Apen fortress

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Apen fortress, probably in the 17th century

The Apen fortress was a fortification in Apen in Lower Saxony . It was built at the beginning of the 16th century in a simple construction with an earth wall and a moat. The fortress reached its highest stage of expansion in the middle of the 17th century with bastions and ample cannon equipment. Towards the end of the 18th century the fortress was razed . Today only the moat is preserved.

Apen manor

The lords of Apen were mentioned in a document around 1233, namely Herbordt, Giesebert and Johann von Apen. They performed military successes for the Count of Oldenburg and maintained a customs office for butter on the old military route from Hamburg to Amsterdam . There they built their permanent house, which was later expanded into a castle. In the 17th century, the western Ammerland (with the area of ​​today's Westerstedes) was ruled by bailiffs, drosten and bailiffs from Apen Castle. The lords of the castle were often also hereditary tenants of the count's mansions and farms. They served as civil and criminal judges or were godparents. The official seat and residence at that time was the castle or fortress of Apen, the "office building in Steinstraße zu Apen" or at times the Vorwerk Burgforde near Westerstede. Apen passed to the Danish royal family from 1667 to 1773 through inheritance from the Oldenburg counts .

Expansion into a fortress

The importance of the castle as the westernmost bastion of the county grew in the 15th century, it was expanded to a fortress. Earth walls, palisade fences and trenches remained and other buildings and entrenchments in the suburbs such as Nordloh, Holtgast or Godensholt were added.

The small fortress could not withstand an attack by the Münsterländer in 1538. Despite the armistice agreed shortly beforehand with Bishop Franz von Waldeck zu Munster , his mercenaries set up a field camp and sacked the parish . The Drost at Apen surrendered with 30 mercenaries , the peasants and farmhands who had been brought in before the troops appeared, had already fled. There was no great booty to be found at the fortress, so that no large crew remained on the site.

In the peace treaty between Münster and Oldenburg, the fortress was returned to Count Christoph von Oldenburg , including the artillery and remaining supplies . In 1550, Count Anton I von Oldenburg had the fortress expanded using a system of ditches with a plateau. Vaults were created to accommodate prisoners. In 1577 there was a streichwehr , i.e. a wall with loopholes. A powder tower adorned the prominent square with a view of the Lengenermoor and the wide Aper Tief . The characteristic archway house with the serrated gable is said to come from this time. A bakery and the kitchens on the fortress were also rebuilt. Under the protection of the castle, trade is said to have been carried out via the Aper Tief in East Frisia to overseas ( England ). In the summer up to 130 ships went to Emden to deliver Ammerland goods such as wooden objects or wicker baskets . Bricks and grain came back.

The fortress was spared from military attacks during the Thirty Years' War due to the neutral stance of Count Anton Günther von Oldenburg , unlike the population in the Vogtei, the parishes of Westerstede and Apen. In 1621 the count allowed the Duke of Braunschweig to let soldiers pass through Apen and four years later he quartered imperial troops with the subjects.

In 1640, Commander Bernhard Maul came to Apen. He had the grafts and the Schlengenwerk (today sluice) expanded to the flowing waters. The wall was raised and drawbridges rebuilt. In 1659 trenches, bridges, paths, artillery and gun mounts were installed again. The crew of the fortress at this time amounted to up to 100 officers and soldiers. In 1633 its own flag was awarded. The fortifications were equipped with the following cannons: 5 five-pounders, 12 metal half-three-pounders and two chamber guns and a number of blunderbusses . There were always 4,300 pounds of powder in the fortress.

The end of the weir system

As a supraregional trading center, Apen had become obsolete from 1738, as a safe road and post connection from Oldenburg via Westerstede - Moorburg had been installed since then . A new post route was built across the Lengenermoor to Remels and East Friesland, and so Apen and its fortifications lost their importance. In 1764 the remains of the facilities were sold and razed. Following pressure from the bailiwicks of Apen and Westerstede, the Danish king also formally allowed the defenses to be abandoned. The building materials and land were sold and all that remained was a moat with a hill that was used as pasture for cattle. In the later years Apen came to Westerstede and the modern age with the reorganization after the liberation wars of Napoleon (1815) finally sealed the tasks of the superordinate administrative seat Apen. Only the bailiwick within the boundaries of the current political community of Apen remained and was assigned to the district of Neuchâtel (later Westerstede) and today the district of Ammerland with other Ammerland parishes .

literature

  • Heinrich Borgmann: The Apen Fortress in: Chronicle of the Apen Community, Part II. , Pp. 147–159 ( online , pdf)
  • Kurt Brüning, Heinrich Schmidt (Ed.): Lower Saxony / Bremen. Handbook of Historic Places in Germany 2 , Stuttgart 1986

Web links

Coordinates: 53 ° 13 ′ 7.7 ″  N , 7 ° 47 ′ 51.7 ″  E