Hessen

Hessen (Hesse), a constituent state (Land) of the Federal Republic of Germany. Frankfurt am Main is the largest city, but the capital is Wiesbaden, and the administrative centres of its two regions (Regierungsbezirke) are Kassel and Darmstadt, the seat of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung. Hesse emerged from the Middle Ages as an agglomeration of spiritual and temporal principalities. In the 16th c. it was nominally a landgravate, but was divided into the northern Hessen-Kassel and the southern Hessen-Darmstadt. Between these was the important free imperial city (Freie Reichsstadt) of Frankfurt. At the beginning of the 19th c. (1803) the northern (Hessen-Kassel) ruler was elevated to the rank of an Elector, a short-lived glory, for the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806. The Elector of Hesse, however, stuck to this title until his deposition and the annexation of his country by Prussia in 1886 G. Büchner was a sharp critic of the country's despotic rule (see also Hessische Landbote, Der). Nassau, Frankfurt, and the Landgravate of Hessen-Homburg (1622-1866, the home of H. von Kleist's Prinz Friedrich von Homburg) were similarly annexed, and the four territories combined to make the Prussian province of Hessen-Nassau. The southern state Hessen-Darmstadt escaped the fate of Hessen-Kassel through its situation south of the Main, and so retained its identity and semi-independence as the Grand Duchy of Hesse (Großfürstentum Hessen). Its ruler abdicated in 1918, but it survived as a Land from 1919 to 1945. The fragments were reunited to make in 1949 the Land Hessen of the Federal Republic (see Bundesrepublik Deutschland). See also Marburg.