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The Hessians entered written history as a German tribe called the Chatti and pronounced "Hatti". We know of this tribe from Roman
sources
of late antiquity. From the ninth century B.C. they settled
along
the rivers Schwalm, Eder and lower Fulda, later pushing along the Lahn
River to the Rhine and into the Wetterau region, and up the Fulda River
as far as the hills of the Rhön River . Chatti villages have
been
excavated near Maden, Altenritte, Niederhone, Unterweissenborn, Wetzlar
and the Giessen city-owned forest. A fort of sorts, called
Altenburg
Fort by some today, near Niedenstein was their headquarters, not really
a town nor even a village, but a fenced-in area that was a place of
refuge which could provide shelter to many thousands of
people.
Such a structure is referred to by the Latin term Oppidum (plural Oppida).
The German tribes did not have villages, towns or cities as we know
them today. They had no urban infrastructure at
all. The
Altenberg Oppidum was probably destroyed and burned down by the Romans
in 15 A.D. in revenge for Chatti involvement in the battle of
Teutoberger Wald in which an entire Roman Legion was wiped
out.
With the retreat of the Romans behind the "Limes Linea", the fortified
border which protected Roman controlled lands from the German tribes,
all trace of the Chatti disappears into the darkness of history for
several hundred years. They did not reappear until the rule
of
the Franks from what is today France, began to spread across the region
where they were settled. This is when we find the first
recorded
mention of the name Hessians.
In 738, Pope Gregory III wrote,"To
all nobles and the people in the provinces of Germany, to the
Thuringians and Hessians...".
With the Franks came St. Boniface, who converted the still pagan
Hessians and Thuringians to Christianity. Throughout the
Middle
Ages the ties between Hesse (Hessen) and Thuringia remained very
close. It was the Landgrave of Thuringia ruled
Hesse. And
it was in the town of Marburg, in Hesse (Hessen), where Elizabeth of Thuringia founded a famous charity hospital. In 1264 Heinrich I, son of Sophie of Brabant and Elizabeth's grandson, was recognized as the first Landgrave of
Hesse (Hessen). Marburg became the first capital of Hesse
(Hessen) and it's Elizabeth Church simultaneously an important place of
pilgrimage.
However, the state only achieved any great significance in the
Reformation period, when Count Philip the Magnanimous (1504 -- 1567)
supported the rebellious monk Martin Luther and, in 1527, founded the
world's first protestant university in Marburg. Hesse became
an
important base for German Protestants. In 1567 the state was
divided between Phillip's heirs. As a consequence, for
centuries
there were two, and sometimes three, states of Hesse: Nassau,
Hessen-Kassel in the north, and Hessen-Darmstadt in the
south,
often in political opposition to one another. Even during the
Thirty Years' War, which cruelly devastated state, the two
Hessian states of the time were on different sides. In the
Austro-Prussian war of 1866 the two princes of Hesse (Hessen) supported
Austria -- and thus the loser. As a result, Hessen-Kassel,
Nassau
and the free Imperial city of Frankfurt were annexed by
Prussia.
The present federal states of Hesse (Hessen) was created by the US
occupying forces in 1945. On the advice of German historians,
Dwight D. Eisenhower, US commander in chief and military governor, and
his deputy Lucius D. Clay amalgamated the formerly independent
provinces of Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Kassel and Nassau.
Shortly
before hand, there had been a small but spectacular exchange of
territory in the north of Hesse (Hessen) between the US and Russian
occupation zones, with several villages being swapped on account of a
railway line. On February 4, 1946 the first refugee group
from
the east reached Weilburg. Many more were to
follow. In
1946 alone, Hesse had to "accommodate" 400,000 refugees and expelled
Germans from eastern parts of Germany that were taken over by the
Russians or their puppet states. In the course of time, this
number grew to 1.25 million refugees arriving in Hesse (Hessen)
alone. Emergency accommodation was provided, after which
housing
developments were built. The refugees found a new home in
Hesse
(Hessen) and help to build up the state and its economy.
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