Dodesheide is a town in the borough of Osnabrück, Germany; with a population of roughly 7,900 residents it is located to the north-east of the city. Its boundaries are delineated in the north by the Vehrter Landstraße, in the west by the landwehr – a former defensive line around the town consisting of a bank and ditches – in the south by the Sandbach and the Osnabrück-Bremen railway line; the city boundary itself marks its eastern border. It is made up of sections of the former districts of Schinkel and Haste.
Osnabrück is a city in the federal state of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It is situated in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population of 168,145 Osnabrück is one of the four largest cities in Lower Saxony. The city is the centrepoint of the Osnabrück Land region as well as the District of Osnabrück.
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.
The terms landwehr, landgraben and landhege refer to border demarcations or border defences and enclosures in Central Europe that were either built by settlements with the right of enclosure or to mark and defend entire territories. These measures, usually comprising earthworks or dykes as well as ditches and impenetrable lines of hedging, for protecting towns and villages date mainly to the High and Late Middle Ages and consist, in some cases, of systems over a hundred kilometres long. Comparable earthworks have been recorded since Antiquity. The Roman limes are the best known examples of earlier landwehrs. The Danewerk is another example of this type of barrier.
The district’s most significant building is the Haus Gartlage, a former Jesuit seat which some years ago was converted into residences. Apart from this and a number of farms, most of the developments in the Dodesheide district are from the 20th century. Since the 1950s, the construction of residential space following set construction stages has been systematically encouraged; one notable case is the “Dodeshaus” model building project from the 1960s, focused on the area between Haster Weg and Ellerstraße where primarily bungalows are situated. The eastern part of the district continues to be characterised by the barracks of the British army and the attached soldiers’ residences; their final withdrawal in 2009 led to expectations of extensive structural change in the area.
There are two churches in Dodesheide: the Thomaskirche (Protestant) and the St. Franziskus Church (Catholic).
At the beginning of the 1970s, the possibility of making Dodesheide the location of the planned University of Osnabrück was discussed; in the end, however, the district of Westerberg was chosen. Its main offices are located at the Schloss Osnabrück (Osnabrück Palace). A remnant of the planning from that time remains in the form of the Dodesheide student residence located on Mecklenburger Straße; with 206 residents it is today the second largest student residence in the town. [1]
Westerberg is a district of Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, Germany, with roughly 8,700 residents. It is situated in the west of the city between Lotter Straße and Pagenstecherstraße. The districts bordering it are Eversburg, Hafen, Sonnenhügel, Innenstadt, Weststadt, Hellern and Atter. The border with Atter passes through the Rubbenbruchsee, part of a large local recreation area.
The traditional perception of the name Dodesheide as linked to “Todesheide” (Death’s Heath) is most likely false. The name is assumed to derive from the Old German proper name “Dodo”: its proper meaning being “Dodos Heide” (Dodo’s Heath).
