Esenshamm

Esenshamm City of Nordenham Coordinates: 53 ° 26 ′ 55 ″  N , 8 ° 26 ′ 25 ″  E
Height :	0 m above sea level NN
Residents :	1200
Incorporation :	March 1, 1974
Postal code :	26954
Area code :	04731
Location of Esenshamm in Lower Saxony

View from the south, right the B 212

The village of Esenshamm is part of the municipality of Nordenham in the Wesermarsch district in Lower Saxony .

The villages Esenshammer Altendeich, Esenshammer Oberdeich, Esenshammergroden, Butterburg, Havendorf and Bulterweg are also counted.

The place name Esenshamm only prevailed about 300 years ago, before the place was known as Esemissen, Esensem or Esenshaim. The landmark of the village is the church, built between 1300 and 1352, which the Frisian chief Husseko Hayen expanded and used as a fortress for himself and as a place of refuge for some Vitalien brothers .

Esenshamm is a stronghold of the Frisian sports Boßeln and Klootschießen .

history

middle Ages

When today's Esenshamm was formed is unknown. The place was probably created by connecting several summer dikes in the tenth to eleventh centuries. In the Middle Ages Esenshamm belonged to the autonomous Frisian state municipality of Rüstringen , the terra Rustringie . Outwardly, the regional municipalities were represented by the redjeven . In June 1220, 16 representatives from Rüstringen signed a contract with the city of Bremen in order to increase legal security and regulate trade. They also included Boyco de Haventhorpe (Havendorf) and Everardus de Esmundeshem (Esenshamm).

Esenshamm experienced its peak as a regional center of power on the Butjadinger peninsula under the chief Husseko Hayen , who was considered a powerful nobleman of his time, but probably owed his wealth to the cooperation with the Vitalienbrothers , to whom he used his land and property as a basis for attacks on the merchant ships the Hanseatic League made available.

For his protection, Hayo Husseken had the newly built Esenshammer church expanded into a fortified church and a wide defensive ditch built around it. His marriage to the noble Jarste Wiemken secured him the favor of her brother, Edo Wiemken the Elder , one of the most influential Frisian chiefs of the Papinga family. Husseken formed ties with the other regional chiefs, such as Lübbe Ommeken, Didde Eggesen zu Golzwarden, Ebke Kampes zu Blexen or the chiefs Ede and Ebke Herings. These chiefs, mainly beer farmers, turned away from Hayo Husseken as early as 1380 and partly submitted to the Bremen people.

The fall of Esenshamm took place between 1380 and 1384, when Husseken Wiemken's sister Jarste resigned (allegedly because of her "infinite ugliness") and married his lover. Edo Wiemken is said to have been furious and agreed to an alliance with Oldenburg and Bremen. The alliance formed a large army, which was equipped with enormous siege machinery and blieden (large slingshots). In addition to 1000 cavalrymen, the army also had the same number of infantry available. While all the chiefs south of Rodenkirchen surrendered on the march on Esenshamm and revealed their fortifications, the renegade Lubbe Onneken (former chief of Rodenkirchen) even allied himself with the army. Despite this superiority, Husseken faced the fight with his small army of Frisian fighters. Esenshamm was besieged for 14 days and under fire day and night. After, according to tradition, 5 loads of arrows and other projectiles were fired, the church and Friesenheim were badly "melted together" and hunger tore at the besieged, Husseken surrendered to the Bremen city lords and asked for their mercy and hoped not to be handed over to Wiemken, which they actually didn't do in the beginning.

After the dissolution of the common army, however, Husseken was left behind and Wiemken was given control of Esenshamm. Wiemken had Husseken dragged into his castle (the later Sibetsburg ), starving and torturing there for days, before he had parts of the flesh cut off his bones while still alive as a death penalty with a rope of fine hair and finally cut through the middle of his body. All other regional chiefs swore their loyalty to Wiemken out of fear. The church in Esenshamm was made unsuitable as a fortress by the people of Bremen, its tower was trimmed, most of the moat was filled in and all other fortifications were dismantled. While the people of Bremen began building the “Friedeburg” fortress in Atens from 1406, Esenshamm served as the basis for the builders from now on. It was not until the late 15th century that Esenshamm fell back to the Frisians under Sibeth Papinga, but never regained its old military importance.

1500-1933

Esenshamm fell to the County of Oldenburg as early as 1514 (later Duchy, Grand Duchy and, after the First World War, a free state). As part of the Saxon feud , the united dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and the Count of Oldenburg attacked Butjadingen and Stadland, which had come under the influence of Count Edzard I of East Frisia , and conquered both areas. First Esenshamm and Abbehausen came into Oldenburg ownership as Allodium, in 1517 Count Johann V had to take the area as a fief from Duke Heinrich the Younger of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel . After a failed uprising of the Butjadingen farmers in 1515, the Guelph dukes gradually sold their property to the Oldenburg Count, so that Butjadingen finally became Oldenburg in 1523.

Esenhamm was still one of the largest regional villages, shaped by an enormous number of landowners and therefore presumably also permanently prosperous. This is evidenced, for example, a detection of traders from 1815: 106 landowners, 47 Heuer pieces or Koetter , two traders, 13 Schuster , seven Schneider , four blacksmiths , a small blacksmith, five carpenters , three coopers , a glazier , a Rademacher , a painter , a watchmaker , two bricklayers , five linen weavers , a roofer , two boatmen, a ferryman and a musician .

Many surnames in the village are evidence of the number of traders. Furthermore, apart from a few brickworks, no industry has settled in Esenshamm.

1933 until today

In contrast to the rest of the northern Wesermarsch , Esenshamm was largely spared war damage due to the lack of industry and lack of any other strategic importance . So it kept its old character as a place of residence. Almost all Esenshammer residents work in the farms in the vicinity or in large-scale industry in the northern Wesermarsch.

As a result of the community reform, Esenshamm lost its community status on March 1, 1974. The town center and the districts of Havendorf and Enjebuhr were attached to the municipality of Nordenham . The villages of Kleinensiel and Havendorfersande became part of Stadland . In the 1970s, the Unterweser nuclear power plant was built in the neighboring municipality of Stadland , which went online in 1978 and was shut down in 2011. Since the area on which it was built previously belonged to the municipality of Esenshamm, the nuclear power plant was incorrectly referred to as the Esenshamm NPP for a long time. Even today you can see all levels of settlement on the Wesermarsch in Esenshamm: single farms, row villages, closed localities on raised Wurten and modern settlements.

Tourism and local transport

There are several guest houses in Esenshamm, and many private guest houses also rent rooms to travelers.

Buildings

• Matthäuskirche, an important late Romanesque sandstone building from the 1st half of the 14th century with a brick tower and early Gothic sandstone portal.

Matthew Church

Tower on the high churchwurt

Brick tower, sandstone portal

View from the southeast

Vaulted chancel

Industry and economy

There is no industry in Esenshamm. In the "Wesertunnel" industrial park created in the course of the construction of the Weser tunnel, a carpentry and construction company have so far set up shop. There is also a scaffolding company in the “Am Wesertunnel” industrial park. Helios Kliniken GmbH is currently building a new hospital in the north of the town between the town center and Hoffe .

Education and school

Esenshamm also has a kindergarten. Due to a lack of new students, the primary school was closed in 2012. For the first time since 1593 there is no longer a school in town.

Sports

For around 100 years Esenshamm has been a stronghold of the Klootschießer movement . The club, which has around 150 members, offers the sports of kloot shooting, bossing and throwing ball throwing . There is also the Esenshamm gymnastics club, which is over 150 years old. He offers gymnastics , badminton , soccer , fistball , running, volleyball, table tennis and walking .

Local associations

• Klootschießerverein Esenshamm
• Gymnastics Club Esenshamm
• Citizens' Association Esenshamm
• Shooting club Esenshamm
• Kyffhäuserverein Esenshamm

Personalities

• Hans Hinrichs (born June 15, 1848 in Esenshammergroden, † December 3, 1912 in Detmold), councilor and publisher
• Heinrich Gerhard Lübben (born April 29, 1883 in Langenriep; † December 27, 1931 in Absen), teacher and zoologist, founder and director of the zoo in Bremerhaven

literature

• Friedrich Wilhelm Brandt: Ferries of the Lower Weser , ISBN 3-89442-159-2
• A. Graf Finckenstein: The history of Butjadingens and the Stadland until 1514 , ISBN 3-87358-076-4
• Wolfgang Günter [u. a.]: Nordenham. The story of a city , ed. commissioned by the city of Nordenham by Eila Elzholz, Isensee-Verlag, Oldenburg 1993, ISBN 3-89598-153-2
• Pastor Toenniessen: History of the Esenshamm community
• Jens Schmeyers: The last free Frisians , ISBN 3-927697-47-8
• Ernst Andreas Friedrich : The fortified church of Esenshamm in: If stones could talk . Volume IV, Landbuch-Verlag, Hannover 1998, ISBN 3-7842-0558-5

Individual evidence

1. ^ Heinrich Schmidt: The Nordenham area in the Middle Ages and the Reformation , in: Wolfgang Günther (among others), Nordenham. History of a city , Oldenburg 1993, pp. 81–160, p. 100. The source is edited: Bremer Urkundenbuch I, no. 119.
2. ^ Federal Statistical Office (ed.): Historical municipality directory for the Federal Republic of Germany. Name, border and key number changes in municipalities, counties and administrative districts from May 27, 1970 to December 31, 1982 . W. Kohlhammer GmbH, Stuttgart and Mainz 1983, ISBN 3-17-003263-1 , p. 276 and 277 .