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The Grand Duchy of Hesse-DarmstadtI found the following Informative posting on the Butler-L mailing list last summer... I asked Ed Book for permission to use the posting here, which he graciously gave. If you have any questions or comments please contact him at [[email protected]]. The Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt was one of the the sovereign Rhineland principalities of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1871, Hesse-Darmstadt was included in the new German Empire that was created by Prussia. Although the Grand Duchy continued to exist as a member state and continued to be ruled by the Grand Dukes, it lost its sovereignty to the German Empire, which determined foreign policy, etc. Toward the end of World War I, the last Grand Duke, Ludwig Ernest, abdicated (as did the German Emperor), and the grand duchy became the state of Hesse in the German Republic. Hesse-Darmstadt had a complicated relationship with Hesse, Hesse-Cassel (Germ. Kassel), Hesse-Homburg, Hesse-Nassau, etc. Briefly, the Landgraviate of Hesse was formed in 1247. In 1567, Landgraf Philip divided his territory among his four sons, one of whom received the territory around the city of Darmstadt, and this son's family and territory were called Hesse-Darmstadt. Two of these four branches became extinct and their territory reverted to Hesse-Darmstadt and Hesse-Cassel, the other surviving branch. During the Napoleanic wars, Hesse-Darmstadt became a grand duchy (1806), while Hesse-Cassel became an electorate (1803). (To complicate matters even further, in 1622, an additional Hessian territory, Hesse-Homburg, had been formed from Hesse-Darmstadt, and it also survived until 1866 when it was absorbed by Prussia.) When the Prussians defeated Austria and formed the German Empire in 1871, Hesse-Darmstadt became the grand duchy of (and after WWI, the state of) Hesse in the German Empire/Republic, while the province of Hesse-Nassau of the Kingdom of Prussia was formed from the administrative union of the electorate of Hesse-Kassel, the duchy of Nassau, the free city of Frankfort, and some other territories. At the end of WWII, Hesse-Nassau and Hesse were combined into the modern state of Hesse (Germ. Hessen), although portions of the territory of Hesse-Nassau (Oberwesterwald, Unterwesterwald, Unterlahnkreis, and St. Goarshausen) were included in Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate.) Ed Book [[email protected]] This page was last updated on: ,
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