Aplerbeck is a borough (''
Stadtbezirk'') of the city of
Dortmund in the
Ruhr district of
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inha ...
, Germany. Since 1929, it has been a suburb of Dortmund, located in the city's south-east. The river
Emscher
The Emscher () is a river, a tributary of the Rhine, that flows through the Ruhr area in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. Its overall length is with an mean outflow near the mouth into the lower Rhine of .
Description
The Emscher h ...
, a tributary of the
Ruhr, crosses Aplerbeck.
Aplerbeck was first documented as a village in 899. The place is associated with the death of two martyrs
both named Ewald in the 7th century, according to the
Golden Legend
The ''Golden Legend'' (Latin: ''Legenda aurea'' or ''Legenda sanctorum'') is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that was widely read in late medieval Europe. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived.Hilary ...
. Aplerbeck was the location of
mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...
and
heavy industry
Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...
as part of the Ruhr from the 19th century to 1926, resulting in a larger population and the building of a representative town hall and a larger church. A psychiatric hospital of regional importance, founded in 1890, is still in operation, now as .
History
The first document mentioning Aplerbeck, then ''Afaldrabechi'', is a founding document (''Stiftungsurkunde'') of 899, a term containing "apple" and "creek". According to the
Golden Legend
The ''Golden Legend'' (Latin: ''Legenda aurea'' or ''Legenda sanctorum'') is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that was widely read in late medieval Europe. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived.Hilary ...
, two missionaries, the
Two Ewalds
The Two Ewalds (or ''Two Hewalds'') were Saint Ewald the Black and Saint Ewald the Fair, martyrs in Old Saxony about 692. Both bore the same name, but were distinguished by the difference in the colour of their hair and complexions. They began the ...
, were killed near Aplerbeck in the 7th century.
With industrialisation, mining was done in . In 1855, Aplerbeck was connected by rail of the
Cologne-Minden Railway Company
The Cologne-Minden Railway Company (German, old spelling: ''Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft'', ''CME'') was along with the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company and the Rhenish Railway Company one of the railway companies that in the mid-19th ...
. The was founded in 1862.
In 1890, the
Prussian
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
state government chose Aplerbeck as the home of a new psychiatric clinic to serve the
Ruhr area
The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km ...
.
A former farm was acquired, to employ the patients in agriculture. Named ''Westfälische Provinzial-Heilanstalt Aplerbeck'' (later short: ''Westfälische Klinik'' and ''Heilanstalt'') in 1904,
it was meant to house 660 patients.
The town hall of Aplerbeck, , was built in 1906/07 by . The Aplerbecker Hütte was closed in 1925. Aplerbeck became part of Dortmund on 1 August 1929.
During the reign of the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
, Jewish citizens were deported, only 30 of 120 in 1933 could emigrate. Around 340 patients of the psychiatric clinic were sterilised.
In 1941, 95 patients were moved to Hadamar and killed.
Religion
The
Georgskirche is a
Romanesque church
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque style, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 11th century, this later ...
which is first mentioned in a document in 1147, but probably is based on an older building from the 9th century. The
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
reached Aplerbeck in 1570.
With the industrialisation, a larger church was needed.
The
Große Kirche Aplerbeck was built in
Gothic Revival style after a design by
Christian Heyden from 1867 to 1869.
The Georgskirche was no longer used and deteriorated. It was restored in 1963, and is now the main location for Protestant services,
while the larger church is often used for concerts.
As many people of Polish origin settled in Aplerbeck, they needed a Catholic church, which was built after a design by and consecrated on 21 December 1880, named after the martyrs.
After World War II, this church became too small for a growing congregation. It was replaced in 1971 by a new church.
File:Aplerbeck Kirche St Georg.jpg, Georgskirche
File:Titelbild des Kirchenführers Der Zeigefinger Gottes von Siegfried Liesenberg..jpg, ''Der Zeigefinger Gottes'' (God's index finger)
Personalities
*
Wilhelm Canaris
Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and the chief of the ''Abwehr'' (the German military-intelligence service) from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi re ...
(1887–1945), Admiral
*
Paul Graebner
Carl Otto Robert Peter Paul Graebner (29 June 1871 in Aplerbeck – 6 February 1933 in Berlin) was a German botanist.
In 1895 he obtained his doctorate in Berlin, successively working as an assistant and then as curator (1904) at the botanical ga ...
(1871–1933), botanist
*
Heinz Eberhard Strüning (1896–1986), painter, artist
Literature
* Siegfried Niehaus: ''Aplerbeck''. Heinrich Borgmann, Dortmund 1977.
* Siegfried Niehaus: ''Kleine Geschichte des Amtes Aplerbeck''. Stadtsparkasse Dortmund, 1980.
* Uwe Bitzel: ''Lebensunwert. Die Heilanstalt Aplerbeck und ihre Kranken während des Nationalsozialismus''. Montania, Dortmund 1995, .
* Hans Georg Kirchhoff, Siegfried Liesenberg (ed.): ''1100 Jahre Aplerbeck: Festschrift im Auftrag des Vereins für Heimatpflege''. Essen 1998, .
* Georg Eggenstein (ed.): ''Aplerbeck. Sechs Profile – Ein Gesicht''. Limosa, Clenze 2010, .
References
External links
StadtbezirksportalDortmund
Berichte über AplerbeckAplerbecker GeschichteAplerbeck history
{{authority control
Dortmund