Wesseling

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coat of arms Germany map
Coat of arms of the city of Wesseling
Wesseling
Map of Germany, position of the city of Wesseling highlighted

Coordinates: 50 ° 49 '  N , 6 ° 59'  E

Basic data
State : North Rhine-Westphalia
Administrative region : Cologne
Circle : Rhein-Erft district
Height : 50 m above sea level NHN
Area : 23.37 km 2
Residents: 36,347 (Dec 31, 2019)
Population density : 1555 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code : 50389
Primaries : 02236, 02232Template: Infobox municipality in Germany / maintenance / area code contains text
License plate : BM
Community key : 05 3 62 040
LOCODE : DE WLG
City structure: 4 districts

City administration address : 		Alfons-Müller-Platz 1
50389 Wesseling
Website : www.wesseling.de
Mayor : Erwin Esser ( SPD )
Location of the city of Wesseling in the Rhein-Erft district
Köln Kreis Düren Kreis Euskirchen Kreis Heinsberg Kreis Mettmann Leverkusen Rhein-Kreis Neuss Rhein-Sieg-Kreis Bedburg Bergheim Brühl (Rheinland) Elsdorf (Rheinland) Erftstadt Frechen Hürth Kerpen Pulheim Wesselingmap
About this picture
Wesseling, aerial photo (2019)

Wesseling is a medium-sized city in the Rhein-Erft district in the south-west of North Rhine-Westphalia and borders directly on the south of the city of Cologne . Due to the three chemical plants and one oil refinery located within its city ​​limits , it has an important role in the international petrochemical industry .

geography

location

Wesseling is located south of the Cologne periphery on the left bank of the Rhine and borders the Cologne districts of Meschenich , Immendorf and Godorf in the north . Other neighboring cities are Brühl in the west, Bornheim in the south and Niederkassel on the right bank of the Rhine in the east.

City structure

Wesseling is divided into the districts of Mitte , Keldenich , Berzdorf and Urfeld .

District Residents Surface in m²
center 12,913 07,787,685
Keldenich 15,906 05,535,832
Berzdorf 04,928 04,293,268
Urfeld 04.153 05,756,363
total 37,900 23.373.148

As of December 31, 2018

history

Consecrated altars in front of the new town hall in 1882

The discovery of Roman consecration altars, the excavation of a Roman country house and Franconian grave fields are early evidence of the settlement of the place. The place name goes back to the estate "Waslicia", which was assigned to the Montfaucon monastery in 820 AD. The name "Oberwesseling" first appeared in documents in 1238 as "Weslic superior". The old word forms “Waslicia” or “Weslic” emerged, like the Latinized “Waslicia”, from the term “Waslic”. This can apparently be traced back to “Was (i) liacum”, the settlement of a “Was (i) lio”. Thus it belongs to the ancient group of place names with the ending “-acum” similar to “Juliacum”, today's Jülich , the settlement of a “Julius”.

By 1700, consisted in Wesseling a team changing point of Treidelschifffahrt . Until industrialization , the place between Cologne and Bonn remained rather insignificant. Not until 1793 did a tannery point to the coming industrial age. In 1848 a democratic workers' association was founded in Wesseling. In that year, the uprising of the Treidler (Rheinhalfen) also spread to the Wesselingen Treidelstation, who saw their trade endangered by the emerging steam shipping . In 1880, Heinrich and Franz Zimmermann founded the Wesseling chemical factory for the recycling of gas cleaning mass, the origin of today's Evonik chemical works in the north of the city. In 1904 the construction of the Rheinuferbahn began from Cologne via Wesseling to Bonn. A cross-train has connected Wesseling with Brühl since 1900. Today this route is mainly used for freight traffic.

In 1932 the last free Reichstag elections in Wesseling resulted in the German Center Party : 45%, followed by KPD : 24%, SPD : 16% and NSDAP : 8%. 1937 was Union Rheinische brown coal fuel AG (UK) founded in Wesseling, today there is at the same place the Rheinland refinery of Shell .

During the Second World War , around 10,000 foreign and forced laborers were employed in the Wesselingen industry from 1939 to 1945 . By comparison, the city itself had only 7,500 inhabitants. Most of the forced laborers employed in the UK and the German Norton were in wooden barracks camps. housed. The so-called "Südlager" was located next to today's stop in Wesseling-Süd. Another barrack camp was located directly on the Rhine, the so-called "Rhine camp".

Similar to Cologne, Wesseling was captured and occupied by the 1st US Army at the beginning of March 1945 as part of Operation Lumberjack .

In the first municipal elections in 1946, the CDU achieved 51.2%; SPD 31.1% and KPD 17.7%. After Bonn became the seat of government of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, a building located in the Wesselingen Rheinpark (today's AWO building ) was initially the residence of the Ambassador of Venezuela , and then from 1954 a location for the Embassy of Brazil (see also list of diplomatic missions in Bonn ).

On August 1, 1969, the Urfeld district of the municipality of Hersel was reclassified to Wesseling, while the main part of the municipality of Hersel was incorporated into the town of Bornheim . On July 1, 1970, part of the Bornheim community, which had around 125 inhabitants at that time, was reclassified to Wesseling. On October 3, 1972, the municipality received the title of city .

On January 1, 1975, Wesseling was incorporated into the city of Cologne by Section 1, Paragraph 1 of the Cologne Act , but was regained its independence with effect from July 1, 1976 after a successful lawsuit. This also meant that Cologne was no longer a city of millions, despite the incorporation. Cologne only achieved this status again in 2010.

politics

City council

Wesseling, old town hall
Wesseling, New Town Hall

The local elections on May 25, 2014, with a turnout of 49.6%, led to the following result:

Political party CDU SPD FDP Green left WE / FW
Share of votes 44.92% 34.00% 5.09% 8.33% 3.54% 4.13%
Profit loss +3.99 +4.17 −7.17 −0.15 −0.92 +0.08
Seats 17th 13 2 3 1 2

After several party resignations in the vicinity of the local associations of the SPD , the FDP and the Left , there were personnel changes in the Wesselingen city council on October 7, 2014, including the formation of the cross-party faction Social Alliance Wesseling (SBW). Accordingly, the city council is currently composed as follows:

fraction CDU SPD FDP Green WE / FW SBW independent
Seats 17th 12 1 3 2 2 1

mayor

The current mayor is Erwin Esser (SPD).

Town twinning

Wesseling maintains city partnerships with

badges and flags

Hoist flag
Wesseling coat of arms
 Blazon : "In red on the right a little label, inside in silver a double-tailed red lion, on the left a silver lily stick (glaive) with a lowered central cross rung, on both ends of which two silver birds facing each other."
Justification of the coat of arms: The coat of arms was awarded by decree of the High President of the Rhine Province on January 4, 1937. It was developed from the younger aldermen's seal of the 14th century with only minor changes . This double-tailed Bergische lion , without the blue crown and the blue reinforcement, refers to the former sovereign. Wesseling belonged to the territorial area of ​​the Counts of Sayn , where his seat on the Löwenburg fell to the Dukes of Berg and thus to the Duchy of Berg as a result of numerous changes of ownership in 1484 . Wesseling thus belonged administratively and judicially to the office of Löwenburg . The tree of life, an old Christian symbol, can be found on the alder's seal of the Nieder-Wesseling freedom from the 14th century.

economy

Union fuel plant Wesseling (in August 1953, Federal Archives photo )
View from the Wesselinger Rheinufer on the chem. Industry

Several large chemical companies are located in the city, including Evonik (formerly Degussa ), Braskem Europe and LyondellBasell (formerly Rheinische Olefinwerke and Elenac ), as well as part of the Rhineland refinery of Shell (formerly DEA and Union Fuel Wesseling ) . The refinery is connected by a pipeline to Wilhelmshaven and Rotterdam , where it gets its crude oil from .

The postal code 50389 applies to all factory areas within the Wesselingen urban area .

In the chamber district of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry , Wesseling has the largest percentage of commercial space .

traffic

Road traffic

Wesseling station building (tram line 16)

Wesseling is on the highways A 555 (Bonn-Cologne) and A 553 (Bliesheim-Brühl) distance. The latter provides the connection to the A 61 and A 1 motorways . The A 555 was the first motorway in Germany to be opened to public traffic .
In inner-city traffic, intersections are being replaced by roundabouts. The oldest and most spacious has been at the Mühlenweg / Hubertusstrasse intersection since the late 1950s. The horticultural and artistic design of these roundabouts should promote their acceptance. In the Ahrstrasse / Siebengebirgsstrasse roundabout, there has been a metal sculpture made by the neighboring Shell company since 2006, based on a design by the Hürth Culture Prize winner Willi Laschet .

Rail transport

The Rheinuferbahn of the ports and goods traffic Cologne (HGK) connects Wesseling with Cologne and Bonn. Since 1978 it has been used by the Stadtbahn line 16 of the Kölner Verkehrsbetriebe (KVB) and the Stadtwerke Bonn (SWB), whereby the light rail trains are connected to the Bonn and Cologne light rail networks. The Wesseling Nord, Wesseling, Wesseling Süd and Urfeld stops are served within Wesseling .

The cross line to Brühl is only significant today in freight traffic, connecting the port of Cologne-Godorf to the rail network of Deutsche Bahn . The port of Godorf itself was once very important for the sale of briquettes from the Rhenish lignite mining area .

←
 Lines
→
Godorf
Niehl Sebastianstr., Cologne Cathedral / Central Station, Cologne Ubierring → 		Light rail Stadtbahn - line 16
Wesseling Nord; Wesseling; Wesseling South; Urfeld 		Widdig
→ Bonn , Bad Godesberg -Stadthalle

Bus transport

The city bus line 721 of Stadtwerke Wesseling opens up the various districts of the city and connects them to the city center. There is a connection to the tram line 16 and the bus line 930 to the neighboring town of Brühl, which is operated by the Rhein-Erft-Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH (REVG) . On June 10, 2012, the new TaxiBus line 722 created the first connection between Wesseling and the Bornheim district of Sechtem . Wesseling belongs to the tariff area of ​​the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Sieg (VRS) .

Rhine ferry

The RheinSchwan passenger and two-wheeler ferry has been connecting Wesseling with Niederkassel -Lülsdorf on the opposite side of the Rhine with a new ferry connection since October 14, 2017 . The RheinSchwan replaces the ferry connection that has existed through the Marienfels for decades .

Culture

The event hall "Rheinforum"

The city offers an extensive cultural program and in 2004 was able to offer the Phoenix Theater its own premises in the new "Rheinforum" event hall for the first time. The “Live im Lessing” jazz festival has a long tradition. Since 2005, the new festival hall has also been a spacious sports and event facility in the Urfeld district, which is used by the music lovers Urfeld , among others . Since 2009, the “Day of Brass Music” has been taking place in the outdoor area of ​​the hall every year at Whitsun, which music lovers had organized annually since 1975 in the schoolyard of the Alte Urfelder Rheinschule. The annual concert of the HCC Bigband takes place on the last Saturday in November in the auditorium of the Lessing School on Gartenstrasse. In May 2010 the first Wesselingen street and pub festival “Rheinklang 669” with live music took place in the city center and in various pubs .

In the school center of the city there is a high school, secondary school, secondary school, elementary and vocational school as well as a large sports facility with an uncovered sports field and several gyms, and since 2009 a cafeteria.

Sculpture Willi Laschet , October 2006
Catholic parish church of St. Germanus
Godorf Castle (2019)
Eichholz Castle (2005)

Buildings and sights

  • Godorf Castle and Hof in Berzdorf, mentioned in 1173 as owned by the Schwarzrheindorf monastery . The current castle building dates from 1871 as an example of castle romanticism.
  • Berzdorf water tower from 1894.
  • Catholic parish church St. Germanus am Rhein, built by Theodor Kremer in 1894.
  • Luzia chapel on the Rhine dike at Sioniterhof, the core from the 13th century.
  • Holy Cross Chapel from 1716 at Dikopshof .
  • Jewish cemetery with 81 gravestones on Römerstrasse. After 1945 a memorial stone was erected by the municipality of Wesseling. The cemetery, which was desecrated by neo-Nazis in the late 1950s , is now in a well-tended condition.
  • The Mimar Sinan Mosque , which was built in 1987.
  • Dietkirchener Hof in Urfeld, documented since 1113, residential building from the 19th century, from 1933 to 1939 the farm served as Kibbutz Bamaaleh as a training center for Jewish emigrants from Palestine .
  • Kaderhof in Urfeld, above the portal the chronogram for 1792: Has ae D es aere propr I o st VXI t I oannes I oseph V s C or M an benef ICI at V s e X B LI ntrop (Johann Joseph Corman, Lehnsmann from Blintrop , built this house from his own fortune).
  • Bronx-Rock climbing hall in the Rheinbogen industrial park, Germany's largest indoor climbing hall. Hall height up to 16.50 m.
  • Old Town Hall Wesseling, can be seen in the opening credits of the RTL series “Das Amt”.
  • Railway Museum of the Cologne-Bonn Railway Friends V.
  • Romboy Film Museum with an attached museum cinema.
  • The Entenfang nature reserve with an area of ​​over 75,000 m² is one of the few remains of the original floodplain landscape in the Cologne-Bonn Bay and thus represents a geological monument in the history of the landscape of the southern Lower Rhine attractive local recreation area created.

Personalities

sons and daughters of the town

Bearer of the ring of honor of the city of Wesseling

The City of Wesseling's Ring of Honor is an award given by the City of Wesseling.

literature

  • Paul Clemen: The art monuments of the Rhine province. Vol. 4, The district of Cologne. Düsseldorf 1897, reprint Düsseldorf 1983, ISBN 3-590-32118-0 .
  • Wolf Tüllmann: Wesseling in old views. Zaltbommel / Netherlands 1983, ISBN 90-288-2403-0 .
  • Hafen und Güterverkehr Köln AG: 100 years of the Cologne-Bonn Railway. Cologne 1995.
  • Helmut Rönz (edit.): Rheinischer Städteatlas Wesseling. Ed .: Landschaftsverband Rheinland, Delivery XVI, No. 89, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2007.
  • Bernhard Gondorf: The castles of the Eifel and their peripheral areas. A lexicon of the "permanent houses" . J. P. Bachem, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7616-0723-7 , p. 176 (Entenfang hunting lodge).

Web links

Commons : Wesseling  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Population of the municipalities of North Rhine-Westphalia on December 31, 2019 - update of the population based on the census of May 9, 2011. State Office for Information and Technology North Rhine-Westphalia (IT.NRW), accessed on June 17, 2020 .  ( Help on this )
  2. ↑ Summa Summarum 2019 - Wesseling in numbers. (PDF) Stadt Wesseling - The Mayor, May 2019, accessed on February 17, 2020 .
  3. ↑ historicum.net: The Rhein-Erft-Rur region and the use of forced laborers
  4. ↑ historicum.net: Barracks camp
  5. ↑ Photo: Südlager-Wesseling ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.historicum.net
  6. ↑ Photo: Rheinlager Wesseling - View 1 ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.historicum.net
  7. ↑ Photo: Rheinlager Wesseling - view 2 ( memento of the original from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.historicum.net
  8. ↑ Text + Images Sights ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Heimatverein Wesseling @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.heimatverein-wesseling.de
  9. ↑ Martin Bünermann: The communities of the first reorganization program in North Rhine-Westphalia . Deutscher Gemeindeverlag, Cologne 1970, p. 84 .
  10. ↑ a b c d Federal Statistical Office (Hrsg.): Historical municipality register for the Federal Republic of Germany. Name, border and key number changes in municipalities, counties and administrative districts from May 27, 1970 to December 31, 1982 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart / Mainz 1983, ISBN 3-17-003263-1 , p. 299 ff .
  11. ↑ election results. City of Wesseling, June 15, 2014, accessed on August 13, 2015 .
  12. ↑ Allocation of seats. City of Wesseling, accessed on August 13, 2015 .
  13. ↑ Montserrat Manke: I don't want to throw dirt. In: Werbekurier. October 6, 2014, accessed August 13, 2015 .
  14. ↑ Birgit Lehmann: Dispute in Wesseling - Wesselinger FDP dismantles itself. In: Kölner Stadtanzeiger. September 30, 2014, accessed August 13, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Mayor Erwin Esser. Wesseling city administration, accessed on August 13, 2015 .
  16. ^ Wesseling. In: Heraldry of the World. Heraldrywiki, accessed August 28, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Irmgard Bracker: Ferryman overtake! The new “Rheinschwan” ferry was inaugurated with a great celebration. In: Extra sheet. October 16, 2017. Retrieved October 17, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Rhein-Erft-Kreis (Ed.): Museums and private collections on the Rhine and Erft , 2nd edition 2009, page 46 f.
  19. ↑ Bernd Imgrund , Nina Osmers : 111 places in the Cologne area that you have to see , Verlag Emons, Cologne, 2010, ISBN 978-3-89705-777-7 , place 108
  20. ^ Rhein-Erft-Kreis (Ed.): Museums and private collections on the Rhine and Erft. 2nd edition 2009, p. 48 f.
  21. ↑ Summa Summarum 2019 - Wesseling in numbers. (PDF) Stadt Wesseling - The Mayor, May 2019, accessed on February 18, 2020 .