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Darmstadt () is a city in the state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest city in the state of Hesse after Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, and Kassel.
Darmstadt holds the official title "City of Science" () as it is a major centre of scientific institutions, universities, and high-technology companies. The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and the European Space Agency's European Space Operations Centre (ESA ESOC) are located in Darmstadt, as well as GSI Centre for Heavy Ion Research, where several chemical elements such as bohrium (1981), meitnerium (1982), hassium (1984), darmstadtium (1994), roentgenium (1994), and copernicium (1996) were discovered. The existence of the following elements was also confirmed at GSI Centre for Heavy Ion Research: nihonium (2012), flerovium (2009), moscovium (2012), livermorium (2010), and tennessine (2012). The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) is an international accelerator facility under construction. Darmstadt is also the seat of the world's oldest pharmaceutical company, Merck Group, which is the city's largest employer.
The Mathildenhöhe, including the Darmstadt artists' colony, a major centre of the Jugendstil artistic movement, referring both to the group of artists active in the city in the late 19th and early 20th century, as well as the buildings which they designed, together with the Russian Chapel in Darmstadt, were recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2021.
Darmstadt was formerly the capital of a sovereign state, the Grand Duchy of Hesse and its successor, the People's State of Hesse, a federal state of Germany. As the capital of an increasingly prosperous duchy, the city gained some international prominence and remains one of the wealthiest cities in Europe. In the 20th century, industry (especially chemicals), as well as large science and electronics (and later, information technology) sectors became increasingly important, and are still a major part of the city's economy. It is also home to the football club SV Darmstadt 98. Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse), the wife of Nicholas II of Russia, as well as Maria Alexandrovna (Marie of Hesse), the wife of Alexander II of Russia, who were related, were born in this city.
Darmstadt was chartered as a city by the Holy Roman Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian in 1330, at which time it belonged to the counts of Katzenelnbogen. The city, then called Darmstait, became a secondary residence for the counts, with a small castle established at the site of the current, much larger edifice. Nebenresidenz Darmstadt (darmstait) (from the 'Graf v. Katzenelnbogen' website, in German. Retrieved 5 January 2008.)
When the house of Katzenelnbogen became extinct in 1479, the city was passed to the Landgraviate of Hesse, and was seat of the ruling (1567–1806) and thereafter (to 1918) of the grand dukes of Hesse.
In the early 20th century, Darmstadt was an important centre for the art movement of Jugendstil, the German variant of Art Nouveau. Also during this period, in 1912 the chemist Anton Kollisch, working for the pharmaceutical company Merck KGaA, first synthesised the chemical MDMA (ecstasy) in Darmstadt. Darmstadt's municipal area was extended in 1937 to include the neighbouring localities of Arheilgen and Eberstadt, and in 1938 the city was separated administratively from the surrounding district ( Kreis).
Several prominent members of the German resistance movement against the Nazis were citizens of Darmstadt, including Wilhelm Leuschner and Theodor Haubach, both executed for their opposition to Hitler's regime.
Darmstadt was first bombed on 30 July 1940, and 34 other air raids would follow before the war's end. The old city centre was largely destroyed in a British bombing raid on 11/12 September 1944. This attack was an example of "area bombing" using high explosive and incendiary bombs, which combined in that attack to create a firestorm, a self-sustaining combustion process in which winds generated by the fire ensure it continues to burn until everything possible has been consumed. During this attack, an estimated 11,000 to 12,500 of the inhabitants were killed, and 66,000 to 70,000 were left homeless. Over three-quarters of Darmstadt's inner city was destroyed. Darmstadt history (from the website of the Technical University of Darmstadt) Post-war rebuilding was done in a relatively plain architectural style, although a number of the historic buildings were rebuilt to their original appearance following the city's capture on 25 March 1945 by the American 4th Armored Division.
The roots of Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences goes back to 1876http://www2.h-da.de/mse/msc_brochure.pdf along with Technische Universität Darmstadt (the first electrical engineering chair and inventions fame), when both these Universities were an integrated entities, a need for a separate industry based research educational institution was felt in the early 1930s, finally University of Applied sciences emerged as a separate industry based research educational institution in 1971 and is the largest Fachhochschule in Hesse (German: Hessen) with about 16,500 students.
The TU Darmstadt is one of the important technical institutes in Germany and is well known for its research and teaching in the Electrical, Mechanical and Civil Engineering disciplines. Together with other tertiary institutions, the TU is responsible for the large student population of the city, which stood at 33,547 in 2004.
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| 1,673 |
| 1,322 |
| 1,138 |
| 1,078 |
| 1,034 |
The following is a list of mayors since 1945:
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! colspan=2| Party ! Lead candidate ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Seats ! +/- |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne) | align=left| Hildegard Förster-Heldmann | 1,151,498 | 27.4 | 2.3 | 20 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Social Democratic Party (SPD) | align=left| Tim Huß | 703,686 | 16.7 | 0.5 | 12 | ±0 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Christian Democratic Union (CDU) | align=left| Paul Georg Wandrey | 654,797 | 15.6 | 2.6 | 11 | 2 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| The Left (Die Linke) | align=left| Karl-Heinz Böck | 310,074 | 7.4 | 0.6 | 5 | ±0 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Volt Germany (Volt) | align=left| Nicolas Kämmerer | 289,023 | 6.9 | New | 5 | New |- | bgcolor=#448581| | align=left| UFFBASSE | align=left| Kerstin Lau | 269,301 | 6.4 | 1.3 | 5 | ±0 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Free Democratic Party (FDP) | align=left| Leif Blum | 234,121 | 5.6 | 0.3 | 4 | ±0 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alternative for Germany (AfD) | align=left| Günter Zabel | 191,982 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 3 | 4 |- | bgcolor=#A037A0| | align=left| UWiGA | align=left| Erich Bauer | 130,867 | 3.1 | 0.6 | 2 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Die PARTEI (PARTEI) | align=left| Holger Eisenblätter | 90,254 | 2.1 | 1.8 | 2 | 2 |- | bgcolor=#556B2F| | align=left| Voters' Association of Darmstadt (WGD) | align=left| Falk Neumann | 85,320 | 2.0 | New | 1 | New |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Free Voters (FW) | align=left| Harald Uhl | 79,293 | 1.9 | New | 1 | New |- | | align=left| Take Part in Darmstadt | align=left| Dorothea Mondry | 13,680 | 0.3 | New | 0 | New |- ! colspan=3| Valid votes ! 60,815 ! 96.6 ! ! ! |- ! colspan=3| Invalid votes ! 2,141 ! 3.4 ! ! ! |- ! colspan=3| Total ! 62,956 ! 100.0 ! ! 71 ! ±0 |- ! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout ! 115,119 ! 54.7 ! 6.9 ! ! |- | colspan=8| Source: Statistics Hesse |}
The Residential Palace Darmstadt (Stadtschloss) is located in the city centre. It was the residence of the counts of Hesse-Darmstadt, later as Grand Dukes of Hesse by the grace of Napoleon. The rulers of Hesse also owned Jagdschloss Kranichstein, a hunting lodge in Kranichstein which is a nowadays used as a five star hotel. The most famous castle in the Darmstadt region is Frankenstein Castle due to claims that the real castle may have had an influence on Mary Shelley's decision to choose the name Frankenstein for her monster-creating scientist. This castle dates back to the 13th century, but it was acquired by the counts of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1662.
Among the museums in Darmstadt the most important are the Hessisches Landesmuseum (Hessian State Museum), the Porcelain Museum (exhibition of the ducal porcelain), the Schlossmuseum (Palace Museum exhibiting the ducal residence and possessions), the Kunsthalle Darmstadt (exhibitions of modern art), the exhibition centre Mathildenhöhe, and the Museum Künstlerkolonie (Art Nouveau museum).
The Darmstadt Palace Museum collection showcases regional and royal history from the 16th until the early 20th Century. The Palace Museum consists of 16 showrooms.
The Jazz-Institut Darmstadt is Germany's largest publicly accessible jazz archive. Jazz-Institut Darmstadt (official institute website)
The Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, harboring one of the world's largest collections of post-war sheet music, also hosts the biennial Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, a summer school in contemporary classical music founded by Wolfgang Steinecke. A large number of avant-garde composers have attended and given lectures there, including Olivier Messiaen, Luciano Berio, Milton Babbitt, Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono, John Cage, György Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel, and Helmut Lachenmann.
The Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung provides writers and scholars with a place to research the German language. The academy's annual Georg Büchner Prize, named in memory of Georg Büchner, is considered the most prestigious literary award for writers of German language.
The Darmstadt weather station has recorded the following extreme values:
The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) of the European Space Agency is located in Darmstadt. From here, various deep-space exploration spacecraft and Earth-orbiting satellites are operated for the purposes of scientific research, and technology development and demonstration.
EUMETSAT, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, operates the principal European meteorological from its headquarters, including the first and second generations of Meteosat geostationary satellites, and the polar-orbiting Metop series.
Darmstadt is a centre for the pharmaceutical and chemical industry, with Merck, Röhm and Carl Schenck (part of The Dürr Group) having their main plants and centres here.
Darmstadt is also a centre for the IT and telecommunications industry, with companies like Software AG, T-Systems (laboratories in Darmstadt) and Deutsche Telekom (laboratories in Darmstadt).
ATHENE, formerly Center for Research in Security and Privacy (CRISP), is the national research center for IT security and privacy in Germany and the largest research center for IT security in Europe. The research center is located in Darmstadt and deals with key issues of IT security in the digitization of government, business and society.
The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence has a laboratory in Darmstadt.
The (hessian.AI) has its headquarters in Darmstadt.
Over the years, the U.S. military community Darmstadt – under a variety of designations such as the 440th Signal Battalion, served as home for thousands of American soldiers and their families. It included six principal installations in Darmstadt and nearby Babenhausen, Griesheim and Münster, plus several housing areas, an airfield and a large number of smaller facilities as far away as Bensheim and Aschaffenburg. The military newspaper European Stars and Stripes also had its headquarters there. As of 1993, the Darmstadt military community also assumed responsibility for the remaining U.S. Army facilities in the Frankfurt area.
As part of the U.S. Army's ongoing transformation in Germany, the Darmstadt military community, by then designated U.S. Army Garrison Darmstadt, inactivated on 30 September 2008. Even after the garrison inactivation, however, there is still one unit active in Darmstadt: The 66th Military Intelligence Group at the Dagger Complex on Eberstädter Weg. It draws its support from the nearby U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden. The U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden's website mentions the unit still being active in Darmstadt, and a Marine Corps company being stationed there as well. With the exception of Dagger Complex, all remaining US installations are now empty and closed to the public, pending property disposal by the German authorities.
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Education
Schools
The City of Darmstadt offers students a broad variety of public primary, secondary and tertiary schools. Besides them private schools exist, e.g. the catholic secondary school Edith-Stein-Schule, the Adventists' Schulzentrum Marienhöhe, an anthroposophic Waldorf school, a Comenius School and other faith based private schools.
Universities
TU Darmstadt
The Technical University of Darmstadt (), commonly referred to as TU Darmstadt, is a prestigious research university in Germany. It was founded in 1877 and received the right to award doctorates in 1899. In 1882 it was the first university in the world to set up a chair in electrical engineering, in 1883 the first faculty for electrical engineering was founded there. The university is organized in 13 departments and 5 fields of study, which all together offer about 100 courses of studies. The fields of study offer interdisciplinary degree courses in which students take lectures in multiple departments. The university, as its title suggests, offers degree courses in the fields of electrical, mechanical and civil engineering, architecture, computer science, mathematics and the natural sciences. It also offers courses in economics, law, history, politics, sociology, psychology, sport science and linguistics. It also offers degree courses for teaching positions at German vocational schools and Gymnasiums.
Hochschule Darmstadt
The Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences () has the highest number of industrial linkage programs, compared to the rest of the universities of applied sciences. The roots of University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt dates back to 1876. However, it has not emerged as a separate institution before 1971. As of 2017 it was the largest University of Applied Sciences in the State of Hesse, with about 16,000 students. It offers courses in architecture, chemical engineering, materials science, civil engineering, computer science, design, economics, electrical engineering and information technology, mathematics and science, mechanical engineering, media (including information science and engineering), plastics engineering, social and cultural studies, and several social sciences.
EHD Darmstadt
The Protestant University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt (EHD) is an officially recognised and Church-sponsored University. The sponsors are the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau, the Protestant Church of Kurhesse-Waldeck and the social welfare organisation of both Hessian Protestant Churches, the Diakonie Hesse. The EHD has approximately 1,700 students, 40 professors and 10 scientific employees and about 100 visiting lecturers every semester.
Sport
Football
The city's main professional club is the football club SV Darmstadt 98, who play at the Merck-Stadion am Böllenfalltor. Other, amateur football clubs are 1. FCA Darmstadt and Rot-Weiß Darmstadt.
Ice hockey
The Darmstadt Dukes (Eissportclub Darmstadt Dukes) is an ice hockey club. Their mens`s team is playing in the Hessenliga.
American football
The city is home to the Darmstadt Diamonds an american football team.
Institutions
Technology
Darmstadt is home to many research institutions such as the Fraunhofer Society (Fraunhofer IGD, Fraunhofer LBF, ) and the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI, "Society for heavy ion Research"), which operates a particle accelerator in northern Darmstadt. The GSI, amongst other elements, discovered the chemical element darmstadtium (atomic number: 110), named after the city in 2003. This makes Darmstadt one of several cities with elements named after them. Various other elements, including meitnerium (atomic number: 109) (1982), hassium (atomic number: 108) (1984), roentgenium (atomic number: 111) (1994) and copernicium (atomic number: 112) (1996) were also synthesized in the Darmstadt facility.
United States military presence
U.S. forces entered the city of Darmstadt on 25 March 1945. At the end of World War II, Darmstadt was among the 112 communities where U.S. forces were stationed. Early units stationed here included elements of the U.S. Constabulary, Air Force units and a Quartermaster School.
Tourist sights in Darmstadt
City
Region
Notable people
Sport
Twin towns – sister cities
Darmstadt is Sister city with:
See also
External links
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