Gronau, North Rhine-Westphalia

Gronau (officially Gronau (Westf.), is a town in the district of Borken in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located near the border with the Netherlands, approx. 10 km east of Enschede. The city is divided into the districts of Gronau and Epe.

Local history
Documentary evidence of Gronau dates to 1365, and of district Epe to 1188.

Industrialisation took hold in Gronau with the founding of the first textile factory in 1854. Dutch investors, in particular, drove the growing textile industry. In 1875, railway lines were opened from Gronau to Münster, Dortmund, and Enschede.

With the growth of the textile industry and the founding of the Gronauer Bauverein (homebuilding) in the eastern part of the city (1893), an expansion of the settlement area began. By the time of World War I, a new town hall, the district court, the parish church of St. Antonius (Gronau), schools, hospitals, an indoor swimming pool, waterworks, an electricity plant, and the city park had been built in Gronau.

On 27 December 1897, Gronau was granted town rights.

On the night of 9 to 10 November 1938, also known as “Reichsprogromnacht”, the synagogue in Wallstraße was desecrated in connection with the persecution of the Jewish population. Eventually, most Jews from Gronau and Epe were deported to the extermination camps. There is still a Jewish cemetery in Gronau today. In the Epe district, the former Jewish synagogue is currently being rebuilt as a cultural centre.

In 1975, Gronau and the municipality of Epe were merged into the new municipality of Gronau.

The bankruptcy of the van Delden Group, founded in 1854, in 1980-1981 marked the end of the era of the textile industry in Gronau.

Culture
Since 1989 an annual music festival, the Jazzfest Gronau, takes place in Gronau. A broad range of national and international musicians have performed at the festival, including Jan Garbarek, McCoy Tyner, Klaus Doldinger’s Passport, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Al Di Meola, Avishai Cohen, Al Jarreau, Ian Anderson, Richard Galliano, Ron Carter, Mother's Finest, Gregory Porter, Maceo Parker, Stefanie Heinzmann.

The Jazzfest is currently funded to a large extent by local and regional sponsors and enjoys a constantly growing audience. The annual number of visitors swings between 12,000 and 18,000 visitors (incl. open-air events). The share of foreign visitors is around 65%.

Transport
Gronau can be reached by road via the Autobahn A 30 and A 31, the Dutch Rijksweg 35, the Bundesstraße B 54n. Gronau (Westf) railway station connects Gronau with Enschede in the Netherlands via the Dortmund–Enschede railway and the Münster–Enschede railway. The nearest airports are Münster Osnabrück Airport and Enschede Airport Twente, although the latter has no scheduled flights.

Notable people
The Dutch singer Rania Zeriri lives in Gronau. The Polish tennis player Agnieszka Radwańska grew up here; her father was a tennis coach at the local club. Blaise Nkufo, a Swiss footballer with African roots, former player of the Dutch football club FC Twente, lived in Gronau. Klaus Vogelgesang, a German artist, grew up in Gronau.

Born in Gronau
(in German)
 * Winfried Berkemeier (born 1953), footballer
 * Bernd Düker (born 1992), footballer
 * Rolf Eckrodt (born 1942), CEO of Mitsubishi Motors 2001–2005
 * Tim Hölscher (born 1995), footballer
 * Cengiz Koç (born 1977), former German heavyweight boxer of Turkish descent
 * Erich Lindenberg (1938–2006), painter, elder brother of Udo Lindenberg
 * Udo Lindenberg (born 1946), singer and musician
 * Gregor Luthe (born 1970 in Epe), chemist, toxicologist, nanotechnologist, inventor and entrepreneur
 * Jens Wissing (born 1988), football player

Twin towns – sister cities
Gronau is twinned with:
 * Bromsgrove, England, United Kingdom
 * Epe, Netherlands
 * Mezőberény, Hungary