Department Ems

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The Ems department was a department in the Grand Duchy of Berg on the right bank of the Rhine, which existed from 1806 to 1813 . First prefect was Graf Spee and from May 1, 1809 to Karl Josef von Mylius (prefect ad interim). On January 1, 1811, the Ems department, which now belonged to France, was renamed Département de l'Ems-Supérieur , with three of its southernmost cantons being separated and assigned to the Ruhr department .

It was formed from the northern part of the Principality of Münster , from the counties of Bentheim (with the glory of the location), Horstmar , Steinfurt , Rheina-Wolbeck , Tecklenburg and Lingen .

The department located in the north of the Grand Duchy was its largest in terms of area with 88 square miles, but with a comparatively small population of 210,000. The only significant place in the otherwise structurally weak and hardly administrable department was its capital, Münster .

When Northern Germany was incorporated into the French Empire north of the Wesel- Munster- Minden - Lauenburg line in 1810, which Napoleon carried out to enforce the continental blockade against Great Britain , most of the department was separated from the Grand Duchy and was now French. Only three cantons of its southern foothills remained with the Grand Duchy and were connected to the Ruhr department. The Grand Duchy now comprised only three of its four departments.

From the time it was founded, the Ems department comprised the three arrondissements of Münster , Coesfeld and Lingen .

• Arrondissement of Münster with the cantons: St. Mauritz , Greven , Telgte , Lengerich , Warendorf and Sassenberg
• Arrondissement Coesfeld with the cantons: Billerbeck , Horstmar , Ochtrup , Rheine and Bentheim

Clemens Wenzel Freiherr von Oer zu Nottbeck became sub-prefect .

• Arrondissement Lingen with the cantons: Nordhorn , Emlingkamp ( Emlichheim ), Freren , Ibbenbüren and Tecklenburg

literature

• Rudolf Göck: The Grand Duchy of Berg under Joachim Murat, Napoleon I and Louis Napoleon 1806–1813. A contribution to the history of French rule on the right bank of the Rhine. Cologne 1877 (strongly anti-French tendency font).
• Charles Schmidt : The Grand Duchy of Berg, 1806-1813. A study on French supremacy in Germany under Napoleon I. Neustadt / Aisch 1999, ISBN 3-87707-535-5 (German translation and reprint of the Paris 1905 edition).
• Heinz-K. Junk: The Grand Duchy of Berg. In: Westfälische Forschungen 33 (1983), pp. 29-83.
• Alwin Hanschmidt : rulers cult and rulers' festival - or how Napoleon came to Ems, Hase and Hunte. Napoleon celebrations in the Ober-Ems department from 1811 to 1813. In: Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 109 (2004), pp. 201–222.