Esche () is a community in the district of

Grafschaft Bentheim County of Bentheim () is a districts of Germany, district (''Landkreis'') in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by (from the west and clockwise) the Netherlands, Dutch provinces of Overijssel and Drenthe, the district of Emsland, and the distri ...

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 ...

Geography

Location

Esche lies on the

Vechte The Vechte (, ) or Vecht (), often called Overijsselse Vecht () in the Netherlands to avoid confusion with Vecht (Utrecht), its Utrecht counterpart, is a river in Germany and the Netherlands. Its total length is , of which is in Germany. The Ve ...

between

Nordhorn Nordhorn (; Northern Low Saxon: ''Nothoorn'', or ''Notthoarn'', ''Netthoarn,'' and Dutch: ''Noordhoorn'') is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the district seat of Grafschaft Bentheim, located in the southwest corner of the state, near th ...

and Emlichheim. It belongs to the Joint Community (''Samtgemeinde'') of

Neuenhaus Neuenhaus (; ) is a town in the district of Grafschaft Bentheim in Lower Saxony, and is the seat of a like-named collective municipality Neuenhaus. Neuenhaus lies on the rivers Dinkel and Vechte near the border with the Netherlands and is rou ...

, whose administrative seat is in the like-named town.

Services

Esche currently has an internet connectivity of 384 kilobit per second which is relatively low compared to the surrounding areas where there are speeds of 16 megabit per second and upward. Also there is a kindergarten in Esche.

Politics

Mayor

The honorary mayor Hermann Berends was elected on 9 September 2001.

Regular events

The sport club holds its folk festival in mid-April.

History

The community’s namesake was the ''Haus Esche'', also known as Oedinghof. The ''Haus Esche'' and the ''Schulenburg'' (castle) in Veldhausen were both owned by a family named van Münster. In the

Dutch War of Independence The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt (; 1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Reformation, centralisation, ex ...

, in 1593, when the

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance-speaking ethnic group native to the Iberian Peninsula, primarily associated with the modern nation-state of Spain. Genetically and ethnolinguistically, Spaniards belong to the broader Southern a ...

unsuccessfully laid siege to the fort at

Coevorden Coevorden (; ; ) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Drenthe, in the east of Netherlands, the Netherlands. During the ...

, the inhabitants of the Esche farming community sought shelter in this house, albeit only for a short time. The dearth of food and lack of room gave rise to a plague outbreak which daily killed many. The survivors were evicted, whereupon they had their goods stolen and were wretchedly mistreated. Today, the community of Esche is a modern residential community, but still with a strong rural character.

References

External links

Joint community’s webpage
{{authority control County of Bentheim (district)