Cloppenburg

Template:Infobox German location

Cloppenburg ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; Template:Langx; Template:Langx {{#invoke:IPA|main}}) is a town in Lower Saxony, in north-western Germany, 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 and the Dutch border. Cloppenburg is not far from the A1, the major motorway connecting the Ruhr area to Bremen and Hamburg. Another major road is the federal highway B213 being the shortest link from the Netherlands to the A1 and thus to Bremen and Hamburg.

HistoryEdit

File:Kloppenburg-1647-Merian.jpg

17th-century view of the town

Under Nazi Germany, it was the location of a forced labour subcamp of the prison in Vechta and a camp for Sinti and Romani people (see Romani Holocaust).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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.

EconomyEdit

Template:Stack 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).

TourismEdit

File:Cloppenburg-museum.jpg

Cloppenburg Museum

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.

SportEdit

MSC Cloppenburg are a German motorcycle speedway team who race at the MSC Arena Cloppenburg on Boschstraße.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Twin townEdit

Template:See also Cloppenburg is twinned with:<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Template:Flagicon Bernay, France

MayorsEdit

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

Notable peopleEdit

Heinrich Anton Adolph Cloppenburg (1844–1922), founder of Peek & Cloppenburg
Fanny Moran-Olden (1855–1905), opera singer (soprano)
Template:Ill (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