Bad Westernkotten

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Bad Westernkotten
City of Erwitte
Bad Westernkotten coat of arms
Coordinates: 51 ° 37 '58 "  N , 8 ° 21' 50"  E
Height : 87  (85–160)  m above sea level NN
Area : 13.2 km²
Residents : 4241  (April 1, 2011)
Population density : 321 inhabitants / km²
Incorporation : 1st January 1975
Postal code : 59597
Area code : 02943
mapAnröchte Bad Sassendorf Bad Westernkotten Berenbrock Böckum Ebbinghausen Eikeloh Erwitte Geseke Horn-Millinghausen Kreis Soest Lippstadt Merklinghausen-Wiggeringhausen Norddorf Rüthen Schallern Schmerlecke Seringhausen Stirpe Völlinghausen Weckinghausen
About this picture
Location of Bad Westernkotten in Erwitte
Redesigned town center

Bad Westernkotten is the second largest district of Erwitte in the Soest district , North Rhine-Westphalia . The district has 4611 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017).

geography

Bad Westernkotten is located on the southern edge of the Westphalian lowland bay, about 70 kilometers east of Dortmund and 30 kilometers west of Paderborn . Bad Westernkotten is naturally located in the Soester Börde and belongs to the transition area between the northern roofing of the Haarstrang and the East Munsterland . The landscape north of the Hellweg is referred to as the lower Hellwegbörde, the south of the Hellweg as the upper Hellwegbörde. The highest point of Bad Westernkotten is close to the former Domhof farmstead at almost 160 meters above sea level .

history

Place name

Bad Westernkotten, formerly called Cothen , Cothun or Westeren Kotten , was first mentioned in the Corveyer traditions in 976 . This deed of gift is a list of the goods donated to Corvey Abbey . The name "Westernkotten" arose from looking towards Paderborn.

For centuries, the largest and most important landowner entitled to salt boiling was the Bishop of Paderborn, who called a nearby salt town “ Salzkotten ”. The Westernkotten, about 20 km to the west, was named "Westernkotten"; On the one hand, " Kotten " is interpreted as a term for a small farmhouse or farming village; other researchers point out that the word 'kote' refers to a piece of land cut out of a courtyard or a corridor. They justify their assumption that the original authorization to extract salt lay with the kings and that the royal property was cut out of the usual hallway.

Settlement, power relations

The room was settled long before it was first mentioned. Finds from the Middle Stone Age (8000–4000 BC) and traces of Neolithic settlement (4000–1700 BC) in the Domhofsiedlung show that the area was inhabited long before it was first mentioned in a document. For example, wedges and hoes, stone axes and a pierced antler shoot were found, which are now on display in the local history museum in Lippstadt .

For the settlement of the first Germanic tribes, the Sugambrer and Brukterer , in the Westernkotten area, in addition to the proximity to the Hellweg and springs and rivers ( Osterbach , Gieseler ), the salt springs were also of great importance. They were considered holy places for the Teutons. They knew the technique of extracting salt from brine.

Since 696 the Westernkotten area was under the rule of Saxon tribes after a short Franconian influence .

Due to the wars with the Saxons, the Hellweg and thus also Westernkotten became increasingly important, as the Hellweg established the connection to the most important Franconian base in Saxony, Paderborn . The Hellweg was expanded in this context; Royal estates at a distance of 5 to 10 kilometers should ensure security and accommodation. The royal estates in the Westernkotten area include the royal courts of Erwitte and Geseke . The Erwitter royal court also included possessions in Westernkotten.

In 1027 the Paderborn Bishop Meinwerk received these goods including the brine wells from Emperor Konrad II . The bishop has since been the largest landowner in the village. For centuries this led to conflicts with the rulers of the Duchy of Westphalia , the Cologne prince-bishops .

Until the 15th century, the inhabitants of the Westernkotten area were distributed among numerous small farmers. The most important were Aspen , Hockelheim and Ussen . As part of the Soest feud (1444–1449), these places were destroyed, the survivors settled at the salt wells. About 60 years later, the residents put on a Landwehr to protect the salt works and the village.

During the Thirty Years' War the place was badly haunted, committed to contributions and plundered . Especially the troops of Duke Christian von Braunschweig , who had been involved in the war on the Dutch-Palatinate side since 1619, were up to mischief here. In the wake of the war, especially in 1635, the plague , the "Black Death", decimated the population.

In 1673 the place was also almost completely destroyed: In the context of the dispute about the annexation of Holland by France under Louis XIV , with whom the Archbishop of Cologne allied, Brandenburg troops set fire to the place in four places, forbidding that Extinguishing and thus laid more than 90 houses and the salt works in rubble and ashes. After the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the place experienced a significant economic upswing, which went hand in hand with the renewal of the salt works according to the proposals of the Salzkotten priest Korte.

In 1802 the rule of the Cologne prince-bishops ended, and after brief sovereignty of the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt , the Duchy of Westphalia became a Prussian province in 1816 .

Incorporation

On January 1, 1975 Bad Westernkotten was incorporated into Erwitte.

Residents

year Residents
1818 1118
1852 1380
1900 1097
1961 1989
1970 2601
1974 2734
1975 2757
1997 more than 4000
2005 4190
2011 4241

religion

Church of St. John Evangelist

In 1829 the largely Catholic population took the first important step towards breaking away from the Erwitte mother parish: Westernkotten became a vicarie . Full parish independence as a parish was only achieved in 1902.

economy

In economic terms, the salt industry continued to play the most important role in the 19th century and reached its peak around 1850 with an annual production of around 35,000 quintals.

After the Second World War, the spa business came to the fore and became the largest employer in town. Despite the health reform of 1996, which severely affected the spa drive, it still is. The village has two clinics with AHB approval and around 700 guest beds in hotels, guest houses and holiday apartments. In 2010 more than 27,000 guests and over 200,000 overnight stays were counted.

After the Second World War

During the Second World War , American troops took Westernkotten without a fight on April 4, 1945; Material damage caused by the war was comparatively small compared to the destruction in many German cities. However, two important branches of the economy were initially completely ruined: The salt industry finally came to an end in 1949, and the spa system could not be reactivated until 1950 with the establishment of Solbad GmbH, which is still the most important provider of the spa to this day.

politics

coat of arms

Bad Westernkotten.svg

The municipality of Bad Westernkotten was independent until 1975 and had its own coat of arms , the so-called pan hook of the Sälzer. This coat of arms was awarded in 1936 and has been part of the city of Erwitte's coat of arms since the municipal reorganization.

In the approval document, the coat of arms is described as follows: "The coat of arms shows a golden, house brand-like symbol in red in the form of a floating oblique left-hand bar, which is covered in the middle with a short cross bar and its ends (top to the left, bottom to the right) are bent at an acute angle. ”This heraldic figure resembles a typical form of the“ wolf fishing rod ”.

Mayor

Wolfgang Marcus (SPD) has been the mayor of Bad Westernkotten since the local elections in 2004. He followed Alfred Beste (CDU).

traffic

Bundesstraße 1 , the old Hellweg , runs about 1500 meters south of today's town center and connects Bad Westernkotten to the Bundesautobahn 44 Dortmund-Kassel via the Geseke and Erwitte / Anröchte junctions . The B55 runs to the west , via which the federal motorway 2 can be reached at Rheda-Wiedenbrück .

In order to prevent through traffic, there is a 30 km / h speed zone in the entire town and there is even a traffic-calmed area in the town center .

Public transportation

Bad Westernkotten is in the area of ​​the Westphalian tariff . The R61 bus line run by Regionalverkehr Ruhr-Lippe GmbH runs through the center of the town and runs on the Lippstadt - Bad Westernkotten - Erwitte - Anröchte route every half to one hour.

On the nights from Friday to Saturday, Saturday to Sunday and on the nights on public holidays, the night bus line N1 runs on this route in the evening and at night , with a slightly different route in Lippstadt.

The next train station is in Lippstadt . From here several ICE / IC connections run daily to important German cities such as B. Cologne, Düsseldorf, Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin. The following lines are served in local transport:

Spa

The smaller graduation tower in the spa gardens
The Hellweg brine thermal baths

Bad Westernkotten is now a state-approved spa , whose healing indications are based on the local remedies brine and moor . In 1842, Rentmeister Erdmann, a manager of the von Papen family, who were well-to-do in Westernkotten, used brine for healing purposes for the first time, thus laying the foundation for today's health resort. In 1958 the place was given the title "Bad". In 1975 it was designated as a "state-approved spa". Today the spa is by far the largest employer in town. More than 1000 guest beds are available.

literature

  • Bad Westernkotten municipality (publisher): Bad Westernkotten. A home book. Lippstadt 1958.
  • W. Marcus, M. Jesse, F. Mönnig, A. Richter (ed. On behalf of Heimatfreunde Bad Westernkotten): Bad Westernkotten. Old Sälzerdorf on Hellweg. Lippstadt 1987.
  • Schützenverein Bad Westernkotten (Ed.): 300 years Schützenverein Bad Westernkotten eV Lippstadt 1994.
  • Westf. Heimatbund (Hrsg.): The Schäferkämper water mill in Bad Westernkotten. (= Technical cultural monuments in Westphalia. Issue 12). Münster 1995, DNB 946823553 .
  • W. Marcus et al. (Ed.): We look around. 2nd Edition. Local history work folder , Bad Westernkotten 1991, DNB 993882803 .
  • Magdalene Jesse: Vertell mui watt op Westernküört Platt. Lippstadt 1990.
  • W. Marcus et al. (Eds.): 1902-2002. 100 years of the parish of Sankt Johannes Evangelist Bad Westernkotten. Bad Westernkotten 2002.

Web links

Commons : Bad Westernkotten  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. City of Erwitte: Population statistics of the city of Erwitte ( Memento of the original from February 2, 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. (Status: April 1, 2011; accessed May 5, 2011; PDF file; 8 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.erwitte.de
  2. ^ Federal Statistical Office (ed.): Historical municipality directory 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. 334 .
  3. Willi Mues: The big cauldron . 7th edition. Self-published, Erwitte 1999, ISBN 3-9800968-2-3 , p. 249 .