nette-Plateau, part of the Lower Rhine Plain. In the west on the far side of the town, lies the Rur depression, some. Its transition is part of the Baal Riedelland. Here, streams have created a richly varying landscape of hills and valleys. In the east is the source region of the River Niers near Kuckum and Keyenberg. To the south the land climbs up towards the Jackerath loess ridge. The lowest point lies at above sea level and the highest point is above NN.

Climate

The climate is influenced by the Atlantic Gulf Stream at the crossover between maritime and continental climates. The prevailing winds are from the southwest and there is precipitation all year round. Annual precipitation amounts to about, whereby August is the wettest and September the driest month. Summers are warm and winters mild. In July the average temperature is and, in January,. The length of the cold season with a minimum temperature below is less than 60 days, the number of summer's days with temperatures above averages 30, with an additional eight "tropical" days with daytime temperatures of more than and night temperatures over, and there are an average of 20 days of thunderstorms. The onset of spring, which is reckoned from the budding of cherry, apple and pear trees, occurs between 29 April and 5 May. High summer, which begins with the harvest of winter rye, starts between 10 and 16 July.

Geology

The Erkelenz Börde is the northernmost extent of the Jülich Börde and is formed from a loess plateau that has an average thickness of over eleven metres in this area. Beneath it are the gravels and sands of the main ice age terrace, laid down by the Rhine and the Meuse. Embedded in the loess in places are lenses of marl that were mined until the 20th century in order to obtain lime by driving shafts and galleries underground. In the Tertiary period the Erkelenz horst was formed along geological fault lines. East of the horst runs the Venlo fault block, to the west is the Rur Scholle, to the south the Erft Scholle and the Jackerath Horst. A small section of the horst is part of the Wassenberg Horst. Thick seams of brown coal from the Tertiary and of black coal from the Carboniferous are located underground. The Erkelenz Horst is part of the Cologne Lowland Earthquake Region.

Borough

The town's administrative territory, or borough, is across from east to west and from north to south. Its neighbouring administrative units, clockwise from the north, are:
The town of Erkelenz emerged in its present configuration as a result of the Aachen land reform bill of 21 December 1971. According to this law inter alia the former districts of Erkelenz and Geilenkirchen-Heinsberg were to be merged on 1 January 1972. Erkelenz lost its status as the county town to Heinsberg and was amalgamated with the municipalities of Borschemich, Gerderath, Golkrath, Granterath, Holzweiler, Immerath, Keyenberg, Kückhoven, Lövenich, Schwanenberg and Venrath, as well as the parishes of Geneiken and Kuckum. The area of its borough increased from.
According to the law, the borough of Erkelenz is divided into nine districts with a total of 46 villages and hamlets :
  • District 1: Erkelenz with the villages of Oestrich and Buscherhof as well as Borschemich, Borschemich, Bellinghoven and Oerath, a total of 20,173 inhabitants
  • District 2: Gerderath with Fronderath, Gerderhahn, Moorheide and Vossem, a total of 5,179 inhabitants
  • District 3: Schwanenberg with Geneiken, Genfeld, Genhof, Grambusch and Lentholt, a total of 2,265 inhabitants
  • District 4: Golkrath with Houverath, Houverather Heide, Hoven and Matzerath, a total of 2,039 inhabitants
  • District 5: Granterath and Hetzerath with Commerden, Genehen, Scheidt and Tenholt, a total of 3,488 inhabitants
  • District 6: Lövenich with Katzem and Kleinbouslar, a total of 4,147 inhabitants
  • District 7: Kückhoven, a total of 2,250 inhabitants
  • District 8: Keyenberg and Venrath with Berverath, Etgenbusch, Kaulhausen, Kuckum, Mennekrath, Neuhaus, Oberwestrich, Terheeg, Unterwestrich and Wockerath, a total of 3,468 inhabitants
  • District 9: Holzweiler and Immerath with Lützerath and Pesch, a total of 2,372 inhabitants

    Coat of arms

The coat of arms is parted horizontally. The upper part is blue, and contains the golden lion of the duchy of Guelders. In the silver lower part is a red medlar, also called rose of Geldern. The coat of arms shows the centuries-old connection to the duchy. The colours from the shield became the colours of the city: blue and white.

History

Pre- and early history

There have been discoveries of Old and New Stone Age flint-knapping sites across the whole of the present area of the borough. Near Haberg House, north of Lövenich, there is a site of national renown. Near Kückhoven a wooden well was discovered in 1990 that belonged to a settlement of the Linear Pottery culture and had been built around 5,100 B.C. This makes it one of the oldest wooden structures in the world. North of the old village of Erkelenz, on the present day Mary Way, lay three cremation graves, northwest to south of numerous fields of rubble. Roman bricks, hypocaust bricks and shards come from the marketplace south of the town hall. Here in the southwest corner and east of the chancel of the Roman Catholic parish church there are urn graves enclosed by glacial erratics of the early Frankish period from 300 to 500 A.D. On the south and southeast edge of the market, round jars were also found in the style of Badorf ceramics from Carolingian times. In 1906 a Roman Jupiter Column from the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. was discovered in Kleinbouslar. The Erkelenz chronicler Mathias Baux wrote in the 16th century that "the bushes in the middle period were cleared and the soil turned into fertile fields, so that out of the harsh wilderness a corn-rich land and overall a breezy paradise was established." From Mathias Baux's perspective, the middle period was the 8th century, which corresponds to the emergence of the Carolingian Empire. Under the present-day Catholic church lay Frankish and medieval graves without any grave goods as well as broken pieces of Badorf Ceramic and Roman bricks.

Origin of the name

The overwhelming theory is that the name Erkelenz belongs to the group of Gallo-Romance -acum placenames. According to this view the name of the town, which first appears in the records in a document dating to 966 A.D. sealed by Otto the Great as herclinze, comes from fundus herculentiacus: Herculentian estate. From the original adjectival character of the personal name the neuter noun Herculentiacum developed. However a continuity of settlement from Roman to Frankish times cannot be proven. As a result, it is also postulated that the name does not have Roman, but Old High German origins, according to which the word linta = lime tree. In 1118 A.D. the name of the place finally appears as Erkelenze.

Manorialism

On 17 January 966, St. Mary's Abbey in Aachen was given inter alia the settlements of Erkelenz and its neighbour, Oestrich, in the County of Eremfried in the Mühlgau as part of an exchange with the Lotharingian Count Immo. Emperor Otto the Great confirmed this exchange in the aforementioned deed at an imperial assembly in Aachen. From then on the abbey was the owner of the entire estate in Erkelenz and the surrounding villages with the proviso that territorial lordship was exercised by the count. Later the estates owned by the abbey were divided between the provost and chapter. The farms were not managed independently, but were leased. Not until 1803 did the abbey lose these rights of ownership, when France introduced secularisation into the Rhineland.

Town rights

Erkelenz received its town rights in 1326 from Count Reginald II of Guelders, as can be read in the town chronicle by Matthias Baux. But no deed granting town rights exists, which is why it has been suggested that there was no fixed date but, instead, a long drawn-out process of becoming a town over many years that may have dragged on into the 14th century. However, against that is the fact that there is a jury seal dating to the year 1331, and that Erkelenz appears on the Guelders urban diet on 1 December 1343. In 1359 Erkelenz is described in a document as a Guelders town and bears the Guelders lions and rose on its seal and coat of arms.