city history

With the naming of the upper court Armbugila in the goods directories of the Abtei Werden Bottrop’s city history is first documented. The "Liber privilegiorum maior" written around 1150 states that a certain Thiadhilt donated "an area in Armbugila to the monastery of the Holy Redeemer, built in Werden". The possibe location on Donnerberg Yard, which probably had been built before 900, had an Ebbeken of "Borthorpe" of natural taxes (wheat, barley) and - literally in small coins - a kind of tax for the army and other payments for the Services for wine and to purchase a young chicken.

In Welheim, a commandry of the German Order of Knights was founded. The first written mention dates from 1252. This commandry, after all, gained such importance that it temporarily had the patronage of the Duisburg Salvator church. It existed until 1809.

After its dissolution, the extensive property passed into the hands of the Duke of Arenberg, the former sovereign. The stately commander’s house was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt until be obliterated in the Second World War.

The oldest map, on which the name Bottrop - "Bortorp" - is to be found, owes its origin to the disputes between the archbishopric of Cologne and the count of Schaumburg-Holstein over the ownership of the Bischofssondem Forest. Since he had to finance his wars, the Cologne Archbishop Dietrich von Moers, ruler of the Vestes, had the entire region first pledged in 1438, then again in 1446. After protracted negotiations and trials before the Imperial Court of Speyer, in  1576 the Prince of Cologne managed to redeem the Vest, which had meanwhile been transferred to the Counts of Schaumburg-Lippe.

The ownership of the Bischofsondern Forest remained disputed, therefore the Duisburg cartographer Arnold Mercator, eldest son of Gerhard Mercator, was commissioned by the Cologne Curia to record the geographical and territorial conditions in the area of ​​Bottrop. The 33 x 64 cm map, made by Mercator and signed October 28, 1579, is a canvas painted with watercolour on linen, entitled: "Everyday description and opportunity of the forest given to Bishop Sunderen, all his proprietary ". It is a combination of floor plan and elevation on a scale of about 1: 8000.

The acquis specified by Mercator and corresponding to the ideas of its principal, remained legally binding until the dissolution of the ecclesiastical territories in 1803. The map with the Cyriacus Church on the lower left edge of the picture was lost for a long time and was only rediscovered in 1958 in the archives of the supplies administration of the Duke of Arenberg at Nordkirchen Castle. The unique document of Bottrop’s city history was made available to the city on permanent loan.

Bottrop, today a city with just over 117,500 inhabitants, was until the second half of the 19th century a small Westphalian rural community, which in 1815 had just about 2,200 inhabitants. The inhabitants lived mostly on scattered crofts; agriculture being the main industry. In addition, there were a few smaller craft businesses. Five times a year, goods and livestock markets were held attracting buyers and sellers from the wider area to Bottrop.

Wilhelm Tourneau was mayor of Bottrop at the age of 26 in 1821, holding office for thirty years. In 1816 he had already become mayor of the neighbouring Kirchhellen at the age of just 22, where he remained in office until 1853. Tourneau believed that there were rich treasures in the ground, he even knew in his "Chronicle on the parishes of Bottrop and Osterfeld" to report an old saga, according to which "the coal floats from the neighbouring food tables at these heights will continue.” However, he could not even dream of the dimensions or of the profound upheavals that coal-mining would entail here in the second half of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Bottrop was at the time of Tourneau a small tranquil village. Under his tenure, however, it developed from a poorly paid economically impoverished community to a prestigious, relatively wealthy place. With the development of the road network and the growing importance of the markets, Tourneau laid the foundations for the coming political and economic conditions.

Tourneau's meticulously written chronicle is one of the city's most valuable exhibits on local 19th-century history. A few years ago, it was restored with great effort.

The second exhibit was a print of the so-called "master cadastral map." The map from 1823/ 1824 represents a first exact replica of the former Bottrop municipality area. At that time, about 35 percent of the area was high-quality arable land, half of middling quality and  about 39 percent of the lowest, the remainder being mostly forest, pasture and heath land, with 440 landowners listed, but more than half had only very modest land. The farmers and crofters listed on the map were often old Bottrop families who had been settled in the area for centuries: Scharnhölz (first mentioned in a document in 1426), Great or Little Wortmann (first mentioned in 1512), Albers (the ancestors of the famous painter Josef Albers were first mentioned in 1630).

A particularly important portion of the town's history began in 1856: the mining shaft "Prosper I" was excavated in Ebel. With the dismantling of the first shaft Bottrop, the development of a small community to a mining town began, and coal became vital for the people of Bottrop.

The 4,000-inhabitant rural community grew into a large industrial city. More mines were added, miners settlements emerged, so the population jumped. In 1914, 68,000 people were already living in Bottrop and the community developed into the "largest village in Prussia" with 72,000 inhabitants in 1919. On 21 July 1919 Bottrop was raised to a city status by decision of the Prussian state government in Berlin.

Reconstruction after the end of the Second World War, combined with the general economic upheaval, once again increased the population in Bottrop. As early as 1953, another milestone in local history was reached: With just over 100,000 inhabitants, Bottrop was elevated to the 49th largest city in the Federal Republic of Germany.

On July 1, 1976 Kirchhellen, previously a district under Recklinghausen, merged with Bottrop. A new city coat of arms, designed on the occasion of the association, gives the partnership clarity, since it unites characteristic motifs from the old coats of arms of the two municipalities.

The coat of arms was created in 1978, after in the context of the municipal reorganisation of the Ruhr area, the district-based city Kirchhellen (area of Recklinghausen) and the independent city of Bottrop were united with effect from 1 July 1976.

The coat of arms shows in white a black crutched cross covered with a blue shield. In turn, three white ‘wolf fishing’ symbols are shown.

We offer the coat of arms for download, although its commercial exploitation is permitted only with the express permission of the city of Bottrop.