Amersfoort

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Amersfoort (disambiguation) .

Amersfoort municipality

flag	coat of arms
province	Utrecht
mayor	Lucas Bolsius ( CDA )
Seat of the municipality	Amersfoort
Area  - land  - water	63.85  km 2 63.24 km 2 0.61 km 2
CBS code	0307
Residents	156,364 (Jan 31, 2019)
Population density	2449 inhabitants / km 2
Coordinates	52 ° 9 '  N , 5 ° 23'  E Coordinates: 52 ° 9 '  N , 5 ° 23'  E
Important traffic route
prefix	033
Postcodes	3800-3830
Website	Homepage of Amersfoort

Bridge over a canal in Amersfoort

Amersfoort ( listen ^{? / I} ) is the second largest city in the Dutch province of Utrecht with 156,364 inhabitants (as of January 31, 2019) . It borders the province of Gelderland to the east , and Hilversum in North Holland is barely more than 20 kilometers to the west.

economy

The city's main source of income is in the service sector, so there are many office buildings. An insurance company , several sanatoriums and a chain of shops selling used books are located here. It is the seat of the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE), the Dutch authority for the preservation of historical monuments.

traffic

The city is a very important railway and motorway junction. Travel routes from Berlin / Hamburg via Bad Bentheim , Deventer and Apeldoorn , from Groningen / Leeuwarden via Zwolle , from Rotterdam / The Hague via Utrecht , and from Amsterdam come together by rail at Amersfoort Centraal station . Although it lost its former economic importance as a railway town with the large railway area that characterizes the cityscape, due to the closure of the repair shop and the marshalling yard , a new parking yard for passenger trains (Bokkeduinen) was built.

The PROTOS regional train manufactured by Fahrzeugtechnik Dessau has been running between Amersfoort and the surrounding cities since September 2007 .

politics

• See: List of Mayors of Amersfoort

Attractions

Onze-Lieve-Vrouwetoren in Amersfoort

View from the "Tower of Our Lady" to Amersfoort

Eemhuis cultural center

Groot Tinnenburg was part of the city fortifications

• The Onze-Lieve-Vrouwetoren (“Our Dear Lady Tower”) is one of the highest medieval church towers in the country. The associated church was destroyed in an explosion in 1787 and the tower remained standing.
• The city center is well worth seeing and is medieval. Worth mentioning are the Sint-Joriskerk (St. George's Church), the Koppelpoort (combined land-water gates, can be seen very well from the train to Apeldoorn ), and the Muurhuizen ("wall houses"), which are built on the oldest city wall .
• In 1998 the Armando Museum was opened, which was destroyed by fire in October 2007.
• In the birth house of Pieter Cornelis Mondrian there is also a small museum dedicated to this painter.
• Two kilometers west of the city, in a forest, is the "Dierenpark Amersfoort" zoo .
• The local history museum "Flehite" in the city center was reopened in 2009 after an asbestos removal and contains a gallery of Dutch masters, objects related to the city's history and various exhibitions of current local artists.
• The headquarters of the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed has been in Amersfoort since 2009, and its extensive specialist library can be used by the interested public on site.
• The new Eemhuis cultural center was opened on May 1, 2014. It unites four institutions under one roof: the Eemland Library , the Eemland Library , the Scholen in de Kunst and the Kunsthal KAdE art gallery .

history

Illustration of a tobacco shed on the Hogeweg near Amersfoort (Paul van Liender, 1759)

Settlements in the area around Amersfoort date back to 1000 BC. BC, the name "Amersfoort" (after the " Furt am Amer", today Eem ) probably comes from the 11th century. It was granted city rights in 1259 by Bishop Hendrik van Vianden . Amersfoort was an important market and trading center on the route between Holland and the Hanseatic cities . The port of Spakenburg on the Zuiderzee , located near Amersfoort, enabled the fish trade, among other things.

The construction of the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwetoren and the church belonging to it began in 1444. The church was destroyed in an explosion in 1787, the tower was spared. In the Middle Ages , Amersfoort was also an important center of the textile industry. In the 18th century, the town flourished with tobacco growing and trading. In Amersfoort, a separate type of tobacco flake developed in the late 17th century , the Amersfoorter Schuppen. A few scales have survived.

Amersfoort in World War II

On August 18, 1941 by the German occupiers , the Amersfoort concentration camp set up, even de Boskamp , the forest camp called. It served as an internment camp for “hostages” as well as a “ protective custody camp ”, “youth transit camp” and as a “ work education camp ” of the SS . The prisoners were used to clear the forest and to do sawing work in the vicinity of the camp. Many Jewish prisoners were transported to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, to the labor education camps in Essen, to the Hermann Göring works, and to other concentration camps in Germany. Amersfoort was also the place of execution. By the time the camp was handed over to the Dutch Red Cross on April 20, 1945, 32,500 men had been admitted. At times, the camp also served as a "reception center" for women and children in prison with American citizenship. After the war, the National Socialist Karl Friedrich Titho was sentenced to six years' imprisonment for the shootings in Amersfoort in the Netherlands, while his superior Erich Deppner was acquitted in Germany. The "SS- Schutzhaftlagerführer " Hans Stöver was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1948 . The "SS-Schutzhaftlagerführer" Karl Peter Berg was sentenced to death and executed in 1949 . The "SS-Untererschutzhaftlagerführer" Jupp Kotalla was also sentenced to death, but this sentence was later changed to "Lifelong". In 1953 , a national memorial was inaugurated at the end of the SS shooting range, which also served as the site of numerous executions. Since then, the “prisoner in front of the firing squad” has been remembering the inmates of the PDA. A visitor center and a memorial area on part of the former camp site complete the memorial.

Incorporations

To the north of the actual city are the old villages of Hoogland and Hooglanderveen , which were incorporated into Amersfoort around 1974 against the will of the population at the time. You are now almost completely surrounded by the city's new construction districts.

Events

The Rabobank Amersfoort Jazz Festival takes place in May .

Sports

As part of the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam , the modern pentathlon was held in the Amersfoort riding school .

From 1966 to 1991, with one exception, the European pentathlon championships for national teams were held in Amersfoort every two years . The hosts won this competition a total of five times.

sons and daughters of the town

• Paulus Buys (1531–1594), counsel for the states of Holland and West Friesland
• Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (1547–1619), statesman (state advocate / pensioner ) and diplomat
• Pieter Both (1568–1615), first Governor General of the Dutch East Indies
• Nicolaas Pieneman (1809–1860), painter
• Jan de Louter (1847–1932), constitutional and international lawyer
• Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), painter
• Willem Sandberg (1897–1984), graphic artist and museum director
• Johannes Heesters (1903–2011), actor and operetta star
• Marie Vierdag (1905–2005), swimmer
• Henk Vredeling (1924–2007), agricultural scientist and politician (Partij van de Arbeid)
• Corrie Hermann (* 1932), physician and politician
• Ubbo Felderhof (* 1936), theoretical physicist
• Nico ter Linden (1936–2018), theologian and writer
• Ben Pon junior (1936–2019), former racing driver and Olympian in clay pigeon shooting
• Rudie H. Kuiter (* 1943), Australian underwater photographer
• Peter Kisner (1944–2020), racing cyclist
• Epi Drost (1945–1995), football player and coach
• Tristan Keuris (1946–1996), composer and musician
• Edwin Benne (* 1965), volleyball player and coach
• Theo Meijer (* 1965), judoka, bronze medal winner at the Olympics
• John van den Brom (* 1966), football coach
• Deidre Holland (born 1966), porn actress
• Juraj Stanik (* 1969), jazz musician
• Hans van de Haar (* 1975), football player and coach
• Caspar van Meel (* 1979), jazz musician
• Tanja Gonggrijp (* 1976), diplomat
• Muslu Nalbantoğlu (* 1983), Dutch-Turkish football player
• Joey Snijders (* 1987), football player
• Laura van der Heijden (* 1990), handball player
• Marco van Ginkel (* 1992), football player
• Maarten Meiners (* 1992), ski racer
• Femke Bol (* 2000), athlete
• Christopher Mamengi (* 2001), soccer player

literature

• Cas Oorthuys (photos), H. Molendijk (text): This is Amersfoort . Axel Juncker Verlag, Berlin 1960.
• Andreas Pflock: On forgotten tracks. A guide to memorials in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. published by the Federal Agency for Civic Education . Bonn 2006.
• Coenraad JF Stuldreher: German concentration camps in the Netherlands - Amersfoort, Westerbork, Herzogenbusch. In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (Red.): The forgotten camps. (= Dachauer Hefte. Issue 5). Munich 1994, ISBN 3-423-04634-1 .
• Wall city 1942. In: Andreas Burnier: Knabenzeit. Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-8031-2759-4 , p. 53ff.

Web links

Commons : Amersfoort  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Amersfort in the Topographia Circuli Burgundici (Mathäus Merian)  - sources and full texts

• Website of the municipality (Dutch)
• Amersfoort Zoo website (Dutch)
• Website of the museum in the Mondrianhaus (Dutch, German, English)
• Website Kamp Amersfoort - Amersfoort Police Transit Camp (Dutch, English)
• Comprehensive information about the camp and today's memorial (German)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bevolkingsontwikkeling; regio per maand . In: StatLine . Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (Dutch)