Selfkant (landscape)
The Selfkant ( Dutch Zelfkant ) is a landscape in the far west of Germany. It belongs entirely to the North Rhine-Westphalian district of Heinsberg and is part of the large Lower Rhine Lowland landscape . A total of 30,000 citizens live in the communities of Gangelt, Waldfeucht and Selfkant in Selfkant.
Location and extent, origin of the name
Coordinates: 51 ° 1 ′ 56 ″ N , 5 ° 57 ′ 39 ″ E In geography, the Selfkant denotes a main unit (570) that is roughly congruent with that part of the Heinsberg district that borders the Netherlands and the right valley sides of the rivers Wurm and Rur is enclosed. Northwest of Selfkant- Isenbruch is the westernmost point of the Selfkant, which is also the westernmost point in Germany and, at 6.5 km as the crow flies, the closest point in the landscape tothe Meuse . The Selfkant landscape is therefore largely congruent in area with the one legal predecessor of today's Heinsberg district, which was named Selfkant district Geilenkirchen-Heinsberg from January 8, 1951. It should be noted, however, that the Selfkant landscape extends beyond the national border to parts of the neighboring Dutch province of Limburg.
The extra-geographical understanding of which locations belong to the “Selfkant” landscape is partly different (narrower). In any case, the area of today's political municipality Selfkant is regarded as belonging to the landscape.
The name Selfkant cannot be explained from the Zipfellage in western Germany, but from the old term "Safelkant", which referred to the area around today's Saeffeler Bach .
Landscape structure
The Selfkant is a landscape shaped by the last glacial period and the Holocene and, topographically, is to be regarded as part of the Lower Rhine-Maas plain . It was ice-free in the last ice age. The greater part of the Selfkante is covered by fertile loam .
The mostly flat undulating landscape drains in the catchment area of Saeffel and Rodebach in a westerly direction into the nearby Maas ; otherwise via Wurm and Rur in a northerly direction also into the Meuse.
The central sub-element of the Selfkant landscape is the gently north-sloping main terrace level of the Geilenkirchen clay slab at a height of 110 to 55 m. From an agricultural point of view, it is characterized by an approximately two-meter-thick layer of clay covering the terrace gravel, which forms a moderately impoverished brown soil with a medium nutrient content and thus, despite the risk of compaction and acidification, represents a good medium-weight arable soil. As a result, the Geilenkirchen clay plate, originally with a sour oak-hornbeam forest, is free of forests, with the exception of a part showing waterlogging southeast of Waldenrath (Hahnbusch). The Geilenkirchen clay plate is poor in running waters. These only occur where the original groundwater level was reached at a depth of ten to twelve meters as a result of the demolition. Typical settlement forms of the Geilenkirchen clay slab are the elongated street villages following their valleys with meadow soils that favor grassland .
Around the Geilenkirchen clay slab, the following are essentially grouped counter-clockwise as a demarcation to the surrounding main landscape units:
a) To the east, the worm valley, which is only 500 to 1000 m wide and around 15 to 20 m deeper than the clay slab.
b) In a northerly direction, the Lower Rur Plain, which is also 15 to 20 m lower, but compared to the Wurm Valley, much wider (four to ten km).
c) In a westerly direction near the national border there is a step of about 12 m high, which forms the transition to the Havert central terrace area.
d) In a southerly direction the Rodebach lowlands and then the Teverener-Gangelter Bruch and Heide.
The Heinsberger Ruraue is, with the exception of a few larger, flat alluvial islands about two meters higher, characterized by high groundwater levels and strongly clayey, low-lime loams or pure clays one to one and a half meters thick over young Rur gravel. Despite the swampy and wet soils (before modern amelioration), however, no noteworthy flat bogs have been able to form.
Before melioration, the Gangelter Bruch was a typical Atlantic moor and quarry forest. To the south of the Rodebach there are extensive layers of drift sand with very poor podzol soils and isolated (former) inland dunes . The drifting sand of the Teverener Heide comes from the nearby Meuse valley . It was originally the site of an oak-birch forest, then degraded to an Atlantic dwarf shrub heather due to human use, which largely had to give way to reforestation with pine trees and the construction of the Teveren military airport around the middle of the 20th century .
climate
The climate of Selfkant is characterized by a favorable climatic situation, which is somewhat weaker than in the nearby Lower Rhine Bay due to the very western location and the associated Atlantic characteristics . Phenologically , spring sets in a little later than in the Lower Rhine Bay. The winters are very poor in snow with 12 to 15 days of snow cover and snow depths of around 8 cm on average. Over the year, around 650 to 700 mm of precipitation falls.
history
The most important rule of the Selfkants in the Middle Ages was initially Millen , the seat of the family of the Lords of Millen, which was incorporated into the rule of Heinsberg in 1282 . Finally, in 1499, the Duke of Jülich acquired the rule of Heinsberg and Millen became the seat of a Jülich bailiff. The places Tüddern , Wehr, Süsterseel and Hillensberg belonged to the Born office and from 1709 to the Sittard office .
From 1794 to 1815 the Selfkant belonged to the French canton of Sittard during the coalition wars . After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the communities came to the Prussian Rhine Province . At this time, the border with the neighboring Kingdom of the Netherlands was established and remained in place until shortly after World War II .
After the Second World War, the Netherlands demanded compensation for the war damage. As a bargaining chip should u. a. the occupied Selfkant serve. For this purpose, on April 23, 1949, six Selfkant communities (Havert, Höngen, Millen, Saeffelen, Tüddern and Wehr) were spun off from the then Selfkant district of Geilenkirchen-Heinsberg and placed under Dutch contract management in accordance with the final declaration of the London Germany Conference of December 23, 1948 . At the same time, this also meant the loss of the connection between the region and the West German railway network, as the Geilenkirchener Kreisbahnen had to cease operations in Selfkant (cf. train stations in Selfkant ).
In the following time a lot was invested in the now Dutch Selfkant, e.g. B. in the construction of homes and roads. In March 1957, official negotiations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands began on the return of all annexed areas . As a result, the N 274 road, which crosses the Selfkant, with overpasses and underpasses, was created without crossing, in order to enable a fast transit connection without border clearance between the Dutch cities of Heerlen and Roermond after the territory was returned .
Since August 1, 1963, the Selfkant, like all other areas annexed by the Netherlands, has been fully part of the Federal Republic again after payment of DM 280 million to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. (This amount corresponds to EUR 554 million, adjusted for inflation.) The old communities Havert, Hillensberg, Höngen, Millen, Süsterseel, Tüddern and Wehr were formed, which together formed the Office Selfkant. Two months later, on October 21, 1963, the first municipal council elections were held under German administration.
literature
- Wolfgang Woelk (Univ. Koblenz): The Dutch border corrections 1949-1963 in the poliotics of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and their effect on the population of the contract administration areas ( PDF ).
- Everyday life "between marks and gulden". The Selfkant under Dutch order management 1949 to 1963 ( PDF ).
- Wilhelm Piepers: Working group of home nurses of the Selfkantkreis Geilenkirchen-Heinsberg (Hrsg.): Our home, the Selfkantkreis Geilenkirchen-Heinsberg . Book printing house Fred Gatzen, Geilenkirchen 1956, p. 11 ff. (Chapter on the landscape ).
- Wilhelm Piepers: Archeology in the Heinsberg district . District of Heinsberg, Heinsberg 1989, ISBN 3-925620-05-2 , p. 13 ff.
Individual evidence
- ^ Emil Meynen , Josef Schmithüsen et al .: Handbook of the natural spatial structure of Germany . Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Remagen / Bad Godesberg 1953–1962 (9 deliveries in 8 books, updated map 1: 1,000,000 with main units 1960); 6. Delivery 1959, p. 856 ff.
- ^ Karlheinz Paffen, Adolf Schüttler, Heinrich Müller-Miny: Geographical land survey: The natural space units on sheet 108/109 Düsseldorf / Erkelenz. Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Bad Godesberg 1963. → Online map (PDF; 7.1 MB)
- ^ Ewald Glässer: Geographical land survey: The natural space units on sheet 122/123 Cologne / Aachen. Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Bad Godesberg 1978. → Online map (PDF; 8.6 MB)
- ↑ https://www.landtag.nrw.de/portal/WWW/Webmaster/GB_II/II.1/Oeffentlichkeitstsarbeit/Informationen.jsp?oid=97971
- ↑ Holland Treaty
Web links
- [1] Post-war history: When the Netherlands wanted to incorporate parts of NRW, Rheinische Post, April 2018