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Wiesmoor is a town in the district of Aurich in the northwest of Lower Saxony. It lies on the Nordgeorgsfehnkanal and is the youngest town in the East Frisia area having been bestowed town rights on 16 March 2006, two days later on 18 March 2006, Wiesmoor celebrated the Centenary of the settlement's founding. The town owes its growth to the industrialisation of the harvesting of peat from the surrounding moors. Wiesmoor holds an annual flower festival and the town is also known as the ‘Flower City’, the name originates from the large numbers of flowers which are grown in the town’s industrial greenhouse. Formerly the greenhouses were heated by waste heat from the now defunct peat burning power station which was located in the city. Wiesmoor also has the official title of a Luftkurort; tourism now plays an important role in the local economy.
Wiesmoor lies around 30km inland from the North Sea in the North West of Germany in the centre of the historic district of East Frisia. The city of Wiesmoor and its surroundings have a population of between 35,000 and 40,000 people.
The most south-eastern community in the Landkreis of Aurich Wiesmoor lies centrally within the East Frisian peninsula. The city is in the district of Aurich. In the East, the city borders with the Friedeburg in the district of Wittmund, in the south with Uplengen in the district of Leer. West of Wiesmoor is the village of Großefehn lies and to the north of that the city of Aurich, both in the district of Aurich.
The closest large cities to Wiesmoor are Wilhelmshaven (30km to the North East), Oldenburg (45km to the South East), Bremen (80km to the South East) as well as the Dutch city of Groningen (80km to the South West).
The entire metropolitan area of Wiesmoor extends to an area of 82.99km². The city has dimensions of approximately 11km in the North-South direction and about 7km in the East-West Direction.
The city of Wiesmoor lies in the middle part of the East Frisian raised bog, which was formed by glaciation and contained up to 1900 layers of peat up to 8m deep. Originally the bog had an area of around 100km2 although the majority of that is now covered by the city.
The city ranges over heights of 10.6 to 14m above sea level, with the average being 11m.
Wiesmoor was laid out in 1906, the city today consists of the original 20th-century planned city and an additional 9 quarters. A peculiarity of Wiesmoor lies therein that almost all current quarters of the city are older than the City Centre itself.
History
The bog area around Wiesmoor remained mostly uninhabited for a long time. The earliest records for the presence of people are a Stone Ageaxe and an earthen vessel from the pre-Roman Iron Age that were discovered in Marcardsmoor. These items likely belonged to someone who drowned in the bog rather than an indication of a durable settlement. In the bog in Wilhelmsfehn, a neck ring from around 700 BCE has also been found. In 1999 a bronze hatchet which dated to the middle of the Bronze Age was discovered amongst rubbish in Ostgroßefehn. The hatchet is unique to East Frisia and it was likely disposed of in the bog rather than originating in the area.
In 1633 colonisation of the bog area surrounding Wiesmoor began, however by 1880, there were still only around 100 inhabitants living within the current city area. At the beginning of the 20th century plans were drawn up by Dr. Eberhard Ramm from the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture to begin industrial harvesting of peat from the bogs, this would be done using large machinery rather than the traditional methods of spades and hoes. Further to this Dr. Ramm, in co-operation with Carl Friedrich von Siemens, also planned to construct a new peat burning power plant in the area.
In 1906, the Nordgeorgsfehnkanal was constructed through the bog to be able to drain the area. While in the beginning, only specialists and prison labourers came to work by 1907 the first residents to Wiesmoor began to arrive and by 1909 the peat power plant was in operation. The plant was originally owned by Siemens until 1921 when it was taken over by the North West German Power Plants Company (Nordwestdeutschen Kraftwerke AG). The plant provided power all the way from Ems down to the lower Elbe. The waste heat from the power plant was used from 1925 onwards to warm greenhouses to allow the year-round growing of flowers and vegetables, with an area of about 75,000 square meters the greenhouse at Wiesmoor was the largest in Europe at the time.
During the Second World War, there was a slave labor camp at Wiesmoor where a large number of civilian prisoners were brought from Poland, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and France, among other countries, to forced labor in the bogs. According to Eugeniusz Popielarz, who was imprisoned there as a young Polish teenager from May 1942 until May 1945 with his mother and three brothers, the older teens and adults dug the peat while the younger pre-teen and teenage boys would push loaded rail wagons up an incline on a narrow gauge railway so that they could coast downhill to assemble the train, powered by a peat-fired small locomotive, which would then take the peat to the power plant. In order to make it harder for the boys up the incline, often a German guard or Ukrainian collaborator known as a Vorarbeiter would sit atop the already laden rail wagon shouting his commands. The living conditions were deplorable in shabby barracks with ill-fitting doors and rotten floorboards through which rats and weasels would make their way into the prisoners living quarters at night, especially in the colder months. The daily ration, according to Eugeniusz, was "not enough to promote life and too much to permit death." Though the camp was basically open, with moderate security to prevent mutiny, there was no hope for these civilian slave laborers to escape. There was one exception, however, with regard to this camp, namely a section for Soviet prisoners of war. Their misfortune, according to Eugeniusz, was to be fenced-in behind barbed wire and starved to the point that they denuded the earth in the corral of grass which they ate, roots and all, seeking sustenance. They were mocked by the German, Ukrainian, and a few Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian guards, when they begged for "a nibble of bread" - "кусок хлеба." If a slave laborer ever approached out of pity to share his/her ration with these hapless Soviets, they were shot - even for sharing a cigarette. Needless to say, beatings of slave laborers were commonplace to make them work "more efficiently." If a slave was sick and could not work, he/she did not eat. In order to possibly increase their food ration, slaves were permitted to take on extra work as farm laborers for any of the local Bauern (farmers). For example, honey, aspirin, and other items for ill relative internees were obtainable this way from a few kindhearted farm families. Eugeniusz recalled his own illness when honey for a pustule in his throat was obtained in this way. After their additional work on the farms, the slave laborers were expected to observe a curfew and return to their barracks for evening Appel.
Because of the proximity of Emden, Wilhelmshaven, Oldenburg, and Bremen, Wiesmoor had lain under major air corridors used by the RAF and their Commonwealth allies and others at night, and the USAAF during the day. There were, weather permitting, very frequent nighttime and daylight air raids traversing overhead. At night, the RAF and others (including Poles, Czechs, Norwegians, Dutch, and South Africans) often enough missed their targets with bundled incendiary and fragmentation bombs which inadvertently hit the area around Wiesmoor and embedded themselves in the peat bogs. Eugeniusz remembered that prisoners caught stealing food were condemned to the "disposal" of these unexploded bombs (UXBs), all too often with tragic results of which he was a witness from a distance. Other "violations" were dealt with by public hangings, or outright shooting of the prisoner by a guard or guards. There were, at least, three Allied plane crashes in the area - a bomber and two fighters which he remembered. One of the downed fighters was a P-51 Mustang of the famed Tuskegee Airmen ("Red Tails"). The pilot successfully bailed out and was rescued by one of his squadron-mates who landed to allow his buddy to climb behind him into the cockpit while part of the squadron covered them from above. The camp at Wiesmoor was liberated on the morning of 5 May 1945 by forward units of the 1st Polish Armored Division commanded by Major General Stanisaw Maczek. Two days later, the Division received the surrender of the command of the Kriegsmarine's base at Wilhelmshaven where most of Germany's U-boots were moored.
After the Second World War, the Ernst Benary flower company erected a further twenty greenhouses and sowed forty hectares of outdoors area. This can be regarded as the start of Wiesmoor as the ‘Flower City’. Around 40,000 people were visiting the town annually by this time and plans were put down to for the building of a baths, an open-air stage and for the extension of the park into a health establishment. In 1951 the boundaries of Wiesmoor were redrawn, several local villages became part of the towns and the area was incorporated into the district of Aurich. With 51.64 square kilometers, Wiesmoor was now the largest town by area in East Frisia, at this time the town had a total of 5,166 inhabitants.
1952 saw the staging of the first flower festival or Blütenfest in German. In that year the peat power plant was employing around 1,200 people and roughly 120,000 tons of peat was being harvested annually. A Further 200 people worked in the greenhouses, whose products, such as tomatoes and cucumber, were exported into neighboring European countries.
The peat power plant was dismantled 1966 to be replaced with a larger capacity gas turbine power plant. The loss of jobs caused by the closure of the power plant was helped by the growth of local company Bohlen and Doyen who have grown to become easily the largest employer in the city. In 1972 further changes to local boundaries meant that Wiesmoor continued to grow in size and population by incorporating more local villages. In 1977 the town was designated as a Luftkurort, literally an air spa, due to its high air quality.
In 1995 the gas turbine power plant was demolished.
On 16 March 2006, Wiesmoor was granted city status. Lower Saxony Secretary of the Interior, Uwe Schünemann, delivered the documentation personally and congratulated the city on its rapid growth over the last 100 years.
1989 mid-air collision
On Friday 13 January 1989, a half year after the Ramstein Airshow Disaster, there was a collision of several military jets at low altitude over the Hinrichsfehn area of Wiesmoor. A Panavia TornadoZD891 of 14 Sqn of the Royal Air Force collided with a squadron of German Alphas Jets of the Jagdbombergeschwader 43 division. One of the German Alpha Jets was seriously damaged but managed to make an emergency landing, the a further Alpha Jet and the Tornado were destroyed, the pilot of the Alpha Jet managed to eject but the two pilots in the Tornado died in the accident. The wreckage from the jets landed near a primary school in South Wiesmoor.
British at Bruggen, flying at 150 metres, hit a German military aircraft at 9.50am, of squadron Jagdbombergeschwader 43, and crashed near a village. Both RAF pilots were killed in Wiesmoor. The German pilot, Hermann Späth, aged 38, ejected.[3][4]
Fl Lt Alan George Grieve, the navigator, was born on 28 May 1960, and was aged 28, from Forres in Moray. He attended Forres Academy, and the University of Aberdeen. His father, George, was a policeman. Alan became a navigator in September 1984.[5] He married in August 1985 at Brechin Cathedral, when a Flying Officer. He had an 18 month old daughter Kirsten.[6] Fl Lt Michael Peter Staveley Smith was born on 26 January 1951, and was aged 37, and married with two sons.[citation needed]
Subdivisions
Administratively, the town of Wiesmoor consists of its town centre and ten further districts (Stadtteile):
The flower festival in Wiesmoor was first took place in 1952, the festival is held annually on the first weekend in September (from Thursday to Monday). The festival consist of displays of flowers as well as a parade with floats. Each year at the time of the festival a new Blütenkönigin or Blossom Queen is selected. On the Saturday evening of the festival the old Blütenkönigin parachutes over the sports ground which is the signal to start a party which culminates in a large fireworks display. A new Blütenkönigin is selected on the Sunday afternoon and on Monday the festival concludes with the ‘Kanal in Flammen’ (literally canal in flames) which is a large fireworks display held on and around the Nordgeorgsfehnkanal
Lower Saxony is a German state in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with 47,614 km2 (18,384 sq mi), and fourth-largest in population among the 16 Länder federated as the Federal Republic of Germany. In rural areas, Northern Low Saxon and Saterland Frisian are still spoken, albeit in declining numbers.
Oldenburg (German pronunciation:[ˈɔldn̩bʊʁk] ; Northern Low Saxon: Ollnborg) is an independent city in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany. The city is officially named Oldenburg (Oldb) (Oldenburg in Oldenburg) to distinguish from Oldenburg in Holstein.
Leer is a district (Landkreis) in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the city of Emden, the districts of Aurich, Wittmund, Friesland, Ammerland, Cloppenburg and Emsland, and by the Netherlands.
Leer is a town in the district of Leer, in the northwestern part of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Leda, a tributary of the river Ems, near the border with the Netherlands. With 34,958 inhabitants (2021), it is the third-largest city in East Frisia after Emden and Aurich.
Aurich is a town in the East Frisian region of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Aurich and is the second largest City in East Frisia, both in population, after Emden, and in area, after Wittmund.
Wittmund is a town and capital of the district of Wittmund, in Lower Saxony, Germany.
Jümme is a collective municipality (Samtgemeinde) in the district of Leer in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is named after the River Jümme which flows through all three constituent communities. It has an area of 82.34 km2 and a population of 6,421. It is situated in the region of East Frisia. Along with the Samtgemeinde of Hesel, it is one of two in the district. It was formed in the wake of local government reform in 1973. Filsum serves as the administrative centre.
Vossbarg is a row village in East Frisia, Germany. It is a Moorland colony consisting mostly of pasture land and is predominantly an agricultural area.
Norden is a town in the district of Aurich, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated near the North Sea shore, in East Frisia.
Budenheim is a municipality in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Unlike other municipalities in Mainz-Bingen, it does not belong to any Verbandsgemeinde.
Dornum is a village and a municipality in the East Frisian district of Aurich, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located near the North Sea coast, approx. 15 km east of Norden, and 20 km north of Aurich.
Schwerinsdorf is a municipality in the district of Leer, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The municipality has 705 inhabitants and covers an area of 5.57 square kilometers.
The Walle Plough is an ancient plough discovered in 1927 by peat cutters outside Walle, near Aurich, East Frisia (Germany). It is one of the oldest known ploughs found in Europe.
Raised bogs, also called ombrotrophic bogs, are acidic, wet habitats that are poor in mineral salts and are home to flora and fauna that can cope with such extreme conditions. Raised bogs, unlike fens, are exclusively fed by precipitation (ombrotrophy) and from mineral salts introduced from the air. They thus represent a special type of bog, hydrologically, ecologically and in terms of their development history, in which the growth of peat mosses over centuries or millennia plays a decisive role. They also differ in character from blanket bogs which are much thinner and occur in wetter, cloudier climatic zones.
Ulrich II of East Frisia, was count of East Frisia, was the fifth child and the third son of Enno III, Count of East Frisia and Anna of Holstein-Gottorp. He inherited the East Frisia after the unexpected death of his brother Rudolf Christian on 17 April 1628. He reigned during the Thirty Years' War. East Frisia did not participate in the war, but general Ernst von Mansfeld quartered his troops in East Frisia, causing great distress. The only exception was Emden because of the recently completed city wall, the city of Emden was protected against foreign troops.
East Frisia is a collective term for all traditionally Frisian areas in Lower Saxony, Germany, which are primarily located on a peninsula between the Dollart and the Jade Bight. Along with West Frisia and North Frisia, it is one of the most commonly used subdivisions of Frisia.
With more than 90 important organs from six centuries, the Organ landscape East Frisia is one of the richest organ landscapes in the world. The term organ landscape alone refers to the historically determined regional characteristics of the organs. 60 of the East Frisian organs date from before 1850. In addition, there are 15 historical Prospekt, behind which new Werke are installed. While Dutch organ building was influential for East Frisia in the 15th and 16th centuries, influences from Hamburg and Westphalia were added in the 17th and 18th centuries. East Frisian organ building in the 19th century was conservative until around 1870 and created instruments according to Baroque building principles. As relatively few new organs were built between 1870 and 1950, many historical instruments were preserved. Almost all of the original instruments have been restored in an exemplary manner over the last 50 years, bringing them back to their original sound and providing impetus for restoration practice and organ building worldwide. In recent decades, the public has become increasingly aware of the value of these instruments and the organ landscape of East Frisia has been made accessible to organ builders and organists from all over the world, as well as to the general public.
Marcardsmoor is a village and district (Stadtteil) of the East Frisian town of Wiesmoor, in Lower Saxony. It is located north of the town, on the intersection of the Ems-Jade Canal and the Nordgeorgsfehn Canal.
Auricher Wiesmoor II is a district (Stadtteil) of the East Frisian town of Wiesmoor, in Lower Saxony. A linear settlement, it is located southwest of the town and runs along the Voßbarg Canal.
Mullberg is a district (Stadtteil) of the East Frisian town of Wiesmoor, in Lower Saxony. A linear settlement, it is located southeast of the town and east of the Nordgeorgsfehn Canal.
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