Founding
city in Hesse, Germany
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Kassel (German pronunciation: [ˈkasl̩] ⓘ; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) 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 the documenta exhibitions of contemporary art. Kassel has a public university, the University of Kassel 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 the Fulda river. There are several yet unproven assumptions about the origin of the name. 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 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, 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 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, came to the rise, 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 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 auxiliaries to the British crown to help suppress the American Revolution and to finance the construction of palaces and the Landgrave's opulent lifestyle.
The Brothers Grimm lived in Kassel in the early 19th century, where they collected and wrote most of their fairy tales. 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 became the capital of the short-lived Kingdom of Westphalia under Napoleon's brother Jérôme in 1807. The Electorate was restored in 1813.
Having sided with Austria in 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 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 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 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 most factories survived the attack 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 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.
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 the Museum Fridericianum, 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, which the western city of Bonn won.
In 1964, the town hosted the fourth Hessentag state festival.
In 1970, 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) 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.
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 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 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 closer to the urban area.
Kassel experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb) close to marine climates, with a more notable continental influence than Berlin. Using the 1961–1990 normal and 0 °C isotherm, the city already had a humid continental climate (Dfb).
The first German observatory was built in Kassel in 1558, and a later version from 1714 survives as the Bellevue Palace. The Ottoneum, the first permanent German theatre building, was built in 1606. 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, a music publishing house distributing compositions of several critically acclaimed classical musicians.
Since 1955 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 in 1977, Kassel became the first city 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 the documenta (mainly sculptures) can be found in multiple 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", ran from 18 June until 25 September 2022.
Literature flourished in Kassel in the 19th century, when intellectuals gathered around the Brothers Grimm. Successful contemporary authors include Sebastian Mense ("Keilsberg") and Maria Knissel ("Letzte Meile").
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.
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.
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 is the Druselturm; the Brüderkirche and the Martinskirche are also, in part, of medieval origin. The towers of the Martinskirche are from the 1950s, but much of the original towers remain inside the new framing, which is enclosing them.
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 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 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. Every Sunday and Wednesday afternoon at 14:30 (from May until October), the famous water 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.
The Löwenburg ("Lions Castle") is a replica of a medieval scottish style castle, also built during the reign of Wilhelm IX. Much had to be rebuilt after bombing in II WW. After 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.
The Karlsaue is a large park along the Fulda River that is part of the European Garden Heritage Network. Established in the 16th century, it is known 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, 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:
Text from the Wikipedia article “Kassel”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.