The Landgraviate of Hesse ( German : Landgrafschaft Hessen ) was a principality of the Holy Roman Empire . It existed as a single entity from 1264 to 1567, when it was divided among the sons of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse .
45-539: The Universitätsbibliothek Kassel (or Kassel University Library ) is a library located in the city of Kassel , Germany. Composed of the collections of the former Landesbibliothek (state library) and Murhardsche Bibliothek der Stadt Kassel (Murhard Library of the City of Kassel) as well as that of the Kassel University library, amongst the library's holdings is the manuscript of the 9th-century German poem,
90-400: A dynamic economic and social development in the recent years, reducing the unemployment rate by half and attracting many new citizens so that the population has grown constantly. Several international operating companies have factories or headquarters in the city (Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, SMA, Wintershall, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, Rheinmetall, Bombardier). The city is home of several hospitals;
135-703: A local subcamp of Dachau concentration camp provided forced labour for the Henschel facilities , which included tank production plants. There was also a camp for Sinti and Romani people (see Romani Holocaust ). Allied prisoners of war from the Stalag IX-A POW camp were deployed to forced labour in the local arms industry in violation of the Geneva Conventions . The most severe bombing of Kassel in World War II destroyed 90% of
180-504: A number of low-floor buses complete the Kassel public transport system. The introduction of low-floor buses led to the development of the Kassel kerb which improves the accessibility at bus stops. The city is connected to the national rail network at two stations, Kassel Central , and Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe . The traditional central station (Hauptbahnhof) has been reduced to the status of
225-535: A regional station since the opening of the Hanover-Würzburg high-speed rail line in 1991 and its station (Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe) on the high-speed line at which the InterCityExpress (ICE) and InterCity services call as well as Nightjet and Flixtrain . Kassel is connected to the motorways A 7 , A 49 and A 44 . The city is served by Kassel Calden Airport . The current mayor of Kassel
270-642: A valley". A deed from 1189 certifies that Cassel had city rights, but the date when they were granted is not known. The first castle in Kassel was constructed in 1277, which was later replaced by a Renaissance castle, the Kassel City Palace , which burned down in 1811. In 1567 the Landgraviate of Hesse , until then centered in Marburg , was divided among four sons, with Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) becoming one of its successor states. Kassel
315-526: Is Sven Schoeller of Alliance 90/The Greens , who was elected in March 2023. He succeeded Christian Geselle ( SPD ), who had been in office since 2017. The Kassel city council ( Stadtverordnetenversammlung ) governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 14 March 2021, and the results were as follows: The University of Kassel is a public higher education institution and
360-676: Is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse , in central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name , and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020. The former capital of the state of Hesse-Kassel , it has many palaces and parks, including the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe , which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Kassel is also known for
405-495: Is divided into 23 local districts, each of which has a local council with a local mayor as chairman. The local councils are elected every five years by the population of the local districts. The local advisory board can be heard on all important issues affecting the local district. However, the final decision on a measure rests with the Kassel city council. Around Kassel is the administrative district ( Landkreis ) of Landkreis Kassel . The following cities and municipalities border
450-772: Is the Druselturm; the Brüderkirche and the Martinskirche are also, in part, of medieval origin. The towers of the Martinskirche are from the 1950s. The main Protestant church of Kassel, it was begun in 1364 and finished in 1462. Severely damaged by British bombing in 1943, it was later reconstructed in a more modern style between 1954 and 1958. St. Bonifatius was designed and built in 1956 by Josef Bieling . The complex includes Wilhelmshöhe Palace (with
495-401: The documenta exhibitions of contemporary art . Kassel has a public university with 25,000 students (2018) and a multicultural population (39% of the citizens in 2017 had a migration background). Kassel was first mentioned in 913 AD, as the place where two deeds were signed by King Conrad I . The place was called Chasella or Chassalla and was a fortification at a bridge crossing
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#1732793400459540-434: The documenta , an international exhibition of modern and contemporary art , has been held regularly in Kassel. The documenta now takes place every five years. As a result of the documenta 6 (1977), Kassel became the first town in the world to be illuminated by laser beams at night (Laserscape, by artist Horst H. Baumann). This laser installation is nowadays still visible at weekends. Artworks from former editions of
585-564: The Austro-Prussian War to gain supremacy in Germany, the principality was annexed by Prussia in 1866. The Prussian administration united Nassau , Frankfurt and Hesse-Kassel into the new Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau . Kassel ceased to be a princely residence but soon developed into a major industrial centre, as well as a major railway junction. Henschel & Son , the largest railway locomotive manufacturer in Germany at
630-557: The Brothers Grimm lived in Kassel. They collected and wrote most of their fairy tales there. At that time, around 1803, the Landgraviate was elevated to a Principality and its ruler to Prince-elector . Shortly after, it was annexed by Napoleon and in 1807 it became the capital of the short-lived Kingdom of Westphalia under Napoleon's brother Jérôme . The Electorate was restored in 1813. Having sided with Austria in
675-862: The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 Napoléon III was imprisoned in Wilhelmshöhe. In 1918, Wilhelmshöhe became the seat of the German Army High Command (OHL): it was there that the military commanders Hindenburg and Ludendorff prepared the German capitulation. Another large park and also part of the European Garden Heritage Network is the Karlsaue along the Fulda River. Established in
720-512: The Fulda river . There are several yet unproven assumptions about the name's origin. It could be derived from the ancient Castellum Cattorum , a castle of the Chatti, a German tribe that had lived in the area since Roman times. Another assumption is a portmanteau from Frankonian cas , meaning "valley or recess", and sali meaning "hall or service building", which can be interpreted as "(town) hall in
765-867: The Hildebrandslied . The first component of the library, the Landesbibliothek , evolved from the collection of the Kassel Court Library of the Landgraves of Hesse , and was officially made a "state library" with the Hesse Constitution of 1831. Its collection was housed at the Fridericianum , continental Europe's first public museum, and specialized in the fields of history, philology, archaeology, art, geography, theology, and law. The second component library,
810-488: The Murhardsche Bibliothek der Stadt Kassel long served as the city's second research library. Founded in 1845 by the brothers Friedrich and Karl Murhard, sons of an old Hessian merchant dynasty, it specialized in political science, economics, and pedagogy. The British Royal Air Force destroyed most of the library by aerial bombing on 9 September 1943, about 7/8 of its holdings of ca. 400,000 volumes. Even
855-669: The Museum Fridericianum was founded in 1779. By the end of the 19th century the museum held one of the largest collections of watches and clocks in the world. Other art museums in Kassel include: Hessen Kassel is the football club in the city, who plays in the Hessenliga after being relegated from the Regionalliga Südwest in the 2017/2018 season. The city's own football stadium, the Auestadion
900-447: The documenta (mainly sculptures) can be found in many places in Kassel; among those are the " 7000 Oaks ", a work of land art by the German artist Joseph Beuys . The latest/current edition of the documenta , known as " documenta 15 ", runs from 18 June until 25 September 2022. Kassel experiences an oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ) but not so far from marine climates, with a more notable continental influence than Berlin . Using
945-778: The 16th century, it is famous for the Orangerie , a palace built in 1710 as a summer residence for the landgraves. Today, the Orangerie contains the Museum of Astronomy and Technology, with a scale model of the Solar System spanning the entire park and beyond. In addition, the Park Schönfeld contains a small, municipal botanical garden , the Botanischer Garten Kassel . Europe's first public museum,
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#1732793400459990-622: The 1961–1990 normal and 0 °C isotherm, the city already had a humid continental climate ( Dfb ). Kassel has a population of about 200,000 and is the 3rd largest city in Hesse state and the only large city in the North Hesse region. Kassel is often called the city that located on the center of Germany, due to its position; however, the real center of Germany is not far away. Kassel first reached its first population peak of over 100,000 in 1899 and its second in 1943 with about 225,000. Kassel
1035-666: The Antiquities Collection and Old Masters), the Hercules monument, and the Lions Castle. Wilhelmshöhe Palace above the city was built in 1786, by landgrave Wilhelm IX of Hesse-Kassel. The palace is now a museum and houses an important collection of Graeco-Roman antiques and a fine gallery of paintings comprising the second largest collection of Rembrandts in Germany. It is surrounded by the beautiful Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe with many appealing sights. The complex
1080-554: The Child . In 1264 he became the first Landgrave of Hesse and the founder of the House of Hesse . The remaining Thuringian landgraviate fell to the Wettin 's Henry III, Margrave of Meissen . Henry I of Hesse was raised to the status of prince by King Adolf of Germany in 1292. From 1308 to 1311, and again from 1458, the landgraviate was divided into Upper Hesse and Lower Hesse . Hesse
1125-606: The German stem duchy of Franconia , along with the adjacent Lahngau . Upon the extinction of the ducal Conradines , these Rhenish Franconian counties were gradually acquired by Landgrave Louis I of Thuringia and his successors. After the War of the Thuringian Succession upon the death of Landgrave Henry Raspe in 1247, his niece Duchess Sophia of Brabant secured the Hessian possessions for her minor son Henry
1170-584: The Karlsaue park in the Southern city district. Several courts are located in Kassel, including: Kassel is twinned with: [REDACTED] Media related to Kassel at Wikimedia Commons [REDACTED] Kassel travel guide from Wikivoyage Landgraviate of Hesse In the early Middle Ages, the territory of Hessengau , named after the Germanic Chatti tribes, formed the northern part of
1215-515: The ancient buildings in the city centre were not restored, and large parts of the inner city area were completely rebuilt in the style of the 1950s. A few historic buildings, however, such as the Museum Fridericianum (see below), were restored. In 1949, the interim parliament (" Parlamentarischer Rat ") eliminated Kassel in the first round as a city to become the provisional capital of the Federal Republic of Germany ( Bonn won). In 1964,
1260-572: The books kept in safes smoldered away due to the surrounding heat. The Zwehren Tower, however, which holds large parts of the manuscripts, remains unscathed. The third component library comprised the holdings of Kassel University, founded in it modern incarnation in 1970. The three libraries were merged into a single system in 1976. 51°19′18″N 9°30′19″E / 51.3218°N 9.5052°E / 51.3218; 9.5052 Kassel Kassel ( German pronunciation: [ˈkasl̩] ; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926 )
1305-493: The championship playoffs, losing to Adler Mannheim , and reached the semi-finals on three more occasions. The Huskies ran into financial difficulties and dissolved in 2010. The "Young Huskies", which is a junior and youth hockey club, decided to enter a men's team in the Hessenliga. This is the fifth division and the lowest men's competition in the state of Hesse . The new club was expecting no more than 3,000 supporters for
1350-402: The city of Kassel (starting clockwise in the north): Ahnatal , Vellmar , Fuldatal , Staufenberg , Niestetal , Kaufungen , Lohfelden , Fuldabrück , Baunatal , Schauenburg , Habichtswald . Of these, Vellmar and Fuldatal in the north, Kaufungen in the east, Lohfelden in the southeast and Baunatal in the south are growing ever closer to the urban area. In 1558 the first German observatory
1395-695: The downtown area, and some 10,000 people were killed and 150,000 were made homeless. Most of the casualties were civilians or wounded soldiers recuperating in local hospitals, whereas factories survived the attack generally undamaged. Karl Gerland replaced the regional Gauleiter , Karl Weinrich , soon after the raid. The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Kassel at the beginning of April 1945. The US 80th Infantry Division captured Kassel in bitter house-to-house fighting during 1–4 April 1945, which included numerous German panzer-grenadier counterattacks, and resulted in further widespread devastation to bombed and unbombed structures alike. Post-war , most of
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1440-623: The end of the nineteenth century, was based in Kassel. In 1870, after the Battle of Sedan , Napoleon III was sent as a prisoner to the Wilhelmshöhe Palace above the city. During World War I the German military headquarters were located in the Wilhelmshöhe Palace. In the late 1930s, Nazis destroyed Heinrich Hübsch 's Kassel Synagogue . During World War II Kassel was the headquarters for Germany's Wehrkreis IX, and
1485-457: The famous water features take place. They start at the Oktagon and during a one-hour walk through the park visitors can follow the water's way until they reach the lake of the Wilhelmshöhe Palace, where a fountain of about 50 metres (160 ft) marks the end of the spectacle. The Löwenburg ("Lions Castle") is a replica of a medieval castle, also built during the reign of Wilhelm IX. After
1530-407: The first home game in the Hessenliga. However, they had over 5,000 supporters come to watch. Kassel has seven tram lines (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), with trams arriving usually every 15 minutes. The city also operates a light rail Stadtbahn network called RegioTram using Regio Citadis low-floor trams which run on both tram and main line railway tracks with three lines (RT1, RT4, RT5). Moreover,
1575-468: The public Klinikum Kassel is one of the largest hospitals in the federal state, offering a wide range of health services. Kassel is the largest city in the north of the federated state of Hesse in the south-western part of Germany, about 70 kilometers northwest of the geographic center of Germany. It is located on both sides of the river Fulda. Kassel's deepest point is in the north-eastern Fulda valley at 132.9 m above sea level. The urban area of Kassel
1620-581: The town hosted the fourth Hessentag state festival (again in 2013). In 1972 the Chancellor of West Germany Willy Brandt and the prime minister of the German Democratic Republic Willy Stoph met in Wilhelmshöhe Palace for negotiations between the two German states. In 1991, the central rail station moved from "Hauptbahnhof" ( main station ) (today only used for regional trains) to "Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe". The city had
1665-535: The university in 2017. The university offers a wide range of study programs from organic agriculture to social work. Furthermore, it offers several English master's programs as well as two short-term international programs, the Summer University and the Winter University . The Kunsthochschule Kassel (University of Fine Arts) is also part of the university with a satellite campus directly at
1710-497: Was built in 1953 and is able to hold 18,737 people. It is located in the south of Kassel at the quarter Südstadt, next to the Karlsaue. Kassel has a long ice hockey tradition, but it was not until 1977 that the Kassel ice rink (Eissporthalle) opened on a private initiative. The Kassel Huskies were founding members of the DEL in 1994, belonging to the league from 1994 to 2006 and again from 2008 to 2010. In 1997 , they were runners-up in
1755-583: Was built in Kassel, and a later version from 1714 survives as the Bellevue Palace . The Ottoneum , the first permanent German theatre building, was built in 1604. The old building is today the Natural History Museum, and the now-called Staatstheater Kassel is located in a nearby building that was constructed in the 1950s. Since 1927 Kassel has been home to Bärenreiter , one of the world's most important music publishers. Since 1955
1800-544: Was destroyed during World War II and became an industrial city in 1950s. Today, Kassel is home to a few companies and universities. The bombing raids of 1943 destroyed 90% of the city center. The city center was almost completely rebuilt during the 1950s and is a combination of renovated or reconstructed old buildings and architecture of the 1950s. Outside the city center, the suburbs are dominated by 19th-century architecture. Timber-framed old towns are situated in suburbs like Harleshausen and Bad Wilhelmshöhe. The oldest monument
1845-529: Was founded in 1971 as a so-called reform university offering new and innovative models of teaching. It is the newest university in the state of Hessen and has an urban and lively inner-city campus between the city center and the Northern city district, a typical working-class area with a multicultural population. There were 25,000 students enrolled at the university in 2018, 3381 of them non-Germans. Two hundred and twenty-four students obtained their doctorate from
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1890-516: Was its capital and became a centre of Calvinist Protestantism in Germany. Strong fortifications were built to protect the Protestant stronghold against Catholic enemies. Secret societies, such as Rosicrucianism flourished, with Christian Rosenkreutz's work Fama Fraternitatis first published in 1617. In 1685, Kassel became a refuge for 1,700 Huguenots who found shelter in the newly established borough of Oberneustadt. Landgrave Charles , who
1935-469: Was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013. The Hercules monument is a huge octagonal stone structure carrying a giant replica of Hercules "Farnese" (now at Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, Italy). From its base down to Wilhelmshöhe Palace runs a long set of artificial cascades which delight visitors during the summer months. Every Sunday and Wednesday afternoon at 14:30 (from May until October)
1980-687: Was re-unified under Landgrave William II in 1500. The Landgraviate rose to primary importance under his son Philip I , also called Philip the Magnanimous, who embraced Protestantism following the 1526 Synod of Homberg and then took steps to create a protective alliance of Protestant princes and powers against the Catholic emperor Charles V . When Philip I died in 1567, Hesse was divided between his sons from his first marriage, which decisively enfeebled its importance. The new Hessian territories were: The Hessian territories were not re-united until
2025-695: Was responsible for this humanitarian act, also ordered the construction of the Oktogon ( Hercules monument ) and of the Orangerie . In the late 18th Century, Hesse-Kassel became infamous for selling mercenaries ( Hessians ) to the British crown to help suppress the American Revolution and to finance the construction of palaces and the Landgrave's opulent lifestyle. In the early 19th century,
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