Eupen

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Eupen
BE Eupen COA.svg Flag Eupen.svg
Eupen (Liège)
Eupen
Eupen
State : BelgiumBelgium Belgium
Region : Wallonia
Province : Liege
District : Verviers
Community : German speakers
Coordinates : 50 ° 38 ′  N , 6 ° 2 ′  E Coordinates: 50 ° 38 ′  N , 6 ° 2 ′  E
Area : 103.74 km²
Residents: 19,677 (Jan 1, 2019)
Population density: 190 inhabitants per km²
Height: 260  m
Post Code: 4700 (Eupen)
4701 (Kettenis)
Prefix: 087
Mayor: Claudia Niessen ( Ecolo )

Local government address : 		Am Stadthaus 1
4700 Eupen
Website: www.eupen.be
lb le ls
House Grand Ry , seat of government of the German-speaking community

Eupen (German pronunciation [ ˈʔɔʏpn̩ ], French [ øpɛn ]; Walloon Nèyåw ; outdated French Néau ) is a Belgian city ​​in the east of the province of Liège in the Walloon Region . The city is located on the edge of the Hohes Venn-Eifel nature park, about 16 km south of Aachen and 45 km from Liège and Maastricht and is divided into the Oberstadt districts with the neighboring hamlet of Stockem and Unterstadt on the banks of the Weser with the Haas and Bergviertel. With the municipal merger of 1977 , the town of Kettenis with its hamlets of Gemehret, Libermé, Nispert and Oberste Heide was added as a new district . Since 1975 there has been a twinning with the municipality of Temse in the province of East Flanders .

As part of the German-speaking Community (DG) in eastern Belgium is the official language German and the approximately 19,700 residents of the city are mostly in German, with her Eupen Platt of Low Franconian (Limburg) and Ripuarian dialect group is assigned.

Since the gradual transformation of Belgium into a federal state, Eupen has been the headquarters of the parliament , the government and the ministry of the German-speaking Community and thus the political center of the German-speaking minority in Belgium with around 78,000 inhabitants. Eupen is also the administrative center of the Euregio Meuse-Rhine .

coat of arms

Blazon : “A continuous red cross of thorns in gold; on the upper edge of the shield a tinned black grooved silver wall crown with a central round tower with a protruding crenellated edge, two notches and a black gate as well as two smaller goalless flank towers. ”(City coat of arms in a baroque oval shield with rolled edges). The split red and gold flag bears the city arms on the split.

history

The place Eupen in the Duchy of Limburg was first mentioned in the Annales Rodenses as a place that belonged to the parish of Baelen around 1040 together with Membach and Henri-Chapelle and in 1178 by Duke Heinrich III. was donated by Limburg to the Abbey of Klosterrath . Since the 13th century Eupen was ruled regionally by the lords of Stockem and Eupen as "glory", whose coat of arms showed a crooked ordinary cross with a jagged crossbar. By the Battle of Worringen the Duchy of Limburg in 1288 fell under John I to the Duchy of Brabant . In 1387 Brabant and Limburg went to the House of Burgundy . During the war against the Duchy of Geldern , Eupen was burned down.

In 1445, 156 households (“fireplaces”) were counted in Eupen, 25 in the neighboring hamlet of Nispert and 16 in Stockem. In 1477, Eupen came with Brabant and Limburg to the Austrian Netherlands, ruled by the Habsburgs . In 1544, Emperor Charles V granted the town the right to hold two free annual markets. In 1554 Eupen became known for its trade in cloth and nails. A year later, Eupen came to the Spanish Netherlands with Brabant and Limburg .

The Protestant movement in Eupen was first mentioned in 1565. In 1582, 50% of Eupen was burned down by Dutch mercenaries during the night. In 1627 there were 700 households and over 2,000 adult believers in Eupen. In 1635 a plague epidemic decimated the population. In 1648 Eupen with its three Lathöfen Stockem, Frambach (Upper Town) and St. Marien (Lower Town) became free rulership with its own court and in 1674 received city ​​rights through the award of a seal .

By decree of King Louis XIV of May 6, 1680, the people of Eupen were granted generous rights to acquire land for the operation of mills, factories and shops, to procure the necessary wood for their plants from the surrounding forests and to employ foreign workers. In 1680, the first fine cloth factory was built in Eupen. At the beginning of its heyday, Eupen was granted the right to hold five free annual markets in 1688. In the high phase of the cloth industry, which has now lasted for around 200 years, around 7,000 of the almost 10,000 residents of Eupen found employment in the cloth trade and in supplier companies.

Between 1707 and 1714 Eupen was under the rule of the United Netherlands for a short time . Subsequently, after the Treaty of Utrecht with Brabant and Limburg , the city fell back to the Austrian Netherlands. In 1718 the city received the permit for the free importation of wool, oil, dyes and all materials required for the manufacture of cloths and fabrics, which was followed in 1760 by the duty-free importation of cow hair. In 1734 the citizens of Eupen were given the right to vote to elect mayors and new men. In 1783 a merchant's college, a kind of chamber of commerce, was established, and in 1787 a court of first instance was established.

1794 the city came under the rule of France and was now on the department Ourthe , Prefecture Liege, sub-prefecture Malmedy . In 1806 the first hoisting and shearing machines for cloth manufacture were introduced and the manufacturer Bernhard Georg von Scheibler (1783–1860) set up the first mechanical wool spinning mill. In the following years, the district of Unterstadt was upgraded to a new industrial location and a large number of new factories were founded on the Weser and Hill .

In 1815, Eupen was assigned to the Rhine Province of the Kingdom of Prussia by the Congress of Vienna and the seat of the Eupen district . In 1821 a weaver revolt broke out after the installation of a new cloth shearing machine . During these years, Eupen experienced an economic crisis and increased poverty among the population, which led to the introduction of various schools for the poor. The cloth industry only recovered at the end of the decade. In 1827 the Eupener Zeitung appeared as the first newspaper in the city. In 1864 the city of Eupen was given a city coat of arms. From 1871 the Prussian Kingdom and thus also Eupen belonged to the newly founded German Empire.

After the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles the territory of Eupen-Malmedy was assigned in 1920 Belgium and was until 1925 part of the General Herman Baltia assumed General Governorate Eupen-Malmedy . From 1929 to 1940 the 2nd regiment of the Carabiniers-Cyclistes took over the building of the "Industrial and Commercial College for Boys and Girls", which was donated by Robert Wetzlar and directed by his wife Mathilde and closed in 1920, and set up the Caserne Sous-Lieutenant Antoine there.

On May 10, 1940, the Second World War began for Belgium with the case of Gelb . Hitler had a total of seven of his armies march into the neighboring neutral states of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg and occupy them. On May 18, 1940, the area around Eupen was annexed to the German Reich again . In September 1944, the Wehrmacht troops withdrew from the approaching US troops, which meant that the area was beyond the influence of the National Socialists. However, from October 1944, some distance from Eupen, fierce fighting took place for a few months during the Battle of Aachen , the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest and the Ardennes Offensive , which resulted in numerous military hospitals and logistics sites in the city.

After the war, the old pre-war borders in Belgium were restored. On February 15, 1947, the Royal Military Institute for Physical Education moved into the Eupen barracks.

In 1974 the 300th anniversary of the city charter was celebrated.

The award of a new coat of arms by the Belgian King Baudouin took place in 1983. In the same year the city became the seat of the first government of the German-speaking Community of Belgium.

religion

Although the development of both Catholics and Protestants in Eupen was strongly influenced in the course of the city's history by the relevant systems of rule, and because Eupen was not an imperial city, it was largely spared from religious struggles, such as those in the context of the Aachen religious unrest took place in the nearby imperial city of Aachen.

Roman Catholic parish

St. Nicholas Church

The first beginnings of an orderly Catholic parish go back to the 13th century, when in 1213 a "Capella Sancti Nicolai" in "Oipen" was mentioned in a document in the Annales Rodenses. This was replaced by a Gothic church in the 14th or 15th century and developed under the name of St. Nicholas with the twin towers into the town's distinctive main church. In 1695 it was decoupled from the parish of Baelen and raised to an independent parish in the Diocese of Liège , and the previous rector Nikolaus Heyendal was appointed first pastor.

During the Counter-Reformation , Walloon Capuchin monks were sent to Eupen around 1660 to counteract the spreading heresy and the spread of Protestantism. They built the Church of the Immaculate Conception with a large convent building on a donated piece of land, as well as a chapel with the miraculous image of the Blessed Mother on the border of their property , which developed into a popular pilgrimage destination.

A few years later, the Klebanck family from Eupen had a chapel built on their property at Eupener Werthplatz for the residents there. Although the first services took place in the chapel from 1691, it was officially consecrated as the Church of the Assumption of Mary in 1729 and was taken over by the parish of St. Nicholas as a subsidiary church a year later . From around the year 1750 it was referred to as the Lambertus Chapel or, due to its location, as the “ Werthkapelle ” and has been administered by its own church council since 1759.

In the same period in 1747, the dye works owner Erich Adolph Görtz and his wife Isabella, née. Fey, on their premises in the neighboring hamlet of Nispert, which at that time still belonged to Kettenis, also built a private chapel for the few residents of the district. It was built according to plans by the Aachen architect Johann Joseph Couven in the baroque style and dedicated to the beheading of John the Baptist , but is simply called the “ Nisper Chapel ” by the population .

In the meantime, between 1720 and 1726, the main Gothic church of St. Nicholas was torn down and completely rebuilt in the Renaissance style according to plans by the Aachen architect Laurenz Mefferdatis and consecrated in 1729. Between 1740 and 1744 Johann Joseph Couven furnished it with a baroque high altar. In the same period in 1727, the Michaelskapelle in the Stockem district was donated and built, to which since 1738 a small procession has been making a pilgrimage from the Nikolauskirche every year on Michaelmas Day, 29 September.

The Eupen district of Unterstadt, which was initially sparsely populated, was cut off from this entire development of church life. In the 15th century there was a first small chapel in the Bergviertel and in 1692 another was to be built for the Haasviertel. However, this building was never completed, instead the old mountain chapel was torn down in 1712 and replaced by a new one, which had to be expanded as early as 1729 and could be consecrated to John the Baptist and St. Francis of Assisi on the same day as the Werthkapelle . For more than 100 years the Eupen mountain chapel remained the only church in the lower town.

As a result of the French occupation of Eupens from 1795, the Capuchin monastery was dissolved and the monks expelled. The monastery church was leased to the Catholics in 1797 for their services and the convent building to the civil parish administration in 1798. On the other hand, the Lady Chapel on the outer walls was closed and the inventory was sold, which could be bought back a few years later. Due to the Concordat of 1801 , the monastery church was recognized as a “chapelle auxiliaire” (auxiliary church) in 1803 and assigned as a subsidiary church to the Eupen main parish St. Nicholas. Under its French name: "Sainte Marie", it developed into the religious center of the community , especially for the francophone residents of the city. The new rulers had also initially forbidden services in the mountain chapel from 1797, but these could be resumed in 1803 after the chapel had also been recognized by the French as an auxiliary church.

Josefskirche

With the withdrawal of the French and the takeover of the region by Prussia , the Catholic community was placed under the Archdiocese of Cologne . Only the Nisper Chapel was not affected, as it remained in private hands. Over the next few decades, the archbishopric supported the expansion, restoration and renovation of the existing church facilities, together with the local community administration and with the help of numerous donations from the population, and between 1855 and 1872 the new construction of St. Joseph's Church in Eupen-Unterstadt according to plans by the Cologne architect Vincenz Statz . This construction became necessary after the mountain chapel alone no longer met the spatial requirements due to increasing industrialization and the associated population growth in the lower town. At the same time the establishment of an independent parish was approved. After the mountain chapel had been extensively rebuilt in the course of this, it was assigned as a subsidiary church to the newly established parish of St. Josef in 1872.

As early as 1827, the Marienkapelle on the outer walls of the former Capuchin monastery with the repurchased inventory had to give way in the course of the alignment of the newly planned thoroughfare from Aachen to Verviers . The statue was then largely true to the original, together with the altar, the iron grating and the wood paneling in the former monastery church on September 28, 1827 translocated .

In 1920 with the annexation of the Eupen district to Belgium, the parishes of St. Nikolaus, St. Josef and St. Katharina in Kettenis first came to the diocese of Eupen-Malmedy . After its dissolution in 1925, they were again subordinated to the Diocese of Liège, to which they belong to this day with a short interruption during the German occupation between 1940 and 1944. For structural reasons, the main parish of St. Nicholas merged with the monastery church and the Werth chapel, the parish of St. Josef with the mountain chapel and the Nisper chapel together with St. Katharina to form the newly founded parish association Eupen-Kettenis. The latter was built at the beginning of the 16th century as a replacement for an "old church" first mentioned in 1407 and raised to the status of an independent parish of Kettenis in 1647, and around 1745 it was also furnished with a magnificent high altar by Johann Joseph Couven.

In addition, in 2014 the Lambertus Chapel was raised to the status of a simultaneous church for both the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox parishes of Eupens in order to support the Orthodox parish of St. Apostle-like Nino , who with their around 250 believers were previously guests in the former monastery church and then in the Garnstock monastery on the outskirts, offer an opportunity to attend the liturgy .

Monastery facilities

Franciscan convent

In addition to the Capuchin monastery mentioned above , the Catholic Order of Recollects, founded by Johanna van Neerinck in Limbourg in Belgium in 1623, settled on the Heidberg in Eupen from 1698 and set up a school for girls in the Heidberg monastery and later also took care of nursing in 1842 founded St. Nikolaus-Spital. Initially, a small chapel belonged to the monastery, which was replaced in 1854 by the neo-Gothic Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus . In 1918 the monastery was recognized as a lyceum and in 1996 it merged with the Collège Patronné to form the Pater Damian secondary school in Eupen , which was located in a building complex on the Kaperberg. After the monastery complex became the property of the DG government in 2007, it was converted into a seminar and event center and reopened in 2014.

Josephine Koch , (religious name: Elisabeth von Jesus ), a sister of the Recollects, founded the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family on June 13, 1857 with like-minded women , a branch that emerged from the Order of the Recollects. The new order took over the house Vercken on the market square, a town villa built in 1752 for the cloth manufacturer Leonard Vercken (1705–1767) according to plans by Johann Joseph Couven, and set up the mother house there with a small chapel and the crypt for the order's founder, who later a retirement and old people's home was connected. The main tasks of the order are the inpatient and outpatient care of the sick and the mentally ill as well as the care of the poor and needy and the cooperation in the community and student pastoral care

Protestant community

Evangelical Peace Church

In the middle of the 16th century, several families in Eupen, still in isolated cases, confessed to the teachings of the Calvinist reformer Franciscus Junius . Under the rule of the Spanish Netherlands were suppressed in the practice of their religion and some with the outlawed occupied. They then held their services in the Waalse Kerk in Vaals , which was inaugurated in 1660 , to which they made a four-hour walk along the Geusenweg .

It was not until 1707, under the rule of the more tolerant United Netherlands, that the evangelical Christians were able to build a place of prayer and assembly, which on the outside had the character of a representative town house, but on the inside it was furnished as a church with a prayer room as well as a parish and teacher's apartment was. This freedom of movement ended when the Austrian Netherlands took over control of the areas from 1714. It was not until the Edict of Tolerance of 1781 by Emperor Joseph II that the Protestants were initially tolerated and were finally given full equality with the Catholics under the French occupation, which was taken over by the predominantly Protestant Prussian government from 1815. Since 27 November 1831, the Protestant community Eupen was the Uniate Church the church district of Aachen connected, their commitment, however, is rather the Reformed Church associate. In 1855, after four years of construction, the Friedenskirche was given its own official church building. Since 1920, the Protestants from Eupen have belonged to the “Union des Eglises Evangeliques Protestantes de Belgique” based in Brussels , which in turn was incorporated into the “United Protestant Church of Belgium” in 1978.

The old Protestant parsonage , built in 1707, served as a Protestant school for many decades and now functions as a parish hall for numerous activities and as a substitute for church services on a smaller scale.

Population development

Population development in Eupen

In the 1980s, Eupen recorded a slight population decline with around 17,000 inhabitants. Eupen's population has been growing steadily since the mid-1990s, and in 2012 it exceeded 19,000.

year Residents year Residents
1890 15,445
1894 15,069
1980 17,072 1999 17,429
1985 17,042 2000 17,516
1986 17,000 2001 17,551
1987 16,967 2002 17.606
1988 16,958 2003 17,750
1989 16,959 2004 17,788
1990 17,026 2005 18,038
1991 17.123 2006 18,248
1992 17,293 2007 18,313
1993 17,247 2008 18,408
1994 17,211 2009 18,483
1995 17,238 2010 18,717
1996 17,283 2011 18,878
1997 17.304 2012 18,949
1998 17,346 2013 19,254

Reference date January 1st

politics

Mayor and community college

The community college is the magistrate of the city of Eupen. It consists of the mayor and another five members, the lay judges , who are elected from among the city council. Acting mayor of the city of Eupen has been Claudia Niessen ( ECOLO ) since 2018 , aldermen are Philippe Hunger ( PFF ), Catherine Brüll (Ecolo), Michael Scholl (PFF), Kattrin Jadin (PFF) and Werner Baumgarten ( SPplus )

Mayor since 1815
  • 1815–1818: Nicolas Vercken de Vreuschemen (in office since 1803 under French occupation)
  • 1818–1820: Gerhard Wilhelm Hüffer
  • 1820–1822: Max Joseph Nicolay and Carl Böhme (acting)
  • 1822–1838: Andreas Joseph Franz von Grand Ry
  • 1838–1846: Peter Ney
  • 1847–1849: Amand von Harenne (1846 provisional, later district administrator in the Eupen district)
  • 1849–1850: Andreas Salm (acting)
  • 1850–1881: Peter Becker (Lord Mayor from 1865)
  • 1881–1905: Theodor Mooren
  • 1905–1913: Joseph Rütgers
  • 1913–1920: Levin Graf Wolff Metternich zu Gracht (last German mayor)
  • 1921-1925: Jules de Grand Ry
  • 1925-1927: Léon Xhaflaire
  • 1927: Leo Trouet (acting, rejected by the Belgian government)
  • 1928–1964: Hugo Zimmermann (impeachment during the Second World War)
  • 1964–1977: Reiner Pankert
  • 1977-2000: Alfred Evers
  • 2000–2012: Elmar Keutgen
  • 2012–2018: Karl-Heinz Klinkenberg
  • since 2018: Claudia Niessen

City council

The city council consists of 25 members who are elected by the citizens of the city of Eupen. Due to the elections on October 14, 2018, the city council is composed as follows:Template: future / in 4 years

Political party Seats Difference
to 2012
• Party for Freedom and Progress (PFF-MR) 6th - 1
- Christian Social Party (CSP) 9 + 1
• Socialist Party (SPplus) 3 ± 0
• ECOLO 7th ± 0
Total 25th

Government parties are marked with a white dot (•).

traffic

Traffic history

Historic tram in front of the monastery church

The Eupen merchants planned and realized the construction of a paved road in the 18th century, which came from Eupen via Welkenraedt at the place “White House” to the military road Aachen-Liège. This was financed through the subscription of shares, the costs should be recovered through a road toll. The French occupation began in 1795 just two years after it was commissioned, and its laws no longer permitted privately owned roads.

In 1864 the inauguration of the first railway connection took place, which flowed into the Liège-Cologne line at Herbesthal station. Eupen received a terminal station near the town hall. In 1887 the Herbesthal-Raeren railway was inaugurated with a connection to the Vennbahn ; Eupen received its new station on this route.

In 1898 the so-called Oe-Bahn line from Eupen-Unterstadt to Dolhain with a connection to the Weser Valley line was put into operation for a long time by industry .

In addition, a tram connection had existed since 1906 with the Aachen tram , which was taken over by the SNCV in 1920 and expanded to Verviers . After 1945, traffic in the direction of Aachen was only taken up to Eynatten and no longer to the Aachen-Köpfchen border stop . The tram routes to Eynatten, Herbesthal and Bellmerin were closed until 1953. The line to Verviers was in operation until 1956.

Rail transport

Eupen station

The station Eupen is located on the railway line Welkenraedt-Raeren that in Welkenraedt branches from the Wesertalstrecke. Eupen is the eastern end point of the hourly intercity line IC 01 of the NMBS / SNCB , which connects Eupen to Ostend via Liège and Brussels .

Road traffic

There are two motorway connections via the A 3 and E 40 in the vicinity of the industrial areas.

Air traffic

The nearest regional airports are in Liège and Maastricht . The nearest major airports are Brussels , Cologne / Bonn and Düsseldorf airports .

Bus transport

Eupen and Aachen are connected by bus line 14 in local public transport. Other bus routes connect Eupen u. a. with Vaals, Sankt Vith and Verviers. The operator of the bus transport in Eupen is Transport en Commun (TEC).

Economy (selection)

Former colored spinning mill of worsted yarn works, today cable works
  • Kabelwerk Eupen , goes back to a hemp rope factory founded in 1747and was re-established in 1909. It took over the majority of the facilities of the former Kammgarnwerke AG , which in turn was founded in 1906 as a merger of several individual companies and ceased operations in 1981.
  • Asten Johnson PGmbH in Kettenis , company for the manufacture and sale of dry and wet wires for the paper industry.
  • Chocolaterie Jacques in the industrial district, founded in 1896 andtaken overby Group Baronie in2011. Affiliated chocolate museum since 1993
  • Magetra International SA , since 2012 the merger of Magemon Transports from Liège and Transports Mathieu SA from Eupen, a transport service provider based in the industrial district.
  • Rom AG , upholstered furniture manufacturer founded in 1961.
  • Belgischer Rundfunk (BRF): German-speaking public radio and television broadcaster.
  • Grenz-Echo , the only German-language daily newspaper in Belgium. The publishing house was founded in 1927 and set up in 1950 in the former cloth factory Ackens, Grand Ry and Cie. on the Eupener Marktplatz.
  • Eupen-Malmedy-St.Vith Chamber of Commerce and Industry , founded in 1783 as a merchants ' college , Eupen Chamber of Commerce until 1929, the only IHK in East Belgium.
  • The Eupener Brewery produced from 1834 to 1998 in Eupen the Eupener beer , which of today Haacht brewery brewed.

education

  • Autonomous university in the German-speaking community . Founded in 2005 as a merger of three existing universities and offers bachelor's degrees for nursing, primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers.
  • Father Damian Secondary School (PDS). Catholic secondary school and was created in 1995 from the merger of the Heidberg Institute ("Institut Maria Verkendung") on the Heidberg, a girls 'grammar school that has existed since 1918, and the boys' grammar school, Collège Patronné, in the Rehrmann-Fey house on the Kaperberg.
  • Royal Athenaeum Eupen . State secondary school with a bilingual branch and focus on technical subjects.
  • Robert Schuman Institute Eupen . State and European-oriented secondary school, named after the French statesman Robert Schuman . It offers 14 different courses of study in technical and vocational subjects as well as an evening school for professional training in languages ​​and computer science.
  • ZAWM - Center for education and training for medium-sized companies . Founded in 1843 as a private Sunday craft school "to promote efficient craft". It is responsible for the supplementary apprenticeship and master craftsman training and is subordinate to the institute for training and further education in medium-sized and small medium-sized enterprises (IAWM) based in Eupen.
  • Four primary schools cover the needs in Eupen and the incorporated Kettenis:
    • the municipal elementary school Eupen-Oberstadt (SGO),
    • the municipal primary school Eupen Unterstadt (SGU)
    • and the Ecole communale pour enfants d'expression française, which teaches exclusively in French
    • as well as the Kettenis municipal primary school (SGK) in Kettenis .

Urban and Sights (selection)

View from the Moorenhöhe in the mountain district of the Haasviertel in the lower town with the Josefskirche and the cable works as well as the forests of the High Fens

Eupen is surrounded to the west and north by extensive meadow landscapes lined with hedges and to the east and south by the forests of the Hertogenwald and the High Fens , part of which belongs to the urban municipality. Popular tourist centers there are the nature park centers Botrange and Haus Ternell with their existing hiking and cross-country skiing opportunities, as well as the Gileppe Dam , 10 km southwest of the city , which was Europe's largest concrete dam when it was opened in 1878, and the Weser Dam , Belgium's most water-rich drinking water reservoir, just 5 km away .

Stockem Castle

In the hamlet of Stockem there is the Stockem Castle of the same name , the former residence of the Lords of Eupen and, in parts, the oldest building in Eupen, which now houses private apartments. In the immediate vicinity, in the area of ​​the municipality of Baelen , is the former Franciscan monastery Garnstock with the monastery church designed by Dominikus Böhm in 1934 .

From the viewing platform Moorenhöhe there is a wide view of the Eupen lower town, the Weser valley and the Hertogenwald .

Eupen was a center of cloth production from the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century and is part of the wool route , which links the cultural heritage of cloth making in the three-country region around Aachen. The city center has numerous representative cloth makers 'buildings and patrician houses, often with cloth shearers' angles behind them , mainly from the late 18th century, which have since been largely converted. Important architects such as Aachen city master builder Laurenz Mefferdatis, Johann Joseph Couven or the Westphalian baroque master builder Johann Conrad Schlaun and others have left their mark on the cityscape.

House Mennicken

Particularly worth seeing - in addition to the churches and monasteries mentioned above - is the Mennicken Clothmaker's House at Werthplatz 1–3, which, according to the inscription in the wedge of the central portal, was built in 1744 on behalf of the client Johann Aegidius Grand Ry. This largest Eupen cloth house changed hands frequently and between 1786 and 1803 also belonged to members of the Scheibler family from Monschau.

This also applies to the factory building, which the cloth maker Nikolaus Joseph Grand Ry had built by Johann Joseph Couven in 1761–1763 at Klötzerbahn 34, which is now the government building of the German-speaking Community of Belgium. In the building opposite on the Klötzerbahn 27, which was also built around 1757 for the Grand Ry family as a clothmaker's yard with a rear Schererwinkel, the Eupen Peace Court now resides. The house Rehrmann-Fey drapery building, built by Laurenz Mefferdatis on Kaperberg 2-4 in 1724 , originally with two closed inner courtyards, houses the State Archives in Eupen . In the neighboring building on Kaperberg 8, also a former drapery building from 1812, the parliament of the German-speaking community met until 2013. In the lower town, under the name Haus Oestrasse 48, there is a factory building by the architect Johann Conrad Schlaun, which he executed for his brother-in-law Martin Rehrmann.

In the central Gospertstraße there are several historically significant patrician houses, including House 40–42, built according to plans by Mefferdatis with its baroque gardens, which is now the seat of the Prime Minister of the DG and the Euregio Rhine-Maas; also the house at Gospertstrasse 52 , in which the city ​​museum has found its place, as well as the house at Gospertstrasse 56, also built by Mefferdatis .

Other buildings worth seeing are the castles Libermé , Thal and Weims in Kettenis , which were added by the municipal merger in 1977 .

In memory of historical circumstances and to beautify the city, the city was equipped with numerous monuments and fountains. On the Werthplatz is the war memorial from the Prussian era created by the Munich sculptor Rudolf Henn , which commemorates the fallen in the German War and the Franco-German War . The Marienbrunnen with the Marian column, built in 1857 by the Aachen sculptor Christian Mohr in neo-Gothic style, is located on the market square according to plans by Vincenz Statz .

The cityscape also features the horse troughs, newly created in 1998 based on a template by the sculptor Christian Stüttgen from 1909, the Panta Rei fountain on the Heidberg and the Weber fountain, the Friedensbrunnen and the Euregio fountain by Peter Hodiamont in the city center. A special attraction is the newly installed Wetzlar bath with the Wäserscheff on the Klötzerbahn, which is intended to emphasize the importance of water for the city and its industrial development.

  • Eupen City Museum

  • Eupen District Court

  • Euregio Rhine-Meuse

  • State Archives Eupen

Culture

Museums

IKOB Eupen

music

Events

folklore

Sports

Kehrwegstadion

Eupen is home to numerous sports clubs in which around 5,000 people from Eupen are active in a wide variety of sports. The nationally best known clubs in Eupen are:

  • The football club KAS Eupen , the highest-ranking football club in the German-speaking community, played in the first Belgian class for the first time in 2010/11 , where it has played again since 2016/17 .
  • The chess club KSK Rochade Eupen-Kelmis is eight times Belgian national champion and currently plays in the 1st division (1st league in Belgian chess).

There are also some sports clubs that are receiving considerable attention at the regional level. These include, for example, the handball club KTSV Eupen , the volleyball club Sporta Eupen-Kettenis or the basketball club BBC Eupen . A total of 43 sports clubs are united in the Eupener Sportbund.

sons and daughters of the town

Honorary citizen of the city

Trivia

  • In Eschweiler in Germany, about 30 kilometers away, there is a district called Klee Oepe ("Klein Eupen"), where until the early modern era the people of Eupen and Cologne met halfway to the horse trade.

literature

  • Christian Quix : Contributions to a historical-topographical description of the Eupen district. Aachen 1835.
  • Christian Rutsch: Eupen and the surrounding area. Mayer, Eupen 1879. Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf.
  • Viktor Gielen: From Eupen's past. Home book of the city of Eupen. Das Bild der Heimat, Volume 3, Raeren 1966.
  • Eupen 1974. A contribution to the city anniversary. Grenz-Echo Verlag, Eupen 1974.
  • Wolfgang Trees , Paul Margraff: Beloved Eupen. Edition Doepgen, Eupen 1978.
  • Hugo Pelzer: The history and development of the city of Eupen from the beginnings to the present , in: Geschichtliches Eupen , Volume XV, Eupen 1991, pp. 13–45
  • Viktor Gielen: Eupen in the Empire 1871–1918. Grenz-Echo Verlag, Eupen 1994.
  • August Tonnar , Wilhelm Evers, Wilhelm Altenburg: Dictionary of the Eupener language. Unchangeable Neudr. D. Issued from 1899, M. Sendet Reprint Verlag, Wiesbaden 1970.
  • Norbert Gilson: History of the textile industry in the Verviers, Eupen, Aachen area with special consideration of the woolen cloth industry. Rheinisches Industriemuseum, Euskirchen 1997 ( PDF )
  • Ulrike Schwieren-Höger, Guido Bertemes: Eupen. GEV (Grenz-Echo Verlag), Eupen 2009, ISBN 978-3-86712-017-3 .
  • Siegfried Theissen : New dictionary of the Eupen dialect. GEV (Grenz-Echo Verlag), 2013, ISBN 978-3-86712-078-4
  • Rolf Minderjahn, Guido Bertemes: Eupen. Out and about in the capital of the German-speaking community of Belgium. GEV (Grenz-Echo Verlag), 2014, ISBN 978-3-86712-077-7
  • Ministry of the German-speaking Community (ed.): The industrial history of the Eupen Lower Town , Eupen July 2015 ( PDF )

Web links

Commons : Eupen  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Eupen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Formation of the federal state , on belgium.be
  2. ^ Parish association Eupen-Kettenis
  3. ^ Paroisse de Sainte égale aux Apôtres Nino à Eupen. Information on the Orthodox community of Eupen. Orthodox Church of Belgium, accessed April 9, 2019 (French).
  4. ↑ Johanna van Neerinck on heiligen.net
  5. ↑ Recollects on Orden-online
  6. ↑ Homepage Heidberg Monastery
  7. ↑ 150 years of the Franciscan Sisters of St. Family, anniversary exhibition in the Generalate in Eupen on June 13, 2007
  8. ↑ Klaus Schlupp: Conservative and Open: Evangelical Christians in Belgium , on evangelisch.de of December 22, 2011.
  9. ↑ Labor Market Observatory Ostbelgien (PDF; 7.6 MB)
  10. ↑ Congregational College Eupen 2018
  11. ↑ Elections 2018 Eupen. Belgian Broadcasting, October 14, 2018, accessed October 25, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Leo Kever: Review of Eupen's railway history.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.grenzecho.net  
  13. ^ Leo Kever: Eupen received its electric light rail. (No longer available online.) Grenzecho, July 24, 2010, archived from the original on March 10, 2016 ; accessed on February 26, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Tuchmacherhaus Werthplatz on "Rhenish Industrial Culture"
  15. ↑ Tuchmacherhaus Grand Ry on "Rheinische Industriekultur"
  16. ↑ MCEweb: Kgl. MGV Marienchor Eupen. Retrieved on July 18, 2018 (German).
  17. ↑ Homepage of the event
  18. ↑ Homepage of the event
  19. ↑ European Community of Historical Shooters
  20. ↑ BRF website: Eupener Sportbund , accessed on February 19, 2014