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Oldenzaal (Netherlands)

Overijssel province

[Other version of the flag of Oldenzaal]

by Jens Pattke, 14 Jul 2003
adopted 17 Sep 1992; design: Mr. C.M.M.W. Machielsen.

Oldenzaal 1992 flag
Oldenzaal 1976 flag
Oldenzaal "Hanseatic" flag
Oldenzaal 17th century flag
Oldenzaal Coat of Arms

See also:

Oldenzaal 1992 flag

Number of inhabitants (1 Jan 2003): 31.180; area: 16,30 km². Settlements: Oldenzaal (seat).
On a feast in Bergen, Oldenzaal used a flag with a blue field and a yellow St.George's cross. The city's arms - a blue field with a yellow cross and a bishop in the observer's upper left - are found in the canton. I have made an image of the flag on the basis of what I saw (the flag was used as a table cloth), but the quality of the arms is not good. I suppose this flag is relatively new, because it is not mentioned in [sie62] Sierksma 1962. He does say, however, that the city's colours are blue and yellow.
Jan Oskar Engene, 13 May 1996

Oldenzaal 1976 flag

by Mark Sensen, 13 May 1996
adopted 15 Mar 1976; design: Kl. Sierksma.

According to NVvV's [vxn] Vexilla Nostra no.115 Oldenzaal adopted a flag 15 March 1976; per bend blue and white, with a cross (1/3th of the flagheight) yellow on the blue part, red on the white part. Red and white were the colours of the old arms of Oldenzaal, yellow and white of the new arms.
Mark Sensen, 13 May 1996

Oldenzaal is a municipality in eastern Overijssel province in the Netherlands. In 1999 the 750th foundation day was celebrated, but it is assumed that the town existed already before 1249.
As town in the "Oversticht" (the Utrecht bishopric beyond the IJssel river) it was in the domain of Utrecht. It joined the Hanseatic League, and during the 80-years war it remained a Roman Catholic island in a protestant sea. At present it is a rather small town, apparently not very proud of its past.

On the Oldenzaal municipal website is stated that from immemorial times the town-colors were red and white, used both on its Coat of Arms and its flag, as depicted in Blaeu's Atlas (c. 1644).
By a misunderstanding the High Council of Nobility granted Oldenzaal in 1819 a Coat of Arms, azure with a yellow cross, with in the canton a bishop. The bishop was not the patron saint of Oldenzaal, Saint Plechelmus, but Saint Martin, the patron saint of Utrecht.

As the flag had been completely forgotten Mr. Klaes Sierksma designed on 15 Mar 1976 a flag "per bend blue and white, with a cross (1/3th of the flagheight) yellow on the blue part, red on the white part.".

In its wisdom the municipal council forgot the 1976 flag and asked Mr. C.M.M.W. Machielsen to design a flag. That was adopted 17 September 1992. Description: Blue with over all a yellow cross, with in the canton the municipal arms.
This flag was observed by Jan Oskar Engene, 13 May 1996, during the meeting of Hanseatic towns in Bergen, Norway.
In 2003 the same meeting was taking place in Frankfurt/Oder (Germany) and Slubice (Poland). Jens Pattke observed there the Oldenzaal flag with a Scandinavian cross.
Jarig Bakker, 14 Jul 2003

Oldenzaal "Hanseatic" flag

by Jens Pattke, 14 Jul 2003

Oldenzaal 17th century flag

by Jarig Bakker, 14 Jul 2003

This afternoon I went asearching in dark Amsterdam backrooms and found a black and white "plattegrond van Oldenzaal", a city-plan as depicted by Johannes Blaeu, with two old Coats of Arms of Oldenzaal (same image as on Jens Pattke's gifs, but other colors (blue = red, and yellow = white), and one man bearing a flag: red with a white cross.
Jarig Bakker, 14 Jul 2003

Oldenzaal Coat of Arms

image from this website.

Granted 24 Nov 1819.