Situated between the bishoprics Osnabrück and Münster, the possession of Versmold was disputed for a long time in the high Middle Ages.

Versmold formed the westernmost town of the historic county of Ravensberg with its capital Bielefeld.

In 1719, the King of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm I granted city rights to raise more taxes through excises.

After 1871 newly united Germany built up a navy, the linen and sailing canvas industry became especially prosperous.

The rural art of sausage-making turned farms into factories in 1880 for which Versmold became famous in the twentieth century.

As in many regions under Prussian rule, Ravensberg and Versmold lost its native language almost within one generation.

Since even before World War II the city flourished mainly due to its meat-packing factories.

They in turn sold it on weekly markets mostly in the underprovisioned but prosperous industrial region of the Ruhrgebiet.

The company closed at the end of 1980 due to shifts in the world market for shoes and the lack of competitiveness.

In 1949 a wood processing factory producing window and door frames was opened, the Wirus Werke; but it also shut down during the 1980s.

As in many small German towns part of its modern history had become a visible expression within the cityscape.

A small unimposing stone cross of the eleventh century in the middle of a traffic circle had been once the sign for a medieval rural court.

In 1909, the Bismarck pyramid was built up with natural granite stone blocks centrally located in city's park (Stadtpark) and topped by a Prussian eagle.

The Bismarck-medallion was removed from its central location and attached to one large red granite boulder which was leisurely placed under trees in a distance but still visible from the walkway.

The names of the fallen soldiers of World War I from the municipality of Versmold are remembered on a monument in front of the Protestant St. Petri church, a column crowned by an eagle flanked on both sides with a wall telling the names of all fallen Versmolders (see image).

[4] The historian Reinhart Koselleck cited the difference in the naming of the murdered Jewish citizens and the anonymity of memory for the fallen soldiers and immediate victims of World War II by Kleinhans in Versmold as example of how the Germans deal with their recent history in the collective memory.

[5] The new blossoming of the town after World War II is visualized by a bronze statue of a worker with a pig passing under his right leg.