[edit]
Bad Bentheim's first documentary mention came about 1050 under the name Binithem. There are various etymologies put forth for the town's name. It could refer to the rushes (Binsen in German) that grew on boggy land in the area in earlier times. It is also supposed by some, as with the Dutch region of Twente, that the name could go back to the Tubanti. Bad Bentheim, a former count's residence, looks back on a history rich in tradition. For centuries, this market town was the hub of the like-named county (Grafschaft) of Bentheim. In 1945, the British occupational authorities stripped “brown Bentheim” of its district seat and transferred it to the working-class town of Nordhorn, which was more centrally located.
The town's emblem is the mighty castle of the Counts of Bentheim, the Burg Bentheim, which was first mentioned in a document from 1116. About 1711, curative sulphur springs were discovered, from which grew the spa with its thermal brine and clinic.
In 1895, Queen Emma of the Netherlands and her 15-year-old daughter Wilhelmina spent several weeks at Bentheim's baths. Before this, both Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm I had stayed there. In Otto von Bismarck's honour, a sandstone statue in his likeness was raised on the square that also bears his name, Bismarckplatz, in Bentheim's inner town. It still stands today, right beneath the castle.
Since 1865, Bentheim has held town rights. In the course of municipal reform in Lower Saxony, the town of Bentheim, the Samtgemeinde (a municipality made up of several centres) of Gildehaus (whose member communities were Gildehaus, Achterberg, Hagelshoek, Holt und Haar, Waldseite and Westenberg) and the communities of Bardel and Sieringhoek merged on 1 March 1974 to form the unified Town of Bentheim. Since 1979, it has been called Bad Bentheim. The constituent community of Gildehaus has been a state-recognized health resort (Erholungsort) since 1982.
After the Second World War, the whole area, along with many other border areas in Germany, would have been annexed by the Netherlands under the Bakker-Schut plan in 1945, but this plan was scuttled by US objections.
Bentheim's sandstone, known as Bentheimer Gold, which is or was quarried in the main town and Gildehaus, was shipped beyond the old county's borders between the 15th and 18th centuries into the Münsterland, to East Frisia, into the Netherlands and to Belgium and Denmark. A few examples of important buildings made of this sandstone are the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, the theatre and the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp, the Catholic Church in Århus, the Martini Church's tower in Groningen (completed in 1482) and the City Hall in Münster.
Supposedly, the pedestal on which stands New York’s Statue of Liberty is even made out of Bentheim sandstone, but other German towns, among them Obernkirchen, claim that they furnished the stone for that undertaking.
Coat of arms[edit]
The town of Bad Bentheim was granted its arms in 1661 by Count Ernst Wilhelm of Bentheim and Steinfurt (1643–1693). The coat of arms shows a golden monogram consisting of the letters E and G on a red background, surrounded by nineteen likewise golden balls. The letters stand for “Ernestus Guilelmus”, the Count's name in Latin.
The golden balls stem from the district's arms, although it is unclear what they mean there. This same charge is also seen in several other coats of arms from Bentheim district, among them those borne by Nordhorn, Neuenhaus, De Wijk and Geldermalsen.
In the early 19th century, the bearing of these arms was banned. Later, in the late 19th century, the arms consisted simply of 18 golden balls on a red background, without the monogram. In 1955, the town was granted approval by the Lower Saxony ministry of the interior to bear once again the arms originally bestowed upon the town by Count Ernst Wilhelm in the 17th century.
Religion[edit]
As with the old county, the town of Bad Bentheim has mostly been shaped by Protestant belief, held by 52.6% of the townsfolk (30 June 2006), of whom 36.7% are Reformed and 15.9% Lutherans. A further 21.5% are followers of the Roman Catholic faith. The other 25.9% either hold no religious beliefs or follow other faiths.
