Dülken

Dülken is a town located in the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany. It has a population of about 20,000. It is part of the municipality of Viersen. It received its town charter in 1364 thus being the oldest part of the municipality of Viersen. It lies in the administrative region of Düsseldorf. The river Nette having its source underground in the middle of the town rises near the town. The town motto is, "Gloria tibi Duelken", or "Glory to you, Duelken".

Mackenstein, a part of Dülken, is first mentioned 1135. Dülken itself appears in historic records 1210. The town was officially chartered as a city between 1352 and 1364. First settlements are dated to the time before the Roman Empire by tribes of Menapii and Eburones. Romans occupied the lower Rhineland and dislodged tribes that were not willing to cooperate until they finally withdrew in the second half of the 5th century. The Franks incurred the area as a County and ruled until about the 10th century. Due to different claims to power and political tensions, Dülken was heavily fortified since 1400 with a city wall, watchtowers and ditches.

In the Thirty Years' War Dülken was briefly occupied by Spanish troops. During the First French Empire French troops oocupied the city which officially became a French municipality of the Roer (department) between 1794 until 1814. With Napoleon`s defeat, Dülken was assigned to the Prussia`s Rhine Province. Except of a brief Belgian occupation between 1919 and 1930 (Occupation of the Rhineland), the town became first prussian, later a part of the German empire, finally of modern Germany. In 1945 towards the end of World War II, Dülken was conquered by the 9th US army and became part of as well Operation Grenade as of the Ghost Army in Operation Viersen, pretending a crossing over the Rhine close to Düsseldorf.

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