The wild Bernd

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Monument “Der Wilde Bernd”, 2011

The wild Bernd is a legendary person in the village of Nienborg in the municipality of Heek in western Münsterland near the Dutch border. A memorial is dedicated to him.

Bernd was a poacher in the Nienborg forests and is said to have saved the village from robbery and arson during the Thirty Years War around 1633 by warning the crew of Nienborg Castle of approaching troops and then even when the need was great due to their attack, shot their leader. The castle men are said to have granted him three wishes. He asked: "Frie fisken, frie hunt and frie schießen in`n Grawen." The latter referred to the sole right of the castle crew to relieve themselves in the moat of the castle. Research in archives showed that Bernd's person may actually have existed.

Adolff Wilhelm Moerbecke zu Stevening (1611–1675) reports in his chronicle:

“Alss het Hessesche casually dry up what, should still 3 companies [n] te voete en 1 a 2 te perde in the graffschap van Bentheim, was [aver commenderde Hieronymus Difholt], volgen, diewelcke coming before het stedeken Nyenborgh, wilde mead welt raise the porte geapent. Mar die borgeren dat niet willende, meinde hee, hetsolve met welt tewege te brengen, vallende met welt het vleck an. The borrower dit seende, lost some pods' t stain end retiren up the borgh. The Hessians of the staten portten avervallende believe they avoid the borgh mede te in a fury. Maer also capitein Rucer, as synde de vorenste ende the het volck anvoerde, up the brugge doot bleff, ende syn broder (ock capitein) darsolvest wasquest end de borgers the borghportte too krigende, syn see met voele gequesten returned. "

As a contribution by the Heimatverein to the 800th anniversary of the town, the Erkelenz artist Michael Franke created a bronze monument for him in 1998 , which was cast by the company Butzon & Bercker from Kevelaer . It was inaugurated on June 6, 1998. The monument, to which the sculpture of a wild boar belongs, has meanwhile been moved in front of the parish home at the Burgtor.

Web links

Commons : Der Wilde Bernd  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz Nacke: Bernd the poacher or the wild Bernd - legend. In: Heimat- und Rathausspiegel, Heek, issue 37, December 1994, page 1614
  2. ↑ compare: Heimatverein Nienborg: 17th century.
  3. ↑ quoted from Jürgen Strothmann : Westphalia and Europe in the 17th century. The chronicle of Adolf Wilhelm Moerbecke zu Stevening. Westphalian sources and archive publications. Volume 22. Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, Münster 2000, p. 77 f., Quoted from [1]
  4. ↑ Heimatverein Nienborg: Der Wilde Bernd .

Coordinates: 52 ° 7 '57.3 "  N , 7 ° 6' 7.8"  E