Study society for Emsland regional history

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The Study Society for Emsland Regional History is an association of those interested in history that researches the past of the Emsland and Grafschaft Bentheim area .

Foundation and activity

It was founded by a group of younger hobby historians from Emsland, mainly students from various fields who studied at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster . On April 22, 1989, they decided to found a historical association, which was then registered in the Münster association register. The aim was to deal with the past of the Emsland, for which new knowledge and information were exchanged at the meetings.

The chairman of the study society for Emsland regional history was the chemist Dr. Stefan Remme from Meppen . On August 25, 1990, the young association held a first full-day conference on the history of the Emsland with lectures in Haren . Volume 1 of the series "Emsland History" was published as early as 1991, in which the conference contributions were printed. Since then, this conference has mostly taken place on the last Saturday in August every year. Native Grafschafter also soon joined the study society, so that the history of the Grafschaft Bentheim has since then also been in the focus of the study society. In 1994 the annual conference took place in Bentheimer Land, namely in Wietmarschen , for the first time .

Publication and projects

The series "Emsland History" gained more and more employees after the first volume published in 1991 and became correspondingly more extensive. While contributions that could be used genealogically were initially a major focus of publications and research , research into the Weimar Republic and, above all, the Nazi era, which had been carried out from the beginning, increasingly became the focus of attention in the following years. The project “Biographies on the History of Emsland and the Grafschaft Bentheim”, which began in 1996 and presents numerous politicians, administrators, writers, artists, business representatives and church people, some of whom have very detailed résumés, has received and continues to be very well received. Up to the current volume 26 (2019), more than 200 men and women who worked in or for the Emsland and Bentheimer Land or came from this region have been recorded in this project. In the course of time, contributions to changes in the regional landscape as well as to the development of flora and fauna have been added with numerous colored illustrations.

Since volume 25, a detailed study of the Center Party in the Prussian province of Hanover during the Weimar Republic has been printed here, covering several years. In addition, studies have been published since then on the county of Bentheim during the First World War.

Another project that the study society has been running for years is to present regional museums with their history from their foundation to the locations to the exhibitions in the "Emsland History". In addition, in connection with the work “Emsländische Burgenfahrt” by Alexander Geppert, which was published in 1923, mansions and castles from the region are recalled. Since 2011, the study society has been collecting sources and illustrations from the region for the period from the outbreak of World War I to the cessation of the last revolutionary organs in 1920. In particular, school chronicles from the region are collected and transcribed, which as a regionally still completely untapped source type even beyond these years available for general research through the regional archives and libraries. By mid-2020, the chronicles of over 200 schools in the Emsland / Bentheim region had been recorded. Mostly already transcribed, they offer interesting background information for numerous subject areas, which can often only be found there. In terms of time, the school chronicles mostly cover the period from around 1894 to the 1960s, but some continue to the present day. In addition to events from everyday school life and educational issues, the teachers were also required to record events from the community. So the chronicles in their bulk form a so far completely unused type of source for regional research on the First World War, the Weimar Republic with its crises and social conflicts, the Nazi era and above all the Second World War and the end of the war as well as the arrival of the East Germans and the discussions about school and community area reforms. Some student works based on this fund have already been published in the "Emsland History".

The study society has announced that it will publish a source volume on the First World War in the Emsland / Bentheim region. On its homepage, the society offers tables of contents of rare regional historical series, a directory of regional new publications, a list of publications on the First World War in the region, a directory of ornithological publications on the region or a directory of the articles and biographies published in the volume.

In contrast to the yearbooks of the Bentheimer Heimatverein or the Emsländisches Heimatbund, the series "Emslandische Geschichte" publishes a large number of research papers, such as state examination and master's theses or doctorates , which are primarily in scope, occasionally due to their subject matter, from niche areas of historical research, otherwise in of the region could not be published.

At the beginning of 2011, the study society launched another irregular series. The first volume of the "Studies and Sources for the History of the Emsland and the Grafschaft Bentheim" was a work on Ludwig Windthorst , who covered the Emsland / Grafschaft Bentheim u. a. represented in the German Reichstag. In addition to his policy with regard to the socialist laws, the Polish minority or the emerging anti-Semitism, the focus is on Windthorst's relationship with his constituency and his commitment to the interests of the region. The second volume, published in 2013, deals with the integration of forcibly resettled persons in the northern Emsland using the example of the former Hümmlingen district of Sögel. The third volume was published in 2019, a book with works and the résumé of the Low German poet Karl Sauvagerd, who published on both sides of the German-Dutch border. The work was named "Low German Book of the Year 2019". Volume 4 was followed in 2020 by a study of warrior associations in the Emsland during the Weimar Republic.

The Study Society for Emsland Regional History has a small publishing house based in Haselünne, in which, in addition to the association publications, other works have also been published, such as a book on Heuerlingswesen in 2014 (9th edition in 2019) and on Heuerlingskotten (2017), the 3rd updated Edition of "Nordhorn im 3. Reich" (2016) or about "Lathen left and right of the Ems in old maps, documents and pictures" (2017).

In addition to the publication of the now annual regional history series "Emsland History" and an annual conference "Emsland History", the study society organizes several smaller events every year for members and interested parties, on which a lecture is the focus or new research projects and publications are discussed. Together with the Emsland Homeland Association, the Study Society for Emsland Regional History also offers historical excursions by bike or bus, such as moor excursions on both sides of the German-Dutch border, to today's traces of the Emslandlanger, to castles, mansions and border fortifications on both sides of the border, or even a guided tour through the rebuilt Osnabrück State Archives. Since 2008, there has been a collaboration with Dutch historians from the Historischen Vereniging Zuidoost-Drenthe, together with the Emsländischer Heimatbund, with whom a first joint conference was organized in Nieuw-Schoonebeek in June 2008, followed by another in Hebelermeer on the German border in 2009 followed and in 2010 one in the Dutch Zwartemeer.

1999 took over from Dr. Stefan Remme the Haselünner Wilhelm Rülander chaired the association. After the death of Wilhelm Rülander on February 2, 2018, the board of the study society decided to become a working group of the Emsland landscape while maintaining organizational independence. This took effect on January 1, 2019. Paul Thoben from Aschendorf became the new chairman.

literature

  • Horst H. Bechtluft: "Regional history without borders - conference report on a meeting of Dutch and German history friends", in: Yearbook of the Emsländischen Heimatbund Volume 55/2009, Sögel 2008, pp. 323–328.
  • Christof Haverkamp: 20 Years of the Study Society for Emsländische Regionalgeschichte eV - personal review of a founding member, in: Emsländische Geschichte Vol. 16, Haselünne 2009, pp. 72–96.
  • Helmut Lensing: The First World War and the Revolution 1918/19 in the Emsland / Grafschaft Bentheim region, in: Emsländische and Bentheimer Familienforschung. Edition November 1911, Issue 112, Vol. 22nd Ed. By the Working Group on Family Research in the Emsland Landscape, Meppen 2011, pp. 245–248.
  • Christof Haverkamp: The study society for Emsland regional history becomes a working group for the Emsland landscape. In: Emsländische Geschichte Vol. 26, Haselünne 2019, pp. 11–15.