Kassel, 16th centuryA map of Kassel in 1648Königsstrasse, the main shopping street
Kassel was first mentioned in 913 AD, as the place where twodeeds were signed by KingConrad I. The place was calledChasella orChassalla and was a fortification at a bridge crossing theFulda river. There are several yet unproven assumptions about the origin of the name. It could be derived from the ancientCastellum Cattorum, a castle of the Chatti, a German tribe that had lived in the area since Roman times. Another assumption is a portmanteau from Frankoniancas, meaning ‘valley’ or ‘recess’, andsali meaning ‘hall’ or ‘service building’, which can be interpreted as ‘(town) hall in 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, later replaced by a Renaissance castle, theKassel City Palace, which burned down in 1811.
In 1567 theLandgraviate of Hesse, until then centered inMarburg, was divided among four sons, withHesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) becoming one of its successor states. Kassel was its capital and became a centre ofCalvinist Protestantism in Germany. Strong fortifications were built to protect theProtestant stronghold against Catholic enemies. Secret societies, such asRosicrucianism, came to the rise, with Christian Rosenkreutz's workFama Fraternitatis first published in 1617. In 1685 Kassel became a refuge for 1,700Huguenots, who found shelter in the newly established borough of Oberneustadt.Landgrave Charles, who was responsible for this humanitarian act, also ordered the construction of theOktogon (Hercules monument) and of theOrangerie. In the late 18th century, Hesse-Kassel became infamous for selling mercenaries (Hessians) to the British crown to help suppress theAmerican Revolution and to finance the construction of palaces and the Landgrave's opulent lifestyle.
TheBrothers Grimm lived in Kassel in the early 19th century, where they collected and wrote most of theirfairy tales. At that time, around 1803, the Landgraviate was elevated to a Principality and its ruler toPrince-elector. Shortly after, it was annexed byNapoleon and became the capital of the short-livedKingdom of Westphalia under Napoleon's brotherJérômein 1807. The Electorate was restored in 1813.
Having sided with Austria in theAustro-Prussian War to gain supremacy in Germany, the principality was annexed byPrussia in 1866. The Prussian administration unitedNassau, Frankfurt and Hesse-Kassel into the new Prussian province ofHesse-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 railwaylocomotive manufacturer in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century, was based in Kassel.
The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Kassel at the beginning of April 1945. The US 80th Infantry Divisioncaptured Kassel in house-to-house fighting during 1–4 April 1945, which included numerous German panzer-grenadier counterattacks, and resulted in further damage to bombed and unbombed structures alike.[7]
Post-war, most of 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 theMuseum Fridericianum, were restored.
In 1964, the town hosted the fourthHessentag state festival.
In 1970, the Chancellor of West GermanyWilly Brandt and the prime minister of theGerman Democratic RepublicWilly Stoph met in Wilhelmshöhe Palace for negotiations between the two German states.[9] In 1991, the central rail station moved from "Hauptbahnhof" (main station) to "Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe", the former now being used exclusively for regional trains. The city had a dynamic economic and social development in the recent years, reducing the unemployment rate by half and attracting new citizens.
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 to several hospitals; the public Klinikum Kassel is one of the largest hospitals in the federal state.
Kassel 360° panorama view from the Tower of the Lutherkirche
Kassel is the largest city in the north of thefederated 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 riverFulda. Kassel's deepest point is in the north-eastern Fulda valley at 132.9 m above sea level.
The urban area of Kassel 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.
Installation by Thomas Schütte on the portico of the formerResidenzpalais during Documenta IX, 1992
The first Germanobservatory was built in Kassel in 1558, and a later version from 1714 survives as theBellevue Palace. TheOttoneum, the first permanent German theatre building, was built in 1606.[10] The old building is today the Natural History Museum, and the now-calledStaatstheater Kassel is located in a nearby building that was constructed in the 1950s. Since 1927, Kassel has been home toBärenreiter, a music publishing house distributing compositions of several critically acclaimed classical musicians.
Since 1955 thedocumenta, an internationalexhibition ofmodern andcontemporary art, has been held regularly in Kassel. Thedocumenta now takes place every five years. As a result of thedocumenta 6 in 1977, Kassel became the first city in the world to be illuminated bylaser beams at night (Laserscape, by artist Horst H. Baumann). This laser installation is nowadays still visible at weekends. Artworks from former editions of thedocumenta (mainly sculptures) can be found in multiple places in Kassel; among those are the "7000 Oaks", a work ofland art by the German artistJoseph Beuys. The latest/current edition of thedocumenta, known as "documenta 15", ran from 18 June until 25 September 2022.[11]
Population size may be affected by changes in administrative divisions.Source:[15][circular reference]
Kassel has a population of about 200,000,[16] and is the 3rd largest city inHesse 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.
Kassel first reached its first population peak of over 100,000 in 1899, and its second in 1943 with about 225,000. Kassel was destroyed during World War II and became an industrial city in 1950s. Today, Kassel is home to multiple companies and universities.
Thebombing 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 is the Druselturm; the Brüderkirche and theMartinskirche 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.
The complex includes Wilhelmshöhe Palace (with 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 ofRembrandts in Germany. It is surrounded by the beautifulBergpark Wilhelmshöhe with many appealing sights. The complex was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013.[17]
TheHercules monument is a huge octagonal stone structure carrying a giant replica ofHercules "Farnese" (now atMuseo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, Italy). From its base down to Wilhelmshöhe Palace runs a long set of artificial cascades. Every Sunday and Wednesday afternoon at 14:30 (from May until October), the famouswater features take place, which 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 features.
TheLöwenburg ("Lions Castle") is a replica of a medieval castle, also built during the reign of Wilhelm IX. After theFranco-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 commandersHindenburg andLudendorff prepared the German capitulation.
TheKarlsaue is a large park along the Fulda River that is part of theEuropean Garden Heritage Network. Established in the 16th century, it is known for theOrangerie, 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 theSolar System spanning the entire park and beyond. In addition, the Park Schönfeld contains a small, municipalbotanical garden, theBotanischer Garten Kassel.
Europe's first public museum, theMuseum Fridericianum, was founded in 1779.[18] 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 thefootball club in the city, who plays in theHessenliga after being relegated from theRegionalliga Südwest in the 2017/2018 season. The city's own football stadium, theAuestadion 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,[23] but it was not until 1977 that the Kassel ice rink (Eissporthalle) opened on a private initiative. TheKassel Huskies were founding members of theDEL in 1994, belonging to the league from 1994 to 2006 and again from 2008 to 2010. In1997, they were runners-up in the championship playoffs, losing toAdler Mannheim, and reached the semi-finals on three more occasions. The Huskies ran into financial difficulties and dissolved in 2010.[23] The "Young Huskies", which is a junior and youth hockey club, decided to enter a men's team in the Hessenliga.[23] This is the fifth division and the lowest men's competition in the state ofHesse.[23] The new club was expecting no more than 3,000 supporters for the first home game in the Hessenliga.[23] However, they had over 5,000 supporters come to watch.[23]
Kassel hasseven tram lines (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), with trams arriving usually every 15 minutes. The city also operates a light railStadtbahn network calledRegioTram usingRegio Citadis low-floor trams which run on both tram and main line railway tracks with three lines (RT1, RT4, RT5). Moreover, a number of low-floor buses complete the Kassel public transport system. The introduction of low-floor buses led to the development of theKassel kerb which improves theaccessibility at bus stops.
The current mayor of Kassel is Sven Schoeller ofAlliance 90/The Greens, who was elected in March 2023.[1] He succeeded Christian Geselle (SPD), who had been in office since 2017.[24]
Winning party by district in the 2021 city council election
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:
TheUniversity of Kassel is a public higher education institution and was founded in 1971 as a so-called reform university. It is the newest university in the state ofHessen and has an urban inner-city campus between the city center and the Northern city district. There were around 25,000 students enrolled at the university in 2018, 3,359 of them non-Germans.[25] Two hundred and twenty-four students obtained their doctorate from the university in 2017.
The university offers a range of study programs, and several English master's programs as well as two short-term international programs, theSummer University and theWinter University. TheKunsthochschule Kassel (University of Fine Arts) is also part of the university with a satellite campus directly at the Karlsaue park in the Southern city district.
TheBrothers Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859), academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections asGrimms' Fairy Tales
^Megargee, Geoffrey P.; Overmans, Rüdiger; Vogt, Wolfgang (2022).The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933–1945. Volume IV. Indiana University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. p. 451.ISBN978-0-253-06089-1.
^Stanton, Shelby,World War II Order of Battle: An Encyclopedic Reference to U.S. Army Ground Forces from Battalion through Division, 1939–1946, Stackpole Books (Revised Edition 2006), p. 150
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