Historical topics from the county town Osterholz-Scharmbeck

The first recordings about a section of the present town Osterholz-Scharmbeck, namely Scharmbeck, stem from the year 1043. The past name was still Scirnbeci. In the year 1233 the name Sandbeck is named for the first time. The estate with large and small barn stems from the year 1575 and was bought by the town to preserve it for prosperity as cultural-historical place. The Benedictine convent founded in 1182 and existed till 1650 is considered as primal cell of today's village Osterholz. The convent church built as Romanesque basilica and today's parish hall that was built in 1562 still exist. Reformation and counter-reformation were also for these two village moving times.

After the Bremer archiepiscopal time, the Swedish government followed in 1648 until the year 1715. Osterholz had more than 30 years a little residence seat and served predominantly the administration. In contrast Scharmbeck developed into a centre of crafts, commerce and trade. Special attention gained the clothier guild founded in 1581 that lasted for more than 300 years and dissolved only in 1903.

The Scharmbecker Markt, held since 1692, animates the trade for many decades. After a depression in the thirties of the past century it develops to one of the most important markets of the north-west area. The "Scharmbecker Herbstmarkt" is still today a well-known term for the population of the lower Weser area. In the 19th century, about the time of the opening of the railway Bremen - Bremerhaven (1862 was it still called Geestendorf), the villages prospered through the settlement of important trade and industries (cigar producing, iron foundry, shipyard).

The railway station "Osterholz-Scharmbeck" exists already since the origin of the stretch Bremen - Geestendorf, but actually "Osterholz-Scharmbeck" was until 1927 two independent villages with their own administration. The integration of the two villages didn't happen without difficulties. The district Osterholz as well as the district committee Stade had to insists on the 'market town Osterholz-Scharmbeck'; the majority of the Osterholzer citizens voted in a referendum against a voluntary union of Osterholz and Scharmbeck.

On the basis of further negotiations by the market town committee Osterholz and a opinion by the district committee Stade, the Prussian parliament determined on the 24th of May 1927, to combine the two market town communities Osterholz and Scharmbeck as well as the rural communities Ahrensfelde, Bargten and Sandbeckerbruch to an enlarged market town community Osterholz-Scharmbeck. After more than 2 years, on the 25th of October 1929, the Prussian Ministry of State bestowed then the town charter to the community Osterholz-Scharmbeck.

After the edict from the 19th of September 1936 by the Supreme President it followed the incorporation of the communities Buschhausen, Lintel, Westerbeck and a part of Hülseberg to Osterholz-Scharmbeck.

Through the new structure of the communities in the area Osterholz/Wesermünde the town area changed again. The Lower Saxony provincial diet issued on the 13th of June 1973 a decree that the communities Garlstedt, Heilshorn, Hülseberg, Ohlenstedt, Pennigbüttel, Sandhausen, Scharmbeckstotel, Teufelsmoor and the largest part of the community Freißenbüttel to be incorporated into the town Osterholz-Scharmbeck with effect from 1st of March 1974.