| Hesse Hessen |
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| — State of Germany — | |||
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| Coordinates: 50°39′58″N 8°35′28″E / 50.66611°N 8.59111°E | |||
| Country | Germany | ||
| Capital | Wiesbaden | ||
| Government | |||
| - Minister-President | Roland Koch (CDU) | ||
| - Governing parties | CDU / FDP | ||
| - Votes in Bundesrat | 5 (of 69) | ||
| Area | |||
| - Total | 21,100 km2 (8,146.8 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2007-09-30)[1] | |||
| - Total | 6,073,000 | ||
| - Density | 287.8/km2 (745.5/sq mi) | ||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | ||
| - Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||
| ISO 3166 code | DE-HE | ||
| GDP/ Nominal | € 220.81 billion (2008 [2])[citation needed] | ||
| NUTS Region | DE7 | ||
| Website | www.hessen.de | ||
Hesse (pronounced /hɛs/) or Hessia (German: Hessen [ˈhɛsən], Hessisch: Hesse[ˈhɛsɛ]) is a state of Germany with an area of 21,110 km2 (8,150 sq mi) and just over six million inhabitants. The state capital is Wiesbaden. Hesse's largest city is nearby Frankfurt am Main.
Hesse contributes the largest share to the Rhine Main Area. The locals speak a Rhine Franconian dialect known as Hessisch.
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Situated in west-central Germany, Hesse borders on the German states (starting from the northwest and proceeding clockwise) of North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
The principal cities of Hesse include Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Offenbach, Hanau, Gießen, Wetzlar and Limburg in the greater Rhine Main Area, Fulda in the east, and Kassel and Marburg an der Lahn in the north.
The most important rivers in Hesse are the Fulda and Eder rivers in the north, the Lahn in the central part of Hesse, and the Main and Rhine in the south. The countryside is hilly and there are numerous mountain ranges, like the Rhön, the Westerwald, the Taunus, the Vogelsberg, the Knüll or the Spessart.
Most of the population of Hesse is in the southern part of Hesse in the Rhine Main Area. The Rhine borders Hesse on the southwest without running through the state, only one old arm – the so-called Alt-Rhein – runs through Hesse. The mountain range between the Main and the Neckar river is called the Odenwald. The plain in between the rivers Main, Rhine and Neckar, and the Odenwald mountains is called the Ried.
See also List of places in Hesse, List of mountains in Hesse.
Hesse is divided into 21 districts and 5 independent cities (with their abbreviations, as used on vehicle registration plates):
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Independent cities:
 Independent cities |
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An early Celtic presence in what is now Hesse is indicated by a mid 5th century BC La Tène style burial uncovered at Glauberg. The region was later settled by the Germanic Chatti tribe in ca. the 1st century BC, and the name Hesse is a continuation of that tribal name. In the early Middle Ages, a Frankish gau comprising an area around Fritzlar and Kassel and a Saxon one further north were known as Hessengau. In the 9th century the Saxon Hessengau also came under the rule of the Franconians. In the 12th century it was passed to Thuringia.
In the War of the Thuringian Succession (1247-64), Hesse gained its independence and became a Landgraviate within the Holy Roman Empire. It shortly rose to primary importance under Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous, who was one of the leaders of German Protestantism. After Philip's death in 1567, the territory was divided up among his four sons from his first marriage (Philip was a bigamist) into four lines: Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Rheinfels and the also previously existing Hesse-Marburg. As the latter two lines died out quite soon (1583 and 1605, respectively), Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt were the two core states within the Hessian lands. Several collateral lines split off during the centuries, such as in 1622, when Hesse-Homburg split off from Hesse-Darmstadt. In the late 16th century, Kassel adopted Calvinism, while Darmstadt remained Lutheran and subsequently the two lines often found themselves on different sides of a conflict, most notably in the disputes over Hesse-Marburg and in the Thirty Years' War, when Darmstadt fought on the side of the Emperor, while Kassel sided with Sweden and France.
During the American Revolution, Great Britain hired mercenaries from Hesse, commonly known as Hessians, to fight the rebels in America. In fact, thousands of Hessians fought in the American Revolution and other conflicts as soldiers of fortune (though usually conscripted, the pay going to their Lord) on both sides.[3]
Hesse-Kassel was elevated to the rank of an Electorate in 1803, but this remained without effect as the Holy Roman Empire was disbanded in 1806. The territory was annexed by the Kingdom of Westphalia in 1806, but restored to the Elector in 1813. While other Electors had gained other titles, becoming either Kings or Grand-dukes, the Elector of Hesse-Kassel alone retained the anachronistic dignity. The name survived in the term Kurhessen, denoting the region around Kassel. In 1866 it was annexed by Prussia, together with the Free City of Frankfurt, Hesse-Homburg and the duchy of Nassau, which established the province of Hesse-Nassau.
Hesse-Darmstadt was elevated to the rank of a Grand Duchy in 1806. In the War of 1866, it fought on the side of Austria against Prussia, but retained its autonomy in defeat, because a greater part of the country was situated south of the Main river and Prussia did not dare to expand beyond the Main line as this might have provoked France. But the parts of Hesse-Darmstadt north of the Main river (the region around the town of Gießen, commonly called Oberhessen) were incorporated in the Norddeutscher Bund, a tight federation of German states, established by Prussia in 1867. In 1871 the rest of the Grand Duchy joined the German Empire. Around the turn of the century, Darmstadt was one of the centres of the Jugendstil.
Until 1907, the Grand Duchy of Hesse used only the Hessian red and white lion as its coat-of-arms
The revolution of 1918 transformed Hesse-Darmstadt from a monarchy to a republic, which officially renamed itself to "Volksstaat Hessen" (People's State of Hesse). The parts of Hesse-Darmstadt on the western banks of the Rhine (province Rheinhessen) were occupied by French troops until 1930 under the terms of the Versailles peace treaty that officially ended WWI in 1919.
After World War II the Hessian territory left of the Rhine was again occupied by France, whereas the rest of the country was part of the US occupation zone. The French separated their part of Hesse from the rest of the country and incorporated it into the newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz). The United States, on the other side, proclaimed the state of Greater Hesse (Groß-Hessen) on 19 September 1945, out of Hesse-Darmstadt and most of the former Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau. On December 4, 1946 Groß-Hessen was officially renamed Hessen.[4]
The state is called Hessen in German and Hesse (or Hessia) in English; the English name for the state was taken from French. An inhabitant of the state is a Hesse (masculine) or Hessin (feminine) in German and a Hessian in English (see Hessian (soldiers)). Occasionally the German term Hessen is also used in English, for example by the European Commission[5]. Hessia is another variant, although rarely used. Hesse refers to the Germanic tribe of the Chatti, who settled in the region in the first centuries B.C.
The Politics of Hesse takes place within a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the Federal Government of Germany exercises sovereign rights with certain powers reserved to the states of Germany including Hesse. The state has a multi-party system where the two main parties were long the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the leftist Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). However, this changed in 2009, when support for the SPD collapsed after a political crisis in 2008. There are now five parties in the Hesse Landtag.
Although the outgoing Prime Minister, Roland Koch (CDU), lost his majority in the state diet (Landtag of Hesse in the 2008 Landtag election, his rivals were unable to form a government. See Hesse state election, 2008. A new election was held in 2009, after which the CDU was again able to form a government.
The party strengths in the 2009 election were as follows:
| Party | Ideology | Vote % (change) | Seats (change) | Seat % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christian Democratic Union (CDU) | Centre-right | 37.2% | +0.4% | 46 | +4 | 39.0% | |
| Social Democratic Party (SPD) | Social Democracy | 23.7% | -13.0% | 29 | -13 | 24.6% | |
| Free Democratic Party (FDP) | Liberalism | 16.2% | +6.8% | 20 | +9 | 17.0% | |
| Alliance '90/The Greens (GRÜNE) | Green politics | 13.7% | +6.2% | 17 | +8 | 14.4% | |
| The Left (Die Linke) | Democratic socialism | 5.4% | +0.3% | 6 | 0 | 5.1% | |
| Free Voters (FW) | Various, lean right | 1.6% | +0.7% | ||||
| National Democratic Party (NPD) | Far-right | 0.9% | 0 | ||||
| The Republicans (REP) | National conservatism | 0.6% | -0.4% | ||||
| Pirate Party (PIRATEN) | Civil rights | 0.5% | +0.2% | ||||
| Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo) | LaRouche movement | 0.2% | +0.2% | ||||
| All Others | -- | 0% | -1.4% | ||||
| Total | 100.0% | 120 | +10 | 100.0% | |||
Turnout was at 61.0%, down from 64.3% in 2008. 61.0% marks the lowest turnout for a Landtag election in Hesse's history. Only the non-binding 1946 election (while Hesse was still under military occupation) had a lower turnout.
The official national anthem of Hesse is called "Hessenlied" (Song of Hesse), and was written by Albrecht Brede(music) and Carl Preser(lyrics).
Hessischer Rundfunk (HR) is the main ARD broadcaster in Hesse, providing a statewide TV programme as well as its regional radio stations (HR 1, HR 2, HR 3, HR 4, you fm and HR info). Other than HR, ZDF and other privately run TV stations flourish. Among the commercial radio stations that are active in Hesse are Hit Radio FFH, Planet Radio, Harmony FM, SKY Radio and Main FM.
Hesse has one of the best transportation infrastructures in Europe. Many trans-European and German motorways cross Hesse as well as high-speed train lines and many important trans-European waterways. Frankfurt International Airport is Germany's biggest airport and the third largest in Europe (after London and Paris). Near the airport is the Frankfurter Kreuz, Germany's busiest motorway intersection, where the motorways A3 (Arnhem-Cologne-Frankfurt-Nuremberg-Passau) and A5 (Hattenbach-Frankfurt-Karlsruhe-Basel) meet. Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof is Germany's busiest railway station by passengers.
Hesse has a dense highway network with a total of 24 motorways. The internationally important motorway routes through Hesse are the A3, A5 and A7. The A5 becomes as large as 5 lanes in each direction near the city of Frankfurt am Main.
The death penalty is still mentioned in the constitution of Hesse, as the Hessian constitution was ratified in 1946, when the death penalty was still part of the German penal code (and carried out as well). Because the 1949 federal constitution provides for the abolition of the death penalty (Art. 102) and because of the supremacy of the federal constitution (Art. 31, incidentally the two shortest articles in the whole constitution), the Hessian constitutional articles still mentioning the death penalty are de facto obsolete. Nonetheless, no politician has yet proposed to formally abolish the death penalty in Hesse because that would require a plebiscite.
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Hesse (German: Hessen [1]) is one of the states of the Federal Republic of Germany.
You can talk English in Hesse without a problem, but it's better when you speak slowly, as many people are not confident about their English and do not want to embarrass themselves with a native speaker. In smaller towns and out in the country, it's more likely that you will encounter people who cannot speak or understand English.
However, as most students take English as a second language, you'll find that many young people speak English well, albeit accented.
You may be surprised at how friendly the people can be, as (like most Germans) the Hessians are very friendly and nice when you are friendly too.
You can get some good tips on local events and places to visit from the locals if your take the time to ask.
Feel free to try out any German you have--either you'll get what you want, or at the least impress/amuse your victim!
Good luck if you're out of the major cities like Frankfurt or Wiesbaden.
Public telephones are rare in many areas, and to complicate matters there was a transition from coins to rechargable/disposable cards a few years before mobile phones made public telephones mostly obsolete. You can buy public telephone cards at the Post or some shops. If you have a mobile phone that takes SIM cards, consider buying a disposable SIM at a mobile phone shop. In the case of an emergency, most people would of course let you use their own phone.
The number for the Police (Polizei) is 110, and for the fire department (Feuerwehr) and ambulance service 112. They can often talk some English.
Ask for help when you need it!
Natives of Hesse have a strong dialect of German, that can even be confusing to other Germans. They will understand and speak high ("standard") German as well. Since many also speak at least rudimentary English you shouldn't have any problems communicating with them.
International visitors will arrive mostly at Frankfurt Airport, the second largest airport in Europe and a major hub for the German carrier Lufthansa. Frankfurt's central station is less than 15 minutes away by subway.
Hahn, somewhat misleadingly officially called "Frankfurt Hahn" even though the city is over 100 km away, is a former military airfield being used by "no frills" low budget airlines. Getting from Hahn to Frankfurt takes about 90 minutes.
Regular and high-speed Intercity trains connect Hesse to the rest of the nation as well as to various international destinations.
There are large regional networks of public transport:
Local specialties include wine from grapes, especially white grapes, and from apples (a kind of cider). This apple wine (ebbelwei) may be enjoyed straight (pur) or mixed (gespritzt). The latter versions distinguish between "sweet" and "sour", i.e. mixed with either some citrus soda (Süßgesprizter) or sparkling mineral water (Sauerngesprizter).
Across the state and the country is a dense network of Youth Hostels (membership required).
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HESSE (Lat. Hessia, Ger. Hessen), a grand duchy forming a state of the German empire. It was known until 1866 as HesseDarmstadt, the history of which is given under a separate heading below. It consists of two main parts, separated from each other by a narrow strip of Prussian territory. The northern part is the province of Oberhessen; the southern consists of the contiguous provinces of Starkenburg and Rheinhessen. There are also eleven very small exclaves, mostly grouped about Homburg to the south-west of Oberhessen; but the largest is Wimpfen on the north-west frontier of Wurttemberg. Oberhessen is hilly; though of no great elevation it extends over the water-parting between the basins of the Rhine and the Weser, and in the Vogelsberg it has as its culminating point the Taufstein (2533 ft.). In the north-west it includes spurs of the Taunus. Between these two systems of hills lies the fertile undulating tract known as the Wetterau, watered by the Wetter, a tributary of the Main. Starkenburg occupies the angle between the Main and the Rhine, and in its south-eastern part includes some of the ranges of the Odenwald, the highest part being the Seidenbucher Hohe (1965 ft.). Rheinhessen is separated from Starkenburg by the Rhine, and has that river as its northern as well as its eastern frontier, though it extends across it at the north-east corner, where the Rhine, on receiving the Main, changes its course abruptly from south to west. The territory consists of a fertile tract of low hills, rising towards the south-west into the northern extremity of the Hardt range, but at no point reaching a height of more than 1050 ft.
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Area. |
Population. |
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|---|---|---|---|
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sq. m. |
1895. |
1905. |
|
|
Oberhessen |
1267 |
2 7 1 ,5 2 4 |
296,755 |
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Starkenburg . |
1169 |
444,5 62 |
542,996 |
|
Rheinhessen . |
530 |
3 22 ,934 |
369,424 |
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Total . |
2966 |
1,039,020 |
1,209,175 |
The area and population of the three provinces of Hesse are as follow: The chief towns of the grand duchy are Darmstadt (the capital) and Offenbach in Starkenburg, Mainz and Worms in Rheinhessen and Giessen in Oberhessen. More than two-thirds of the inhabitants are Protestants; the majority of the remainder are Roman Catholics, and there are about 25,000 Jews. The grand duke is head of the Protestant church. Education is compulsory, the elementary schools being communal, assisted by state grants. There are a university at Giessen and a technical high school at Darmstadt. Agriculture is important, more than three-fifths of the total area being under cultivation. The largest grain crops are rye and barley, and nearly 40,000 acres are under vines. Minerals, in which Oberhessen is much richer than the two other provinces, include iron, manganese, salt and some coal.
- 1 The constitution dates from 1820, but was modified in 1856, 1862, 1872 and 1goo. There are two legislative chambers. The upper consists of princes of the grand-ducal family, heads of mediatized houses, the head of the Roman Catholic and the superintendent of the Protestant church, the chancellor of the university, two elected representatives of the land-owning nobility, and twelve members nominated by the grand duke. The lower chamber consists of ten deputies from large towns and forty from small towns and rural districts. They are indirectly elected, by deputy electors (Wahlmanner) nominated by the electors, who must be Hessians over twenty-five years old, paying direct taxes. The executive ministry of state is divided into the departments of the interior, justice and finance. The three provinces are divided for local administration into 18 circles and 989 communes. The ordinary revenue and expenditure amount each to about £4,000,000 annually, the chief taxes being an income-tax, succession duties and stamp tax. The public debt, practically the whole of which is on railways, amounted to 1 9, 0 97,4 68 in 1907.
The name of Hesse, now used principally for the grand duchy formerly known as Hesse-Darmstadt, refers to a country which has had different boundaries and areas at different times. The name is derived from that of a Frankish tribe, the Hessi. The earliest known inhabitants of the country were the Chatti, who lived here during the 1st century A.D. (Tacitus, Germania, c. 30), and whose capital, Mattium on the Eder, was burned by the Romans about A.D. 15. "Alike both in race and language," says Walther Schultze, "the Chatti and the Hessi are identical." During the period of the Volkerwanderung many of these people moved westward, but some remained behind to give their name to the country, although it was not until the 8th century that the word Hesse came into use. Early Hesse was the district around the Fulda, the Werra, the Eder and the Lahn, and was part of the Frankish kingdom both during Merovingian and during Carolingian times. Soon Hessegau is mentioned, and this district was the headquarters of Charlemagne during his campaigns against the Saxons. By the treaty of Verdun in 843 it fell to Louis the German, and later it seems to have been partly in the duchy of Saxony and partly in that of Franconia. The Hessians were converted to Christianity mainly through the efforts of St Boniface; their land was included in the archbishopric of Mainz; and religion and culture were kept alive among them largely owing to the foundation of the Benedictine abbeys of Fulda and Hersfeld. Like other parts of Germany during the 9th century Hesse felt the absence of a strong central power, and, before the time of the emperor Otto the Great, several counts, among whom were Giso and Werner, had made themselves practically independent; but after the accession of Otto in 936 the land quietly accepted the yoke of the medieval emperors. About 1120 another Giso, count of Gudensberg, secured possession of the lands of the Werners; on his death in 1137 his daughter and heiress, Hedwig, married Louis, landgrave of Thuringia; and from this date until 1247, when the Thuringian ruling family became extinct, Hesse formed part of Thuringia. The death of Henry Raspe, the last landgrave of Thuringia, in 1247, caused a long war over the disposal of his lands, and this dispute was not settled until 1264 when Hesse, separated again from Thuringia, was secured by his niece Sophia (d. 1284), widow of Henry II., duke of Brabant. In the following year Sophia handed over Hesse to her son Henry (1244-1308), who, remembering the connexion of Hesse and Thuringia, took the title of landgrave, and is the ancestor of all the subsequent rulers of the country. In 1292 Henry was made a prince of the Empire, and with him the history of Hesse properly begins.
For nearly 300 years the history of Hesse is comparatively uneventful. The land, which fell into two main portions, upper Hesse round Marburg, and lower Hesse round Cassel, was twice divided between two members of the ruling family, but no permanent partition took place before the Reformation. A Landtag was first called together in 1387, and the landgraves were con stantly at variance with the electors of Mainz, who had large temporal possessions in the country. They found time, however, to increase the area of Hesse. Giessen, part of Schmalkalden, Ziegenhain, Nidda and, after a long struggle, Katzenelnbogen were acquired, while in 1432 the abbey of Hersfeld placed itself under the protection of Hesse. The most noteworthy of the landgraves were perhaps Louis I. (d. 1458), a candidate for the German throne in 1440, and William II. (d. 1509), a comrade of the German king, Maximilian I. In 1509 William's young son, Philip, became landgrave, and by his vigorous personality brought his country into prominence during the religious troubles of the 16th century. Following the example of his ancestors Philip cared for education and the general welfare of his land, and the Protestant university of Marburg, founded in 1527, owes to him its origin. When he died in 1567 Hesse was divided between his four sons into Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Marburg and Hesse-Rheinfels. The lines ruling in HesseRheinfels and Hesse-Marburg, or upper Hesse, became extinct in 1583 and 1604 respectively, and these lands passed to the two remaining branches of the family. The small landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg was formed in 1622 from Hesse-Darmstadt. After the annexation of Hesse-Cassel and Hesse-Homburg by Prussia in 1866 Hesse-Darmstadt remained the only independent part of Hesse, and it generally receives the common name.
Hesse-Philippsthal is an offshoot of Hesse-Cassel, and was founded in 1685 by Philip (d. 1721), son of the Landgrave William VI. In 1909 the representative of this family was the Landgrave Ernest (b. 1846). Hesse-Barchfeld was founded in 1721 by Philip's son, William (d. 1761), and in 1909 its representative was the Landgrave Clovis (b. 1876). The lands of both these princes are now mediatized. Hesse-Nassau is a province of Prussia formed in 1866 from part of Hesse-Cassel and part of the duchy of Nassau.
See H. B. Wenck, Hessische Landesgeschichte (Frankfort, 1783-1803); C. von Rommel, Geschichte von Hesse (Cassel, 1820-1858); F. Miinscher, Geschichte von Hesse (Marburg, 1894); F. Gundlach, Hesse and die Mainzer Stiftsfehde (Marburg, 1899); Walther, Literarisches Handbuch fir Geschichte and Landeskunde von Hesse (Darmstadt, 1841; Supplement, 1850-1869); K. Ackermann, Bibliotheca Hessiaca (Cassel, 1884-1899); Hoffmeister, Historischgenealogisches Handbuch fiber alle Linien des Regentenhauses Hesse (Marburg, 1874), and the Zeitschrift des Vereins fiir hessische Geschichte (1837-1904).
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