Welkenraedt

Welkenraedt
	Welkenraedt
	Welkenraedt
State :	Belgium
Region :	Wallonia
Province :	Liege
District :	Verviers
Coordinates :	50 ° 40 ′ N , 5 ° 58 ′ E Coordinates: 50 ° 40 ′ N , 5 ° 58 ′ E
Area :	24.47 km²
Residents:	10,002 (Jan 1, 2019)
Population density:	409 inhabitants per km²
Height:	354 m
Post Code:	4840 (Welkenraedt) ; 4841 (Henri Chapelle)
Prefix:	087
Mayor:	Jean-Luc Nix (MR-IC)
; Local government address :	Rue de l'Ecole 6 ; 4840 Welkenraedt
Website:	www.welkenraedt.be

Welkenraedt ([ vəlkənʀat ], Limburgish-Ripuarian: Wälekete , Walloon: Welkenrote , Dutch: Welkenraat , High German: Welkenrath ) is a Belgian municipality in the province of Liège with 10,002 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2019) and an area of 24.46 km² . It is not far from the German border, about 15 km from Aachen , in the international B / D / NL region Euregio Maas-Rhine .

history

Before 1797 belonging to the Hochbank Baelen and the Duchy of Limburg , Welkenraedt was only founded in 1797 as an independent municipality (consisting of the towns of Herbesthal , Welkenraedt and Lantzenberg / Lanceaumont) in the Ourthe department . The Roman finds in Lantzenberg / Lanceaumont allow the settlement of the Welkenraedter area to be dated back even further.

After Napoleon's defeat in the Battle of Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the municipality of Welkenraedt was divided between the Kingdom of Prussia and the United Netherlands in 1816 as part of the reorganization of Europe . Herbesthal was excluded and went to Prussia, Welkenraedt first came to the United Netherlands, and in 1830 to Belgium. Thus Welkenraedt was the first Belgian place west of the Prussian-Belgian border until 1918, directly opposite the Prussian border station Herbesthal , and with the opening of the railway line Aachen – Liège in 1843 it got the Belgian border station to Prussia. During the First World War, German troops marched from Herbesthal on August 4, 1914, via Welkenraedt in Belgium.

Together with the neighboring communities Baelen and Plombières (German: Bleyberg ), Welkenraedt forms the Low German communities , whose population has spoken a border dialect, the so-called Platdiets , since time immemorial . This circumstance led to the annexation of this area (1940 to 1944) by National Socialist Germany during the Second World War and, with the intention of a complete Germanization of the population, the prohibition of the use of French in public life. In the controversial language census of 1947, only 10.5% of the residents of the municipality of Welkenraedt stated German as their mother tongue, although not only the administrative and political pressure exerted by the francophone municipal administration, but also those from the occupation during the First World War and the annexation Adult aversion to the Germans in World War II may have caused this result.

Welkenraedt is the middle of the three Low German communities ( Platdietse streek , orange) with French as the official language, in which the legally possible but currently "dormant" facilities for Dutch and German speakers are not used

In 1963, Welkenraedt came to the francophone area in the course of establishing the inner-Belgian language borders, but the law left open the possibility of later setting up certain linguistic facilities for the Dutch and German-speaking residents. These have not been officially introduced to this day, but the municipal council decided years ago to simplify administrative matters on a voluntary basis for German-speaking residents. Since 1963 it has been possible by law to give school lessons in a language other than French (see municipal facilities ).

In 2006 and 2008 the affiliation of the area around Welkenraedt and other communities in the area to the French community was questioned by the right-wing extremist Vlaams Belang .

Even today there are many German-language field names , such as Hockelbach, Auweg, Auwenhof, Kinkenweg, Dickenbusch, Heide, Vogelsang, Wilkerheid . There are also Dutch field names that testify to the region's eventful history: Heerstraat, Lekker and Straatweide .

In the course of the municipal reorganization of Belgium, Welkenraedt merged with the neighboring municipality of Henri-Chapelle and the parts of the municipality of Baelen north of the A3 motorway to form a large municipality in 1977; In return, the municipality of Baelen received the Welkenraedter districts of Heggen and Heggensbrück south of the motorway. In 1997 the community celebrated its 200th anniversary.

Districts

Welkenraedt, Henri-Chapelle and the hamlet of Lantzenberg belong to the municipality of Welkenraedt.

Attractions

Memorial and memorial on the Place des Combattants in the center of Welkenraedt
Haus Zimmermann, 18th century (oldest preserved building in the core community of Welkenraedt)
Neo-Romanesque church of St. John the Baptist from 1880, with the Last Supper in the choir
Ruyff Castle (rebuilt in the 17th century) near Henri-Chapelle
Baelen Castle (zu Ruyff) (1737) near Henri-Chapelle, currently a psychiatric clinic
Church of St. Georges in Henri-Chapelle (Romanesque tower from the 12th / 13th centuries, central nave from 1630, side aisles from 1618)
The Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery and Memorial and Museum of the US Army.

Trivia

In 1991, the municipality of Welkenraedt made headlines in the international media with the worldwide exhibition Alles über Hergé (Tout Hergé / Alles over Hergé).
The band Yevgueni released a CD in 2011 with the working title Welkenraedt .

traffic

Welkenraedt station

Welkenraedt is on the Liège – Aachen railway line , from which the Welkenraedt – Raeren railway branches off. At the station Welkenraedt hourly keep Intercity trains on line Eupen-Brussels- Ostend , as well as L- and P-trains of the Belgian transport. Aachen Hbf can be reached every hour with the euregioAIXpress introduced in 2002 .

The HSL 3 , a high-speed route on which ICE International and Thalys trains run, runs south of Welkenraedt .

The nearest airports are Maastricht Aachen Airport , Liège Bierset Airport (each around 45 minutes away) or, on the German side, Düsseldorf Airport and Cologne / Bonn Airport (each around 1 hour away).

Partner communities

France Epfig in Alsace , France
Italy Nove in the province of Vincenza , Italy

Web links

Commons : Welkenraedt - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

photos

US military cemetery in Henri-Chapelle
Bienvenue-Willkommen-Welkom
Welkenraedt, Place des Combattants
Welkenraedt, flower clock on Joseph Wolgarten Square
Welkenraedt, old station building
Welkenraedt, house carpenter
Welkenraedt parish hall
Center of Welkenrath
Church in Welkenraedt

[1] ttp://vlaamsblok.blogspot.com/2004/09/analyse-het-imperialisme-van-het-blok.html

[2] ttp://www.senate.be/www/?MIval=/publications/viewPubDoc&TID=67112345&LANG=nl

[3] ttp://www.trois-frontieres.be/D/chat_ruyff.php

[4] ttp://www.trois-frontieres.be/D/chat_baelen.php