Winschoten is a place and a former municipality in the Dutch province of Groningen, which since 1 January 2010, the seat of the new municipality Oldambt forms. The town counts today 18.130 inhabitants (as of 1 January 2017) and an area of 22.23 km ². Winschoten is known as Mühlen- and Rosenstadt.
Winschoten developed in the 13th century as a settlement on the trade route from Groningen to Münster, which crossed a stream here and where there were hostels. Already before the year 1600 it was counted, although it only 1825 the city maintained, to the cities. It was a fortress in the Eighty Years War.
But only with the rule of Napoleon Winschoten gained in importance: 1803 and 1811 it received courts. The city was industrialized in the 19th century (railway connection 1868), which not only led to prosperity, but also to social unrest, since the contrasts between rich and poor were very clear. In the city there are several villas that were built by rich farmers from the area between 1850 and 1910. Since 1832 a humanistic grammar school exists in the city.
Already in 1835 there was a rebellion against an increase in property tax. Later Winschoten, like the surrounding villages, became a stronghold of socialism, and later of communism in the Netherlands. As late as 1973, Winschoten made headlines across the country, because for the first time there was a strike by women who demanded that their employer, the Optilon zipper factory, pay the same as men for equal work. The strike itself was unsuccessful, but it was an important approach to the development of the women's movement Dolle Mina in the Netherlands.
Until the Second World War, the largest Jewish community in the Netherlands lived in Amsterdam. During the Second World War, almost all of the city's 500 Jews were taken to Auschwitz and other extermination camps via the Westerbork transit camp. Since then there are only a few Jews left.