Hesse or Hessia, officially the State of Hesse, is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major historic cities are Darmstadt and Kassel. With an area of 21,114.73 square kilometers and a population of over six million, it ranks seventh and fifth, respectively, among the sixteen German states. Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Germany's second-largest metropolitan area, is mainly located in Hesse.
This article is about the history of Hesse. Hesse is a state in Germany.
Kassel is one of the three Regierungsbezirke of Hesse, Germany, located in the north of the state. It was created in 1866 when Prussia annexed the Electorate of Hesse, forming part of the new Province of Hesse-Nassau. It was enlarged following the incorporation of the former Free State of Waldeck in 1929. From 1944 to 1945 it formed its own province: Kurhessen. After World War II it became part of Greater Hesse within the American Occupation Zone, the precursor to the modern state of Hesse. In its modern form it consists of 138 municipalities.
The North German Confederation was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated state that existed from July 1867 to December 1870. A milestone of the German Unification, it was the earliest continual legal predecessor of the modern German nation-state known today as the Federal Republic of Germany.
The Province of Saxony, also known as Prussian Saxony, was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the Free State of Prussia from 1816 until 1944. Its capital was Magdeburg.
The Provinces of Prussia were the main administrative divisions of Prussia from 1815 to 1946. Prussia's province system was introduced in the Stein-Hardenberg Reforms in 1815, and were mostly organized from duchies and historical regions. Provinces were divided into several Regierungsbezirke, sub-divided into Kreise (districts), and then into Gemeinden (townships) at the lowest level. Provinces constituted the highest level of administration in the Kingdom of Prussia and Free State of Prussia until 1933, when Nazi Germany established de facto direct rule over provincial politics, and were formally abolished in 1946 following World War II. The Prussian provinces became the basis for many federal states of Germany, and the states of Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein are direct successors of provinces.
Karl Gerland was a Nazi Gauleiter of Gau Kurhessen and Oberpräsident of the Prussian Province of Kurhessen. On 21 April 1945, Gerland was killed in action against the Soviet Red Army at Frankfurt (Oder).
The Duchy of Nassau was an independent state between 1806 and 1866, located in what is now the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. It was a member of the Confederation of the Rhine and later of the German Confederation. Its ruling dynasty, now extinct, was the House of Nassau. The duchy was named for its historical core city, Nassau, although Wiesbaden rather than Nassau was its capital. In 1865, the Duchy of Nassau had 465,636 inhabitants. After being occupied and annexed into the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866 following the Austro-Prussian War, it was incorporated into the Province of Hesse-Nassau. The area today is a geographical and historical region, Nassau, and Nassau is also the name of the Nassau Nature Park within the borders of the former duchy.
Greater Hesse was the provisional name given for a section of German territory created by the United States military administration in at the end of World War II. It was formed by the Allied Control Council on 19 September 1945 and became the modern German state of Hesse on 1 December 1946.
The Province of Kurhessen or Electoral Hesse was a province of Prussia within Nazi Germany between 1944 and 1945.
The Province of Nassau was a province of Prussia from 1944 to 1945.
Selters is a village in the district Limburg-Weilburg, Hesse, Germany. It is situated at the Taunus side of the river Lahn and belongs to the municipality Löhnberg. The village has a total population of 319.
The Gauliga Hessen was the highest football league in the German state of Hesse and the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau from 1933 to 1945. From 1941, it was renamed Gauliga Kurhessen. Shortly after the formation of the league, the Nazis reorganised the administrative regions in Germany, and the GauElectoral Hesse replaced the Prussian province and the Peoples State.
The Grand Duchy of Hesse State Railways belonged to the Länderbahnen at the time of the German Empire. In the 19th century, the Grand Duchy of Hesse consisted of three provinces. Between the rivers Rhine, Main and Neckar the province of Starkenburg embraced the Odenwald and the Hessian Ried. It also included the ducal residence of Darmstadt. West of the Rhine, was the province of Rhenish Hesse (Rheinhessen) with the towns of Mainz, Worms and Bingen. The province of Upper Hesse (Oberhessen), which included the Vogelsberg and the Wetterau was not directly linked by land to the others. As a result of its lack of territorial integrity, the state did not initially build its own state railway. Rather it took part in joint state railway projects with its neighbouring states: These were the:
The civil flag of Hesse, Germany consists of a bicolor of a red top and a bottom white stripe, in the proportion 3:5. The state flag is similar, except it is emblazoned with the state coat of arms in the centre, and may only be used by government departments and services.
The term Upper Hesse originally referred to the southern possessions of the Landgraviate of Hesse, which were initially geographically separated from the more northerly Lower Hesse by the County of Ziegenhain.
Buß- und Bettag was a public holiday in Germany, and is still a public holiday in Saxony. In Germany, Protestant church bodies of Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist) and United denominations celebrate a day of repentance and prayer. It is now celebrated on the penultimate Wednesday before the beginning of the Protestant liturgical year on the first Sunday of Advent; in other words, it is the Wednesday that falls between 16 and 22 November. However, it is not a statutory non-working holiday any more, except in the Free State of Saxony. In the Free State of Bavaria, it is a school holiday only.
The Wiesbaden Region was one of three administrative regions from which the state of Hesse was formed in 1945.
The Hessian Central State Archives, Wiesbaden is a department of the Hessian State Archives and is located in Wiesbaden, the capital of the German state of Hesse. It serves alongside the Hessian State Archives, Darmstadt and the Hessian State Archives, Marburg as the main regional archives for Hesse and additionally functions as the central archives for the state government and ministries, as well as other institutions with nationwide jurisdiction.
