Cloppenburg (; ; ) is a town in

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

, in north-western

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, capital of Cloppenburg District and part of Oldenburg Münsterland. It lies 38 km south-south-west of Oldenburg in the Weser-Ems region between

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...

and the Dutch border. Cloppenburg is not far from the A1, the major motorway connecting the Ruhr area to Bremen and

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

. Another major road is the federal highway B213 being the shortest link from the Netherlands to the A1 and thus to Bremen and Hamburg.

History

Under

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, it was the location of a forced labour subcamp of the prison in Vechta and a camp for

Sinti The Sinti (masc. sing. ''Sinto''; fem. sing. ''Sintetsa, Sinta'') are a subgroup of the Romani people. They are found mostly in Germany, France, Italy and Central Europe, numbering some 200,000 people. They were traditionally Itinerant groups i ...

and

Romani people {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , po ...

(see '' Romani Holocaust''). The town had strong cultural links with St Munchins Parish in Limerick, Ireland from the 1970s to the 1990s. During this period many groups of teens/young adults from both areas visited and were hosted by families from the other area.

Economy

The town is a centre for the largely agricultural region of southern Oldenburg. It is the administrative centre of the district and there are many schools. However, there is also some industry in town: e.g. Lumberg, (connector systems) and Derby Cycle (bikes).

Tourism

One of Cloppenburg's main tourist attractions is the Cloppenburg Museum Village, an open-air museum containing a collection of old buildings from the region that were dismantled and reassembled in the museum.

Sport

MSC Cloppenburg are a German

motorcycle speedway Motorcycle speedway, usually referred to simply as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four clockwise, anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. The motorcycles are specialist machines that ...

team who race at the MSC Arena Cloppenburg on Boschstraße.

Twin town

Cloppenburg is twinned with: * Bernay, France

Mayors

*Ignatz Feigel (1855–1922) *Bernhard Heukamp (1884–1946) *Georg Wessling (1889–1974) *Wolfgang Wiese (2014–2021) *Neidhard Varnhorn (2021–incumbent)

Notable people

* Heinrich Anton Adolph Cloppenburg (1844–1922), founder of Peek & Cloppenburg * Fanny Moran-Olden (1855–1905), opera singer (soprano) * (1889–1974), mayor of Cloppenburg and member of parliament * Werner Baumbach (1916–1953), bomber pilot in World War II * Jupp Derwall (1927–2007), football player and coach, played over 275 games * Manfred Zapatka (born 1942), actor, graduated from the Clemens-August-Gymnasium Cloppenburg in 1962 * Günter Dreyer (1943–2019), an Egyptologist at the German Archaeological Institute. * Heinrich Timmerevers (born 1952), prelate, the 50th Bishop of Dresden-Meissen since 2016. * Laurenz Berges (born 1966), photographer, work focuses on transience * Lena Gercke (born 1988), model, grew up locally * Bernd Gerdes (born 1989), footballer, played 350 games

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Towns in Lower Saxony Cloppenburg (district)