New book "Bocholt in the 20th century" presented

Bocholt. In the Skylounge of the LWL TextilWerk, the book "Bocholt in the 20th Century - A City on New Paths" was now presented, which the city of Bocholt realized together with deutz produktionsstudios GmbH.

The first deputy mayor Elisabeth Kroesen welcomed on Tuesday the approximately 60 guests from politics, administration and citizenship, including some of the authors and representatives of archives.

She went into detail about the commission given to the city archive in November 2018 and emphasized that the Bocholt city history on the 20th century closed a gap in the city's historiography. For the first time, there is now a chronological connection to the volume "Die Stadt Bocholt während des 19. Jahrhunderts" by Friedrich Reigers, published in 1907, Kroesen said.

Project for the city anniversary

First City Councilor and Head of the Department of Culture Thomas Waschki saw in the book the "conclusion and culmination of a successful project", with which the longstanding desideratum of a scientifically founded city history of the 20th century was fulfilled.

He could not have imagined a better occasion for this publication than the 800th anniversary of the city. The book also represents an important contribution to the sustainability of the anniversary celebrations, with which the historical occasion is appropriately honored. He thanked the editor commissioned by the city, Prof. Hans-Walter Schmuhl, historian at the University of Bielefeld, for his scientific leadership of the project.

At the same time, he found it very commendable that scholars from different institutions - from the LWL Institute for Westphalian Regional History, the district of Borken, the Regio Achterhoek, the universities of Duisburg-Essen, Düsseldorf, Münster, Siegen to the LWL Industrial Museum TextilWerk Bocholt - had dealt with local and regional historical aspects of Bocholt's 20th century history.

He expressly thanked deutz produktionsstudios GmbH for their great support of the project: "Not least due to the innovative layout with numerous historical photographs and the high-quality printing, a very appealing book has been produced, which is now also being marketed by the Deutz company.

A Bocholt product

Michael Deutz, Managing Director of the company of the same name, was pleased that by awarding the printing to the Bocholt company D+L Druck + Logistik, he had succeeded in creating a great "Bocholt product" for citizens interested in history. The starting point for the cooperation was the interest of the city archive in historical photos, which his company had taken over from Wolfgang Rösler at the time.

In his address, the editor Hans-Walter Schmuhl addressed the difficulty of finding a suitable interpretive framework for the scientific consideration of the 20th century, since the industrialization paradigm that applies to Bocholt only extends to the crisis of the textile industry in the mid-1960s.

Thus, it was decided to use the concept of "development paths", which is represented in recent research on urban history. One of the central questions of the book is now: "Which paths did the textile industry city of Bocholt take in the course of the 20th century in order to successfully assert itself after the almost complete destruction in the Second World War and the crisis of the textile industry since the 1960s?"

The duo Miryam Stober (vocals) and Christoph Berghorn (piano) from the group ZELIGS led the guests on a musical journey through the epochs of the 20th century.

Book sale by the Deutz company

The deutz produktionsstudios GmbH presented the Bocholt city history of the 20th century at its own stand and offered copies for sale, signed by Mayor Thomas Kerkhoff and publisher Hans-Walter Schmuhl, among others.

About the book

Hans-Walter Schmuhl (ed.), Bocholt in the 20th Century - A City on New Paths. Approx. 430 pages with numerous historical illustrations

ISBN: 978-3-9824795-0-7

The book is published as volume 16 of the series "Bocholter Quellen und Beiträge" and will be available in bookstores and other stores and contact points from September 2022 at a price of 49.90 euros.

On Sunday, September 4, it will be available for purchase at the Historical Book Market on Gasthausplatz from 11:00 a.m.. - 6:00 p.m.