Schüttorf
Schüttorf (Northern Low Saxon: Schüttrup) is a town in the district of Grafschaft Bentheim in southwesternmost Lower Saxony near the Dutch border and the boundary with Westphalia (North Rhine-Westphalia).Schüttorf lies in the foothills of the Bentheimer Berg, a great sandstone formation from the Cretaceous rising to 80 m and a wooded western outlier of the Teutoburg Forest.The outlying centre where these dunes were is, however, still popularly called “Marokko” or, in Low German, Witten Over (“White Shore”), referring to the area's “desertlike” appearance.With the completion of the Schüttorfer Kreuz (“Schüttorf Cross”), an Autobahn cloverleaf formed by the A 30 and the A 31, greater commercial and industrial areas were laid out in the town's northeast near this interchange in 2004 and 2005.The town of Schüttorf mainly borders on other members of the Joint Community, namely Samern in the southeast, Quendorf in the northwest and Engden in the north.In the east, the town limit is also part of the boundary with the neighbouring district of Emsland, bordering there on Ahlde, an outlying centre of the community of Emsbüren.The etymology of the name Schüttorf is not exactly known and various folk explanations have been put forth, the most widespread of which is the legend that tells of the river Vechte being diverted around the town as early as 1295 by building a dam.On a coin issue from the first half of the 13th century is the form SCOTOR(p)E. Hermann Abels (see 2) is of the opinion that the name's origin is the Dutch word schut (limber wall, dam, sluice), which comes close to the folk meaning.Historically, however, it comes up short, as it assumes that the Vechte was already dammed at the time the placename arose, and it leaves unexplained all forms in Scot-, which must be derived from the Low German Schott (“dividing wall in a stall”).Quite another explanation is that the name Schüttorf stems from Scutthorpe or Scuttrop, which means “Protection Village” (this would be Schutzdorf in Modern High German), referring to Altena Castle in the town.Namely these were: Beyond these six rights, there are a great many special conditions for the so-called Wicbeldeslude (this would be Weichbildleute in Modern High German) – or people from the outlying countryside – which indeed make up the bulk of the document.Until 1555, townsmen were obliged yearly to pay the Bürgergewinnungsgeld (“townsman’s recovery tax”), which cost them each five Taler, roughly matching the price of a fat ox and a calf.Towards the end of the 17th century, war contributions rose, and there were even foreign troops stationed in Schüttorf, leading to a grave financial emergency in the town.As of the 17th century, the castle was gradually sinking into oblivion, slowly falling into ruins that, over the townsfolk's loud protests, were eventually torn down in 1975 to make way for a thoroughfare.In 1341, Count Simon at Bentheim recognized Schüttorf's first guild, namely de Schomackere Amte (shoemakers), leading to the conclusion that this profession was particularly widespread.No sooner had French Foreign Minister Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand guaranteed the Count at Bentheim neutrality than Napoleon ignored it, annexing the County on 12 June 1806 to the Duchy of Berg.In a decree about the “abolition of serfdom in the Grand Duchy of Berg” issued on 12 December 1808 by the Imperial camp at Madrid, Napoleon ordered that even the Colonen and serfs were to be granted all civil rights.The First World War led to a standstill in the textile industry, which by this time had grown into the most important economic activity in town, but raw materials were no longer being delivered.This led to extremely high joblessness, moving the community to resolve to cultivate at its own cost the heath surrounding Schüttorf, to give people something to do.The German paratroopers who had been stationed in Schüttorf had withdrawn already anyway, to Lingen, blowing up all bridges on the Vechte and wrecking the electrical and telephone systems as they went.Even before the Machtergreifung, he had been openly disagreeing with National Socialist Ideology in the Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, and he was also known through his work in the Christlich-Sozialer Volksdienst, and he quickly became a target for the Nazis.The disagreement reached its apex on 18 April 1937 when several hundred Schüttorfers gathered before the town hall after Middendorff had been arrested and “sang him free”, standing there for hours singing chorales until he was released.In Schüttorf's northeast is found the cloverleaf known as the Schüttorfer Kreuz where the Autobahnen A 30 (Bad Oeynhausen – Osnabrück – Hengelo) and A 31 (Emden – Oberhausen) cross each other.Towards the end of the 19th century, a strong textile industry was developing itself in Schüttorf with several large local businesses (Schlikker & Söhne, Gathmann & Gerdemann, G. Schümer & Co. and ten Wolde, later Carl Rremy; today's RoFa is not one of the original textile companies, but was founded by H. Lammering and later taken over by Gerhard Schlikker jun., Levert Rost and Wilhelm Edel; the name RoFa comes from the postwar shareholders Rost and Falley).Originally, one-story timber frame Dielenhäuser – houses with very high entrance halls – with gables towering over jetty bressummers, as are still commonly seen, for instance, in Quakenbrück, were the predominant type.Another popular kind of sport, especially in the colder months, is Kloatsheeten, which involves teams rolling a small wooden disk with a leaden core along roadways.The Schümer distillery was at first located in the inner town, but at the Count's behest, it was not allowed to build its own mill, as the wind blowing over the land belonged to the Lord.The clothing for this is the Holtbeus, a blue work jacket with black trousers, grey socks, wooden shoes, a top hat and a red neckerchief tied with a matchbox.Schüttorf's first, and thus far only, honorary citizen is the town's first full-time mayor, who was later also a Landrat for Grafschaft Bentheim, Franz Scheurmann (born 8 May 1892 in Berlin, died 3 October 1964 in Nordhorn), on whom this honour was bestowed on 8 May 1962.Scheurmann set himself to work during his time in office above all for the town archive, bringing many old documents and historical papers together, which he published in many essays about Schüttorf (see 10).
The population grew with the arrival of people driven out of the eastern territories
GermanyLower SaxonyDistrictGrafschaft Bentheim Municipal assoc.SchüttorfTime zonePostal codesDialling codesVehicle registrationNorthern Low SaxonGrafschaft BentheimborderWestphaliaNorth Rhine-WestphaliaVechteBad BentheimNordhornFederal Republic of GermanyEmslandRheinesea levelsandstoneCretaceousTeutoburg ForestwoodlandheathlandFirst World WaragriculturalMarokkoLow GermandesertlikehighrisesAutobahncloverleaffloodplainlowlandfloodingbutterflyinsectkingfisherlapwingsgreat crested grebesSamernQuendorfEngdenEmsbürenbackwatersSaalian Stageglacierterminal moraineLingen HeightsMesozoicice ageHolocenesoil qualityclayeyair pressureprecipitationweather stationhydrologicalwater qualityCatholicLutheranTurkishSecond World Wartextile industryIndustrial Revolutionaerial bombarchiveetymologysluicebargesdraughtshippingModern High GermancastleIrelandGaelicCeltic crossesrailwaythighbonecromlechsmissionariesBritish IslesarchaeologicalCalaisBoulogneHermelinghenHumbertJacob Isaakszoon van RuisdaelAll HallowsBurgsteinfurtHorstmarOldenzaalMünsterruling classSchillingright to voteprisonedbanishedViennaReichshofratCatholicismabdicatedcattleHussitesdanger from the TurksAnabaptistsAltenashoemakerscabinetmakerssmiths’welfareHoly GhostalmshouseelderlyFrenchCharles-Maurice de TalleyrandNapoleonDuchy of BergSuddendorfcensusSalzbergenserfdomMadrid