History of the Aamsveen - according to Wolter Koning
MR. KING DIED ON APRIL 15, 2021. ‘THE MAN IN CLOGS HAS GONE’. THE STORIES, WRITTEN FROM HIS MOUTH, ARE NOT ADJUSTED IN TRIBUTE AND THEREFORE ARE IN THE PRESENT TENSE.
The Aamsveen is not only rich in natural treasures, but also in many stories. Wolter Koning spent his entire life in the vicinity of the current Natura2000 area and worked there as a warden and gamekeeper. Author and volunteer Henk van Gerner talks to him in Glanerbrug, where Koning has been enjoying his retirement for years now. This conversation resulted in the ‘Aamsveen’s life story’.
Episode 1: Youth in the Aamsveen - 'you don't always have to have a say'
Wolter Koning’s memory is full of stories that he would like to share. ‘I particularly like the history.’ He knows, for example, that Aamsveen was the castle of a robber baron* who made the area between Münster and Twente unsafe. Until Prince Maurits got fed up: legend has it that he called the knight to order himself. A moat runs through the Aamsveen, where the castle moat is said to have once been. And the Lappenpad road, which already existed at the time, is said to have been one of the knight’s routes.
*The story of the robber baron is a myth: neither the existence of the knight nor the intervention of Prince Maurits has been proven
Black socks
Koning experienced many changes in the Aamsveen over the years. The administration changed several times in his lifetime. He didn’t always agree with this and he didn’t always keep it to himself. ‘You don’t always have to have a say.’ He was born in 1934 on a farm on the edge of the Aamsveen. The Koning family did not originally come from Twente. His grandfather came from Wolvega. The family belonged to a different denomination in predominantly Catholic Twente. This is why the Konings were labelled ‘black socks’.
It took quite a while before they were accepted.
Land grabbing
The beginning of the 20th century was a special time in Twente. In addition to the textile barons, who owned a lot of land in the flat area of Twente, there were also a number of wealthy farmers who lived on the German border. In addition to the income from farming, there were also lucrative smuggling activities. According to Koning, some farmers set about ‘stealing land’. At night, they moved the fences that separated their own land from the common land. The next evening, another strip of land was added: the holes in the original boundaries can still be seen today…
‘You won’t be mayor that way’
Koning is six years old when the war breaks out. The people who lived around the Aamsveen spent the war years in relative peace, although the Allies dropped a few more bombs at the end of the war because they suspected that the area was home to the so-called Green Police, the Nazi order police. One of the bombs landed in Aamsveen. The primary school that Koning attended was confiscated by the Germans during the war. The children could then collect books from the teacher at home in order to study on their own. Of course, little came of it. ‘I hope you understand: you won’t become mayor that way’.