City history: The new Christmas lights from 1968
© Stadtarchiv Bocholt Nachlass Halbfas Nr. 26
Since the beginning of the 1950s, the Bocholt tourist office, together with the retailers and the city administration, has been organising a Christmas light display every December with shop window decorations and Advent lighting in the city centre streets. They promoted Bocholt as a shopping town and at the same time gave the city centre a festive pre-Christmas look.
Until 1967, this magic of lights was always kept to a minimum so as not to detract from the splendour and significance of Christmas itself. Until then, the lighting consisted of fairy lights entwined with fir greenery and hung in the form of curved garlands above the roads. A star with a moving bell swung in the centre. The greenery gave the street decorations a festive effect even during the day.
At Christmas 1968, however, there was a fundamental innovation in the decoration of the town centre. Under the motto "Away from greenery, towards light", the retail association had illuminated crosses, snowflakes, rings, stars and Christmas trees made up of more than 8,000 light bulbs installed between the buildings.
Jao Bännätzken, hier kasse wall seggen:
"Home, your stars!"Kurt Cerny "Ohme and Bännätzken", 1969
At intervals of 10-15 metres, Osterstraße (see photo), Neu-, Ravardi-, Nord- and Langenbergstraße as well as the St. Georg church square received a total of 52 overhead lines. At the end of November 1968, an electrical company from Bocholt installed the suspensions, which had previously been given the proverbial "green light" by the main committee of the council meeting. The new illumination was switched on for the first time on 30 November of that year and illuminated the inner-city traffic routes every evening until the turn of the year 1969. The design of the shop window inserts was still left to the retailers.
According to the Bocholter-Borkener Volksblatt in a statement ", the new Christmas lighting willgive Bocholt a festive glow in the run-up to Christmas and over the festive period and will be a useful addition to the Christmas decorations in the shops in the city centre." Ohme and Bännätzken, the two local observers of the illustrator Kurt Cerny, also did not refrain from commenting in the press: Bännätzken: Meinee Ohme, wat heff sick Bokelt verändert. - Ohme: Yes Bännätzken, here you can say: "Home, your stars!"
Photo: Bocholt city archive, Halbfas estate no. 26; text: Wolfgang Tembrink