Bilstein (Lennestadt)

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Bilstein
City of Lennestadt
Coordinates: 51 ° 5 ′ 40 ″  N , 8 ° 1 ′ 8 ″  E
Height : 305 m
Residents : 1043  (Jun. 30, 2020)
Postal code : 57368
Area code : 02721
Bilstein (Lennestadt)
Bilstein

Location of Bilstein in Lennestadt
View from the castle to the town center with St. Agatha
View from the castle to the town center with St. Agatha

The place Bilstein is located in the southern Sauerland and is part of the city of Lennestadt in the Olpe district in North Rhine-Westphalia . He is best known for his Bilstein Castle, built by the noblemen of Bilstein from 1202 to 1225 . A youth hostel has been located in the castle since 1927 . The Veischede flows through the village, and an elevation in the village is called Rosenberg. The Bilstein / Rosenberg nature reserve is located directly to the north of the development .

history

Experts date the establishment of the settlement around 1190. In that year, a farm was mentioned, the so-called Freiheit Bilstein. The place bore the addition of "freedom" because of the privileges granted in the Middle Ages. Around 1445, when a mayor and a council ruled there in a town-like community, there was already a kind of fortification with two gates: initially made of wood, then in the 16th century with walls.

The place name for the castle and the associated settlement contains the basic word "-stein". The Germanic “bili-” for “projecting, cantilevered, pointed” seems possible as a defining word. For Bilstein, this results in the interpretation suggestion “tapering terrain section or protrusion”, as can be seen in the castle hill.

After the rule of the noblemen of Bilstein (from approx. 1220 to 1365) and belonging to the Grafschaft Mark (1365 to 1445), Bilstein fell to the Duchy of Westphalia in 1445 , which belonged to the Electorate of Cologne until 1802 . Bilstein was therefore under the rule of Electoral Cologne for a good three and a half centuries.

The oldest known word money register from around 1552 lists 23 houses for Bilstein from which word money had to be paid. If you count 5 to 6 people per house, then with 23 houses you get 115 to 138 people who lived in Bilstein at the time. The residents of the castle (including electoral judges, renters), whose number is estimated at around 20, are not included here.

With the secularization (abolition of church institutions) in 1802 the electoral Cologne period ended. In the following politically changeable time, the Duchy of Westphalia and thus also Bilstein were initially added to the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt and then taken over by Prussia from 1816. From then on, Bilstein belonged to the administrative district of Arnsberg and thus to the province of Westphalia, was the seat of the district of Bilstein from 1817 to 1819 and was the seat of the dissolved Bilstein office until June 30, 1969 .

The first building and population census under Prussia in 1818 showed 36 houses and 377 inhabitants for Bilstein, including the inhabitants of the castle. The relatively strong increase in the number of inhabitants compared to the middle of the 16th century results to a large extent from the increase in the number of supplements or assessors . As a rule, this section of the population had no real estate and lived in the houses of the residents or in storehouses, bakeries or other outbuildings converted into apartments. Suppliers mostly hired themselves out as day laborers or as craftsmen such as tailors, shoemakers and the like. a .; Women were often spinners. At the beginning of the 19th century, the increase in families with leaflets had reached such an extent that there were bottlenecks in the supply of firewood in Bilstein and precautions had to be taken to prevent theft.

Economic development under Prussia in the first half of the 19th century was difficult because the agricultural situation had deteriorated and the iron industry in the Olper area came to a standstill. The Bilsteiner carting trade was also severely affected after the Ruhr-Sieg Railway started operating in 1861 . This development led to numerous emigrations in the period from 1834 to 1882. The situation improved when the tobacco and cigar industry in Bilstein and Kirchveischede was able to develop for a longer period in the second half of the 19th century.

An important event with considerable structural effects was the opening of the Ruhr-Sieg route in 1861 . The community of Bilstein urged early on for a connection to the Grevenbrück railway station, 6 km away . This led to the commissioning of the first trackless, electrically operated passenger railway between Grevenbrück - Bilstein - Kirchveische, known as the Veischedetalbahn , in the years 1904 to 1916. Due to the turmoil of the war and the lack of material, operations were stopped in 1916. In 1921 a postal service was set up for passenger traffic.

Overall, the opening of the Ruhr-Sieg route led to a location disadvantage for Bilstein and influenced various emigration. Examples include the relocation of a main pharmacy and medical practice to Altenhundem and Grevenbrück in 1863 and 1866, the change of a lawyer and notary to Grevenbrück in 1878, the dissolution of the Bilstein District Court Commission in 1878 and the new seat of the District Court in Förde (today Grevenbrück).

The seclusion and tranquility of the place meant that many expectant mothers from the embattled Ruhr area gave birth to their children in Bilstein between 1943 and 1945. The births were funded and organized by the National Socialist People's Welfare Organization . According to the registry office of the city of Lennestadt, the number of these births to foreign mothers in the period from June 8, 1943 to May 1, 1945 totaled 760, with the evacuated mothers primarily from the cities of Dortmund, Bochum, Wanne-Eickel and Hagen . Suitable facilities were located in the Heller and Kaufmann guest houses, in the Hotel zur Post and also in Bilstein Castle.

Bilstein received a lasting upswing from the increase in tourism, whereby the wooded area, the Bilstein Castle, the proximity to the Hohen Bracht and the Biggesee play a role. The rural town with well-preserved or restored half-timbered houses has a high residential quality and had 1,043 inhabitants at the end of June 2020, with the proportion of residents over 65 years of age being comparatively large at 21.9% (City of Lennestadt 17.4%).

The diaries of Drosten Kaspar von Fürstenberg have survived to this day, his grandson Ferdinand von Fürstenberg is considered the most important son of the town.

  • Bilstein Castle

  • Villa Freiheit 54 (built in 1903)

  • Fachwerk Freiheit 45 (built 1827)

  • Hofhaus Freiheit 56

  • Veischedetalbahn passenger car

  • Cenotaph on the Krähenberg

religion

St. Agatha Bilstein

Bilstein seems to have owned a chapel since the 16th century; its patronage lay with Bilstein Castle and the citizenship. When the current St. Agatha Church was rebuilt , which was opened on September 28, 1878 by Auxiliary Bishop Dr. Joseph Freusberg was inaugurated, St. St. Agatha has been named as the sole patroness of the church. The construction of the new church was stimulated by a generous donation from the auxiliary bishop mentioned. An expansion of the church was necessary in the years 1947–1950. The external appearance of the nave is characterized by a filigree quarry stone masonry and a choir room in neo-Gothic style. The center of the chancel is a heavy bronze cross decorated with rock crystals. The parish of St. Agatha Bilstein, in addition to the parishes in Kirchveischede and Grevenbrück, belongs to the Veischedetal pastoral network .

Personalities

panorama

and display information about the image
View of Bilstein from the tower of the Hohe Bracht, in the background Bilstein Castle

Web links

Commons : Bilstein (Lennestadt)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Uwe Lobbedey: Bilstein Castle - Westfälische Kunststätten
  2. ↑ cf. in detail Michael Flöer: The place names of the district of Olpe (= Westphalian Place Name Book Volume 8). Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, Bielefeld 2014, ISBN 9783895349683 , pp. 45–48 and 274
  3. ↑ Günther Becker (ed.): The freedom of Bilstein in the Electorate of Cologne from 1445 to 1802 . In the S. (Ed.): Bilstein Land, Burg and Ort. Contributions to the history of the Lennestadt area and the former rule of Bilstein . Self-published by the city of Lennestadt 1975, DNB 780520580 , p. 217.
  4. ^ Günther Becker: The freedom of Bilstein in the time of the Electorate of Cologne from 1445 to 1802 . In the S. (Ed.): Bilstein Land, Burg and Ort. Contributions to the history of the Lennestadt area and the former rule of Bilstein . Self-published by the city of Lennestadt 1975, DNB 780520580 , p. 219.
  5. ↑ Hans Mieles: Emigration from the former community . In: Günther Becker (ed.): Bilstein Land, Burg and Ort. Contributions to the history of the Lennestadt area and the former rule of Bilstein . Self-published by the city of Lennestadt 1975, DNB 780520580 , p. 165.
  6. ^ Günther Becker: Bilstein in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Günther Becker (ed.): Bilstein Land, Burg and Ort. Contributions to the history of the Lennestadt area and the former rule of Bilstein . Self-published by the city of Lennestadt 1975, DNB 780520580 , p. 244 f.
  7. ^ Ludger Kenning, Jürgen Lehmann: Trolleybuses in Germany . Volume 2. Verlag Kenning, Nordhorn 2011, ISBN 978-3-933613-31-8 , pp. 219-225.
  8. ↑ see also Günther Becker: Bilstein in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Günther Becker (ed.): Bilstein Land, Burg and Ort. Contributions to the history of the Lennestadt area and the former rule of Bilstein . Self-published by the city of Lennestadt 1975, DNB 780520580 , p. 243 f.
  9. ↑ cf. Uli Rauchheld: Bilsteiner roots - The Heller maternity home of the NSV . In: Südsauerland. Home voices from the Olpe district , volume 264 (3/2016), p. 276 f.
  10. ^ Information from the city of Lennestadt
  11. ^ Ralf Breer and Otto Höffer: Churches and chapels in Attendorn, Lennestadt and Kirchundem . Ed .: Sparkasse Attendorn-Lennestadt-Kirchhundem. Attendorn 1999, p. 72 ff.