History of the city of Kassel
This article deals with the history of the city of Kassel from the first documentary mention to the post-war period.
middle Ages
The first mention of the royal court of Kassel (then called Chass a lla or Chass e IIa ) can be found in two documents of the German king Conrad I , exhibited in Kassel on February 18, 913. At that time was on the site of the future city palace a Royal court , which, beginning around 1143, was gradually expanded to become the residence of the Ludovingian Count Heinrich Raspe II of Hesse (or Gudensberg ). Between 1140 and 1148 Heinrich Raspe and his mother Hedwig von Gudensberg founded the Premonstratensian monastery on the Ahnaberg on the northern edge of the former settlement, the Ahnaberg Monastery . The courtyard, monastery and settlement were soon walled, and Kassel was granted city rights before 1189 . Although the associated hand-held festival was lost, the rights of council officials and citizens of Kassel documented in it were confirmed in 1239 by Landgrave Hermann the Younger of Thuringia .
After the final separation of Hesse from Thuringia , the new Landgrave Heinrich I of Hesse further expanded Kassel as the residence and capital of the Landgraviate of Hesse in 1277 . He founded the (Lower) New Town and in 1292 summoned the Carmelites to Kassel. This mendicant order built the Brethren Church , the oldest building in the city that is still preserved today. In 1297, Mechthild von Kleve, the wife of Heinrich I , founded the Elisabeth Hospital , one of the first infirmary in Kassel.
With the growing importance of Kassel, the number of inhabitants also increased, and around 1330 Landgrave Heinrich II expanded the city to include the so-called freedom. Soon afterwards the foundation stone for the Martinskirche was laid in its center (around 1366/67 with a canon donation ). It was a sign of emancipation from the diocese of Mainz and later developed into the religious center of Hesse.
The three previously independent cities of Altstadt, Neustadt and Freiheit were combined into a single community in 1378.
Historically, Kassel was also called by its Latin name: Castellum .
Since the Reformation
The Reformation led to changes in 1527 by the abolition of the monasteries and donors. Landgrave Philipp the Magnanimous was one of the most important supporters of the Reformation in Germany. The old town received the parish church of the Carmelites (Brethren Church) as the parish church. Philipp had Kassel expanded into one of the most important fortresses of the Schmalkaldic League ; after the defeat of the Confederation in 1547 by the emperor, the city was occupied and the fortifications partially razed. After his return from exile in 1552, Philip had it restored and in 1557 began an extensive renovation and new construction of the old castle (under the supervision of Hereditary Prince Wilhelm). The alabaster chamber was a specialty: created by the Dutch court sculptors in Kassel, Elias Godefroy and Adam Liquier Beaumont , with four large reliefs (today in the Hessisches Landesmuseum Kassel); even the floor, door leaves, benches, table and hall ceiling are made of alabaster .
In 1567, after the death of Philip of Hesse, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel was established in the so-called comparison of four brothers from half of the Hessian territory ; the Landgraviates of Hesse-Marburg , Hesse-Rheinfels and Hesse-Darmstadt were also established . After two lines were extinguished, Hessen-Kassel and Hessen-Darmstadt still existed from 1604 with the capitals and royal cities of the same name.
Under Landgrave Wilhelm IV , who ruled Hessen-Kassel from 1567 to 1592, numerous large buildings were built: the chancellery building at the new Renthof , the stables and the armory , which served both as a weapons depot and as a granary for times of need. The renovation and new construction of the Landgrave's Palace, which had begun under Landgrave Philipp, was completed. A twelve-meter-high tomb for Landgrave Philipp and his wife, Christina von Sachsen, made of black marble and alabaster, was built in Martinskirche, and is one of the most important sculptures of the time in Germany.
As the Hereditary Prince, Wilhelm already operated an observatory in the castle, which is considered to be the first permanently established in modern Europe; he himself was an important astronomer, and in Kassel the category of space was for the first time replaced by that of time when measuring the stars, and the clock became an important astronomical instrument. The master watchmaker Jost Bürgi developed logarithms for the calculations of the observatory for the first time (before the Scots Neper , but published only after him at the urging of Kepler ). In the newly created pleasure garden of the Landgrave in the Fuldaaue were u. a. exotic plants grown; Among them were also potatoes, which the Landgrave sent with cooking recipes to other farms.
From baroque to classicism
Wilhelm's successor, Landgrave Moritz the Scholar , founded a knight academy in the converted Renthof and built the Ottoneum in 1605 as the first fixed theater building of modern times in Germany. From 1633 Kassel was allowed to call itself a university town for 20 years before the Hessian state university was relocated from Renthof to the reclaimed Marburg.
Under Landgrave Carl , around 1700 Huguenots were admitted to Kassel from 1685 and the Oberneustadt was built for them. On what was then Carlsberg (today: Wilhelmshöhe), the first work on the water arts began around the same time; In 1714 the Hercules Monument was completed here, the landmark of Kassel. The complex was built according to a design by Giovanni Francesco Guerniero , but only the upper third was completed. The Hercules figure was made in the Kassel brass yard by the Augsburg coppersmith Antoni. In Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, the water games took place for the first time on the cascades on Herkules on June 3, 1714, the first Sunday of the month . The counterpart to the mountain park based on the Italian model was the Karlsaue as a French-Dutch garden in the Fulda lowland, with the Orangery Palace as the center (1701–1710 by Johann Conrad Giesler ). As a special attraction, the marble bathroom was set up there in the 1720s: completely clad in different colored marble, as a magnificent frame for statues and reliefs by the sculptor Pierre-Étienne Monnot .
In 1709 the Collegium Carolinum was affiliated to the Kunsthaus (former Ottoneum) as a kind of technical university. Here taught until it was closed by Wilhelm IX. important scholars such as the world traveler Georg Forster, the anatomist Samuel Thomas Soemmering and the historian Johannes von Müller (author of a history of the Swiss Confederation, founder of modern history). Karl carried out extensive technical research in particular. The French Denis Papin carried out experiments with steam and developed the principle of the pressure cooker. In 1721 the Karlshospital was completed as a reformatory.
After Carl's death in 1730, Prince Wilhelm took over the governorship for his brother Landgrave Friedrich I , who was also King of Sweden. Wilhelm had his rich collection of paintings, which he had acquired in the Netherlands, housed in a palace on Frankfurter Strasse; With numerous pictures by Rembrandt, Rubens and other Dutch masters, it still represents the core inventory of the state picture gallery. As an extension of the palace, he had a gallery hall built around 1749 by the court architect of the Wittelsbach family, François de Cuvilliés the Elder ; In addition, Wilhelmsthal Palace was built near Kassel based on the architect's plans.
After the Seven Years War had shown the ineffectiveness of the city fortifications against modern weapons, the mighty belt of fortifications was razed in 1767. Landgrave Friedrich II had the Oberneustadt connected to the old city through the circular Königsplatz and Friedrichsplatz (one of the largest city squares in Germany). The Fridericianum Museum was built in a central location on Friedrichsplatz , in which the landgraves' art collections and the library were open to the public (opened in 1779, based on plans by Simon Louis du Ry). In 1779 he built the old municipal Latin school in a new building as the Lyceum Fridericianum (today Friedrichsgymnasium ).
In 1803 Kassel retained the function of the capital when Wilhelm I was made electoral prince.
Capital of the Kingdom of Westphalia
Kassel was occupied by French troops on November 1, 1806 after Elector Wilhelm I had fled in time, and Hessen-Kassel initially disappeared from the map . During the time of French rule, Kassel was the capital of the Kingdom of Westphalia , created by Napoleon by decree of August 18, 1807 and ruled by his brother Jérôme , which, in addition to the former Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel, also included large parts of Westphalia , today's Lower Saxony and today's Saxony. Anhalts included.
In 1810 Georg Christian Carl Henschel founded the Henschel & Sohn foundry together with his son, the bell caster and sculptor Johann Werner Henschel , which began producing steam engines as early as 1816 . Until it was dissolved in 1957, the company was at times one of the most important manufacturers of locomotives in Europe.
Restoration from 1813 to 1866
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In October 1813, during the Wars of Liberation , troops of the Russian General Tschernitschew drove the French occupiers out of Kassel, and on November 21, Elector Wilhelm I moved back into his royal seat. Kassel was again the capital and residence of the restored Electorate of Hesse . Here Kassel formed a city district and was also the seat of the Kassel district.
Around the brothers Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, who worked as librarians at the state library, as well as the barons von der Malsburg , an important group of romantics formed in Kassel; This is where Adolf von Menzel , Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano met ; parts of the Des Knaben Wunderhorn collection were created here . The court theater experienced a particular heyday: After taking office in 1821, Elector Wilhelm II hired the best musicians and hired Louis Spohr as court conductor , who was considered the most important violinist alongside Paganini and who also shaped music history as a composer. Otto Nicolai also composed his opera Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor in Kassel , the libretto of which was written by Salomon Hermann Mosenthal from Kassel .
At the Kassel Polytechnic (Higher Trade School) founded in 1832, a. a. the chemists Heinrich Buff , Rudolph Amandus Philippi , Friedrich Wöhler and Robert Bunsen , who invented the gas mask here , and the architect Georg Gottlob Ungewitter , whose neo-Gothic architecture school had a worldwide reputation. From 1833 the city was expanded in a north-westerly direction to include the new Friedrich-Wilhelms district (named after the Prince Elector, who also took over government business in 1831): The core was Friedrich-Wilhelms-Straße (today Ständeplatz), on which from 1834 the new Kurhessisches Eständehaus was built. The constitution passed under Wilhelm II in 1831 was considered the most progressive that Germany was capable of at the time (Karl Marx).
On August 29, 1848, the Kassel – Grebenstein railway line was inaugurated as part of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn and Kassel got a rail connection.
On December 16, 1850, at the height of the Hessian constitutional dispute during the arch-conservative government of Hassenpflug , Kassel was occupied by Bavarian and Austrian troops of the German Confederation , so-called penalty Bavaria , which were only withdrawn in the summer of 1851.
“July 4th [1824], Sundays. At 5 o'clock out of bed, we go to Wilhelmshöhe, where the dubious weather gives us some bright, very nice moments for the wonderful panoramic view from the Oktogon. The travelers are quite amazed at the colossal work; Everything is enjoyed, then the city's museum is visited. [...] Next to the museum on the square, a newer castle is under construction. A splendid material of red stone is used in modern petty architecture. The immense walls of a palace that was under construction have remained unfinished since the present government. The system seems to be of good architecture. "
After the occupation by Prussia, founding period
In 1866 the Electorate of Hesse was occupied by Prussia , which united it with the Duchy of Nassau , which was also occupied, and the occupied Free Imperial City of Frankfurt to form the Province of Hesse-Nassau . Kassel lost its function as a residential city, but became the seat of the upper president of the new province . At the same time, the city became the capital of a government district and remained the seat of the now Prussian district of Kassel. She herself remained free of circles.
In 1868 the General Landsmannschafts-Convent , a predecessor association of the German Landsmannschaft, was founded in Kassel .
In 1870 Napoléon III. imprisoned as a prisoner in Wilhelmshöhe Castle after the surrender on September 2 . From 1891 Kassel was the summer residence of the German Emperor (until 1918). The city was therefore allowed to use the title Capital and Residence, which was used until 1866 .
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From 1900
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the city's population exceeded the 100,000 mark, making Kassel a major city. The city suffered from a major housing shortage, and the quality of the living space in the old town of Kassel was rather poor; in 1925 the city still lacked over 5000 apartments. The Rothenbergsiedlung was built from 1929 to 1931 under the direction of the architect Otto Haesler , breaking new ground in terms of construction and design. The construction project was delayed due to the authorities' lack of knowledge of checking and approving a modern steel frame construction. Finally, the last buildings were built in traditional brick construction.
From 1902 until its closure in 1966, the Herkulesbahn connected the west of Kassel with the Hohe Habichtswald . International art exhibitions in the orangery, first on Art Nouveau and then on Modernism, were forerunners of the later documenta. The Kassel town hall was officially inaugurated on April 1, 1914 . In the summer of 1916, the specific GHQ the Wilhelmshöhe Castle to her seat , the castle was until the end of the monarchy the summer residence of the imperial family.
In 1920, the first Reichsfrauenkonferenz met in Kassel , which dealt with questions of equal rights and the right to vote. The Kassel-Waldau airfield was officially opened on August 24, 1924 and was part of the Deutsche Luft Hansa route network from 1926 to 1930 . It also served as a works airfield for the Kassel aircraft industry, which had been developing since 1923, in particular for the Gerhard Fieseler works .
Fulda Bridge in the center of Kassel, photochromic print around 1900
Untereustadt 1895
View from the beautiful view of the Kaufunger Wald (Bellevue), Louis Kolitz around 1900
Königsplatz around 1900, photochrom
View over Kassel around 1900, photochrom
Auetor on Friedrichsplatz, around 1900
Overflight of the F 2 Tiger of Gerhard Fieseler over the district Wesertor 1932
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time of the nationalsocialism
Administratively, Kassel was between 1933 and 1945, during the time of National Socialism , the " Gau capital " of the NSDAP -au Kurhessen . It was therefore the second annexation after the Prussian annexation as a result of the Franco-Prussian War and the establishment of the Empire in 1871 . Economically, the city was only of interest to the National Socialists because of its important industry. The Reich Warrior Day took place in 1933 and should not have any particular significance. The Secret State Police (Gestapo) had their headquarters in Königstor Street. From there, the tactical purges, the pogroms and the persecution and deportation of political, religious and racial opponents of the Nazi ideology were planned and organized on a large scale . For example, measures against the left-wing socialist resistance group Red Shock Troop , which had an offshoot in Kassel. The group was apparently also supported by the later Hessian Prime Minister Georg August Zinn , whose brother Karl Zinn was one of the leading figures in the resistance group in Berlin.
The state fire brigade school was inaugurated in Kassel on November 15, 1936, by order of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, since that was the seat of the supervisory authority of the then provincial fire brigade association . During the Second World War , the courses had to be stopped and could only be restarted in January 1948. Since April 1, 1949, the Hessian Ministry of the Interior has supported the Hessian State Fire Brigade School .
On the evening of November 7, 1938, the synagogue and other Jewish facilities were vandalized by members of the SA and SS, two days before the “Kristallnacht” on November 9. They wore civilian clothes to mimic popular anger.
On the night of October 22nd to 23rd, 1943, the city center of Kassel was almost completely destroyed by an RAF air raid . About 10,000 people came to the flames and ruins their lives, more than 80 percent of the city were destroyed, including almost the entire old town with its out of the Middle Ages derived Gothic half-timbered houses .
On April 4, 1945, the Wehrmacht units in Kassel surrendered when US Army troops marched into Frankfurter Strasse from the south and, by April 5, also captured Bettenhausen as the last district.
post war period
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After the end of the Second World War, the city belonged to the American zone of occupation together with the entire province of Hessen-Nassau . The new state of Hesse was formed from this. Kassel remained the seat of the administrative district and the district of Kassel and continued to be run as an independent city within the new state. The city had suffered great damage. For information on reconstruction, see Reconstruction of Kassel after the Second World War .
In 1949, Kassel applied for the seat of the Bundestag alongside Bonn , Frankfurt am Main and Stuttgart . On November 29, 1949, however, Bonn was elected provisional federal capital by 200 votes to 176 by the Bundestag. As compensation , Kassel became the seat of both the Federal Labor Court and the Federal Social Court in 1953 . In the same year, on May 2nd, the Federal President Theodor Heuss visited the city. In August the 2nd YMCA Europe Conference took place, and on November 9th, the stairs street, part of the pedestrian zone in the city center, was inaugurated. This made Kassel the city in which a pedestrian zone was opened for the first time in Germany. Between 1953 and 1960, Kassel was not only the location of several important film productions, but also the location of many other cinema premieres, with stars such as Heinz Rühmann, Hildegard Knef, Heinz Erhardt, Hans Moser, Theo Lingen, Maximilian Schell, Alice and Ellen Kessler and Joachim Fuchsberger coming regularly , Christine Kaufmann or Johannes Heesters. On April 21, 1954, the State Fire Brigade Association of Hesse was founded with its headquarters in Kassel. In 1955 the Federal Garden Show took place in the Karlsaue , which was accompanied by the first documenta . In September 1957 the then Carl-Schomburg-Realschule was the first school in Germany to introduce a five-day week. In 1960 the Belgian King Baudouin landed in Kassel-Waldau . He visited the city and traveled on to the Belgian troops in Kassel and elsewhere in Germany. On March 15, 1961, on the initiative of Police President Heinz Hille, Kassel was the first major German city to introduce the parking disc . In 1964, the Henschel-Werke became a subsidiary of Rheinische Stahlwerke Essen and lost their independence, and Documenta 3 took place in the same year. In February 1968 the Kassel underground tram , an underground section of the Kassel tram, went into operation, it was the second light rail route in Germany, and the 4th documenta took place three months later .
On May 21, 1970, as part of the summit in Kassel 1970 , as a return visit to the meeting on March 19 in Erfurt , Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt and the deputy chairman of the GDR State Council, Willi Stoph, met in Kassel. These were the first German-German meetings at government level. The 20 points presented by Willy Brandt in Kassel as a preliminary draft for an agreement to be concluded formed the framework for the basic agreement signed on December 21, 1972 . On April 1st, the first ATM in Hesse was put into operation by the Kreissparkasse Kassel. Documenta 6 took place in 1977.
The Hessian Prime Minister Holger Börner invited the French President Giscard d'Estaing to Kassel, who visited the city on July 8, 1980. The documenta urbana settlement built from 1980 to 1982 was an attempt to orient the documenta in terms of urban planning. In 1981 the Federal Garden Show took place in the Karls- und Fuldaaue . At documenta 7 , Joseph Beuys presented the project of 7000 oaks , which were planted with basalt blocks from 1982 onwards.
After the completion of one of the first new lines of the railway, the new long-distance train station Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe was built. Kassel has had an ICE connection since May 29, 1991 (see here ). Since 1997 , a new residential area has been built in the area of the former Messeplatz (1950s to 1997), where part of the Untereustadt was until the bombing on the night of October 22nd to 23rd, 1943 (construction work is still ongoing). After German reunification, the Federal Labor Court was relocated from Kassel to Erfurt in 1999.
The demolition of the “stairs to nowhere” on Königsplatz in 2000 led to controversy across Germany. After Wilhelmshöhe was recognized as a thermal brine spa in 2000, Wilhelmshöhe / Wahlershausen became the official name of Bad ( Bad Wilhelmshöhe ) in 2001 . In 2005 Kassel applied for the title of European Capital of Culture 2010, but was defeated in the preselection. In July 2011, the German Athletics Championships were held in the Auestadion. In 2013 the Hessentag 2013 took place in Kassel . The Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2013 .
From the 2000s, post-war traffic structures were cordoned off, filled in or demolished, including the Hauptbahnhof underground station and the underpasses, e.g. B. on the Altmarkt. After 2010, population growth began, which is also reflected in construction activity.
Incorporations
Formerly independent communities and districts that were incorporated into Kassel:
| year | places | Increase in ha |
| 1899 | Wehlheiden | 372 |
| 1906 | Wahlershausen , Kirchditmold , Rothenditmold , Bettenhausen | 1,770 |
| 1926 | Fasanenhof manor district | 142 |
| 1928 |
Manor district Oberförsterei Kirchditmold , Wilhelmshöhe , Kragenhof , Oberförsterei Elend |
2,968 |
| 1936 |
Waldau , Niederzwehren , Oberzwehren , Nordshausen , Harleshausen , Wolfsanger |
2,483 |
The incorporation of Lohfelden failed in 1970 due to the contrary popular will of the community. However, Kassel was able to achieve the assignment of the Kassel districts in what is now the Kassel-Waldau industrial park.
See also
- Population development of Kassel
- Jewish life in Kassel
- Art and architectural monuments of the city of Kassel
literature
- Franz Carl Theodor Piderit: History of the capital and residence city of Kassel. Kassel 1844 ( online ).
- Heide Wunder , Christina Vanja , Karl-Hermann Wegner (Hrsg.): Kassel in the 18th century. Residence and city. Euregio, Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-933617-05-7 .
Web links
- Contemporary witnesses and historical documents and research from the city of Kassel
- Pictures and reports on the history of the city of Kassel
- Documentary about the reconstruction of the city of Kassel
Individual evidence
- ^ Heinrich Gottfried Philipp Gengler : Regesta and documents of the constitutional and legal history of the German cities in the Middle Ages , Erlangen 1863, p. 467 ff .
- ↑ Latin city names ( Memento from July 14, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) (Lexicum nominum geographicorum latinorum)
- ^ K. Fr. Schinkel: Travels to Italy. Second journey 1824 . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1994, ISBN 3-351-02269-7 , p. 13.
- ↑ Detlef Möhlheinrich: Modern housing in Kassel in the 20th century, p. 23 ff.
- ↑ Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Assault Troop. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3867322744 , et al. Pp. 116-120
- ↑ Wilhelm Ditzel: The heroes of the big screen could be seen up close at the premieres. , on regiowiki.hna.de
- ^ Landesfeuerwehrverband Hessen (Hrsg.): All the strength of the fire brigade! - 50 years of the State Fire Brigade Association of Hesse . Kassel 2004, ISBN 3-927006-48-3 , p. 20-45 .
- ↑ Rudolf Augstein: Spiegel, No. 25/1971. Spiegel-Verlag p. 68.
- ^ Paris cardboard . In: Der Spiegel . No. 24 , 1962 ( online ).