Hesse Hessen
—  State of Germany  —
Flag Coat of arms
Coordinates: 50°39′58″N 8°35′28″E / 50.66611°N 8.59111°E / 50.66611; 8.59111
Country	Germany
Capital	Wiesbaden
Government
• Minister-President	Volker Bouffier (CDU)
• Governing parties	CDU / FDP
• Votes in Bundesrat	5 (of 69)
Area
• Total	21,100 km2 (8,100 sq mi)
Population (2010-12-31)[1]
• Total	6,067,021
• Density	290/km2 (740/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
ISO 3166 code	DE-HE
GDP/ Nominal	€ 224.98 billion (2010[2])[citation needed]
GDP per capita	€ 37,045 (2010)
NUTS Region	DE7
Website	www.hessen.de

Hesse /ˈhɛs/ or Hessia (German: Hessen [ˈhɛsən], Hessian dialect: Hesse [ˈhɛzə]) is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.

• The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state. The oldest and second largest Hessian city, Mainz, is in Rhenish Hesse.
• The State of Hesse (German: Land Hessen, literally "Country of Hesse") is part of the larger cultural region. It has an area of 21,110 km² (8,150 sq mi) and just over six million inhabitants. The state capital is Wiesbaden. Hesse's largest city is Frankfurt am Main.

The English name "Hesse" comes from the Hessian dialect. The variant "Hessia" comes from the medieval latin Hassia. The German term Hessen is used by the European Commission, not because it is English, but because their general policy is to leave regional names untranslated (paragraphs 1.31 & 1.35).^[3] The term "Hesse" ultimately derives from a Germanic tribe called the Chatti, who settled in the region in the first century B.C.

An inhabitant of Hesse is called a Hessian (German: Hesse (masculine) or Hessin (feminine)) (see also Hessian (soldiers)).

History[link]

As early as the Paleolithic period, the Central Hessian region was inhabited. Due to the favorable climate of the location, people lived there about 50,000 years ago during the last glacial period, as burial sites show from this era. Finds of paleolitical tools in southern Hesse in Rüsselsheim suggest Pleistocene hunters about 13,000 years ago. The Züschen tomb (German: Steinkammergrab von Züschen, sometimes also Lohne-Züschen) is a prehistoric burial monument, located between Lohne and Züschen, near Fritzlar, Hesse, Germany. Classified as a gallery grave or a Hessian-Westphalian stone cist (hessisch-westfälische Steinkiste), it is one of the most important megalithic monuments in Central Europe. Dating to the late 4th millennium BC (and possibly remaining in use until the early 3rd), it belongs to the Late Neolithic Wartberg culture.

An early Celtic presence in what is now Hesse is indicated by a mid 5th century BC La Tène style burial uncovered at Glauberg. The region was later settled by the Germanic Chatti tribe in ca. the 1st century BC, and the name Hesse is a continuation of that tribal name.

The Romans had a military camp in Dorlar, and in Waldgirmes directly on the eastern outskirts of Wetzlar was a civil settlement under construction. Presumably, the provincial government for the occupied territories of the right bank of Germania was planned at this location. It is likely that the governor of Germania, at least temporarily, had resided here. The settlement appears to have been abandoned by the Romans after the devastating Battle of the Teutoburg Forest failed in the year 9 AD .The Chatti were also involved in the Revolt of the Batavi in the year 69 AD.

In the early Middle Ages, a Frankish gau comprising an area around Fritzlar and Kassel and a Saxon one further north were known as Hessengau. In the 9th century the Saxon Hessengau also came under the rule of the Franconians. In the 12th century it was passed to Thuringia.

In the War of the Thuringian Succession (1247–64), Hesse gained its independence and became a Landgraviate within the Holy Roman Empire. It shortly rose to primary importance under Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous, who was one of the leaders of German Protestantism. After Philip's death in 1567, the territory was divided up among his four sons from his first marriage (Philip was a bigamist) into four lines: Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Rheinfels and the also previously existing Hesse-Marburg. As the latter two lines died out quite soon (1583 and 1605, respectively), Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt were the two core states within the Hessian lands. Several collateral lines split off during the centuries, such as in 1622, when Hesse-Homburg split off from Hesse-Darmstadt. In the late 16th century, Kassel adopted Calvinism, while Darmstadt remained Lutheran and subsequently the two lines often found themselves on different sides of a conflict, most notably in the disputes over Hesse-Marburg and in the Thirty Years' War, when Darmstadt fought on the side of the Emperor, while Kassel sided with Sweden and France.

The Landgrave Frederick II (1720–1785) ruled as a benevolent despot, 1760-1785. He combined Enlightenment ideas with Christian values, cameralist plans for central control of the economy, and a militaristic approach toward diplomacy.^[4] He funded the depleted treasury of the poor nation by renting out 19,000 soldiers in complete military formations to Great Britain to fight in North America during the American Revolutionary War, 1776-1783. These soldiers, commonly known as Hessians, fought under the British flag. For further revenue the soldiers were rented out elsewhere as well. Most were conscripted, with their pay going to the Landgrave.

19th century[link]

Hesse-Kassel was elevated to the rank of an Electorate in 1803, but this remained without effect as the Holy Roman Empire was disbanded in 1806. The territory was annexed by the Kingdom of Westphalia in 1806, but restored to the Elector in 1813. While other Electors had gained other titles, becoming either Kings or Grand-dukes, the Elector of Hesse-Kassel alone retained the anachronistic dignity. The name survived in the term Kurhessen, denoting the region around Kassel. In 1866 it was annexed by Prussia, together with the Free City of Frankfurt, Hesse-Homburg and the duchy of Nassau, which established the province of Hesse-Nassau.

Hesse-Darmstadt was elevated to the rank of a Grand Duchy in 1806. In the War of 1866, it fought on the side of Austria against Prussia, but retained its autonomy in defeat, because a greater part of the country was situated south of the Main river and Prussia did not dare to expand beyond the Main line as this might have provoked France. But the parts of Hesse-Darmstadt north of the Main river (the region around the town of Gießen, commonly called Oberhessen) were incorporated in the Norddeutscher Bund, a tight federation of German states, established by Prussia in 1867. In 1871 the rest of the Grand Duchy joined the German Empire. Around the turn of the century, Darmstadt was one of the centres of the Jugendstil.

Until 1907, the Grand Duchy of Hesse used only the Hessian red and white lion as its coat-of-arms

20th century[link]

The revolution of 1918 transformed Hesse-Darmstadt from a monarchy to a republic, which officially renamed itself to "Volksstaat Hessen" (People's State of Hesse). The parts of Hesse-Darmstadt on the western banks of the Rhine (province Rheinhessen) were occupied by French troops until 1930 under the terms of the Versailles peace treaty that officially ended WWI in 1919.

After World War II the Hessian territory left of the Rhine was again occupied by France, whereas the rest of the country was part of the US occupation zone. The French separated their part of Hesse from the rest of the country and incorporated it into the newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz). The United States, on the other side, proclaimed the state of Greater Hesse (Groß-Hessen) on 19 September 1945, out of Hesse-Darmstadt and most of the former Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau. On December 4, 1946 Groß-Hessen was officially renamed Hessen.^[5]

Geography[link]

The most important rivers, mountains, and cities of Hesse

Situated in west-central Germany, Hesse state borders the German states of (starting in the north and proceeding clockwise) Lower Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia.

The principal cities of Hesse include Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Offenbach, Hanau, Gießen, Wetzlar, and Limburg in the greater Rhine Main Area, Fulda in the east, and Kassel and Marburg an der Lahn in the north.

The most important rivers in Hesse are the Fulda and Eder rivers in the north, the Lahn in the central part of Hesse, and the Main and Rhine in the south. The countryside is hilly and there are numerous mountain ranges, including the Rhön, the Westerwald, the Taunus, the Vogelsberg, the Knüll and the Spessart.

Most of the population of Hesse is in the southern part of Hesse in the Rhine Main Area. The Rhine borders Hesse on the southwest without running through the state, only one old arm – the so-called Alt-Rhein – runs through Hesse. The mountain range between the Main and the Neckar river is called the Odenwald. The plain in between the rivers Main, Rhine and Neckar, and the Odenwald mountains is called the Ried.

Hesse is the greenest state in Germany.^[6] Forest covers 42% of the state.^[6]

Administration of the State of Hesse[link]

Wiesbaden

Frankfurt am Main

Kassel

Offenbach am Main

Hesse is divided into 21 districts and 5 independent cities (with their abbreviations, as used on vehicle number plates):

Independent cities:

1. Darmstadt (DA)
2. Frankfurt am Main (F)
3. Kassel (KS)
4. Offenbach am Main (OF)
5. Wiesbaden (WI)

Rhenish Hesse[link]

Rhenish Hesse (German: Rheinhessen) refers to the part of the former Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt located west of the Rhine river and now part of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is a hilly countryside largely devoted to vineyards; therefore, it is also called the "land of the thousand hills." Its larger towns include Mainz, Worms, Bingen, Alzey, Nieder-Olm and Ingelheim. Many inhabitants commute to work in Mainz, Wiesbaden, or Frankfurt.

Administration of Rhenish Hesse[link]

Rhenish Hesse contains a number of municipalities and has no specific overall government. It was previously part of the government area of Rheinhessen-Pfalz. However, the state of Rheinland-Palatinate no longer uses this area for administrative purposes.

Politics[link]

The Politics of Hesse takes place within a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the Federal Government of Germany exercises sovereign rights with certain powers reserved to the states of Germany including Hesse. The state has a multi-party system where the two main parties were long the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the leftist Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). However, this changed in 2009, when support for the SPD collapsed after a political crisis in 2008. There are now five parties in the Hesse Landtag.

Most recent state election[link]

Although the government under Minister-President, Roland Koch (CDU), lost their majority in the state diet Landtag of Hesse following the 2008 Landtag election, their rival parties were unable to form a government. A snap election was held in 2009, which enabled the CDU again to form a government with the FDP. In May 2010, Koch announced his resignation from the post of Minister-President as well as his retirement from politics. His successor is Volker Bouffier.

The party strengths in the 2009 election were as follows:

Turnout was at 61.0%, down from 64.3% in 2008. 61.0% marks the lowest turnout for a Landtag election in Hesse's history. Only the non-binding 1946 election (while Hesse was still under military occupation) had a lower turnout.

Culture[link]

The cultural region of Hesse extends into Rhenish Hesse which is in Rhineland-Palatinate. The oldest and second largest Hessian city of Mainz is in Rhenish Hesse. The locals speak a Rhine Franconian dialect known as Hessisch.

Religion[link]

According to the most recent data, 40.8% of the population of Hesse belongs to the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau, a member of the Evangelical Church in Germany, while 25.4% adheres to the Roman Catholic Church. One-third of the state's population belongs to other faiths or is unaffiliated. Minority faiths include Islam and Buddhism.

State anthem[link]

The official anthem of Hesse is called "Hessenlied" (Song of Hesse), and was written by Albrecht Brede (music) and Carl Preser (lyrics).

TV and radio stations[link]

Hessischer Rundfunk (HR) is the main ARD broadcaster in Hesse, providing a statewide TV programme as well as its regional radio stations (HR 1, HR 2, HR 3, HR 4, you fm and HR info). Other than HR, ZDF and other privately run TV stations flourish. Among the commercial radio stations that are active in Hesse are Hit Radio FFH, Planet Radio, Harmony FM, Radio BOB and Main FM.

Economy[link]

Hesse is one of the largest and healthiest economies in Germany. Its GDP in 2010 exceeded 225 billion Euros (about 296 bn US$).^[7] This makes Hesse itself one of the largest economies in Europe and the 31st largest in the world.^[8] Some large companies headquarted in Hesse include Opel, Merck, Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Fraport, Fresenius, Sanofi Aventis, Procter & Gamble, B. Braun and Deutsche Börse. After figures among the GDP per capita, Hesse is the wealthiest State in Germany.

Traffic and public transportation[link]

Hesse has one of the best transportation networks in Europe. Many trans-European and German motorways, high-speed train, and waterways lines cross Hesse. Frankfurt International Airport is Germany's largest and Europe's third largest airport (after London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle). Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof is Germany's second busiest railway station by passengers but the busiest in terms of traffic.^{[citation needed]}

Motorways[link]

Hesse has a dense highway network with a total of 24 motorways. The internationally important motorway routes through Hesse are the A3, A5, and A7. Close to the airport of Frankfurt is the Frankfurter Kreuz, Germany's busiest and one of Europe's busiest motorway junction, where the motorways A3 (Arnhem-Cologne-Frankfurt-Nuremberg-Passau) and A5 (Hattenbach-Frankfurt-Karlsruhe-Basel) intersect. The A5 becomes as large as 4 lanes in each direction near the city of Frankfurt am Main. During the rush-hour its possible to use the emergency lanes on the A3 and A5 motorway in the Rhine-Main Region. In fact of this, the Motorways had 4 lanes in each direction.

Death penalty[link]

The Hessian constitution was written in 1946, and Article 21 permits the use of the death penalty,^[9] but is no longer applied. All uses of capital punishment in Germany are forbidden by the 1949 Federal Grundgesetz (basic law), which supersedes all state laws such as the Hessian constitution by the principle of "Bundesrecht bricht Landesrecht" ('Federal law breaks state law').^[10]

Article 21 of the Hessian constitution[link]

Original text:

1. "Ist jemand einer strafbaren Handlung für schuldig befunden worden, so können ihm auf Grund der Strafgesetze durch richterliches Urteil die Freiheit und die bürgerlichen Ehrenrechte entzogen oder beschränkt werden. Bei besonders schweren Verbrechen kann er zum Tode verurteilt werden."
2. "Die Strafe richtet sich nach der Schwere der Tat."
3. "Alle Gefangenen sind menschlich zu behandeln. "

English translation:

1. "If somebody has been found guilty for a punishable act his freedom and civil rights can be deprived or limited by a judicial sentence based on the penal laws. In case of notably serious crimes he can be sentenced to death."
2. "Sentence is determined by the seriousness of crime."
3. "All prisoners are to be treated with humanity."

Article 102 of the Grundgesetz[link]

Original text:

"Die Todesstrafe ist abgeschafft."

English translation:

"Death penalty is abolished."

Public discussion in Hesse[link]

There is still a public discussion in Hesse about abolishing death penalty. Some people think that Article 21 of the Hessian constitution should be ceased (if there is no death penalty at all it cannot be administered at all). Removing the death penalty from the Hessian constitution requires a referendum in Hesse. Bavaria held a referendum in 1998 and successfully removed the death penalty from its constitution and the Saarland removed the passage concerning the death penalty on reunion with Germany in 1956.

See also[link]

Germany portal

• Landgraviate of Hesse
• Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt
• Hesse-Kassel
• Hessische Bergstrasse
• List of mountains in Hesse

References[link]

1. ^ "Die Bevölkerung der hessischen Gemeinden" (in German). Hessisches Statistisches Landesamt. June 2011. http://www.statistik-hessen.de/static/publikationen/A/AI2_AII_AIII_AV_10-1hj_pdf.zip. 
2. ^ (German) "Bruttoinlandsprodukt". Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnungen. Statistische Ämter des Bundes und der Länder. 2011. http://vgrdl.de/Arbeitskreis_VGR/tbls/tab01.asp. Retrieved 22 May 2011. 
3. ^ European Commission English Style Guide, http://ec.europa.eu/translation/writing/style_guides/english/style_guide_en.pdf
4. ^ Charles W. Ingrao, The Hessian Mercenary State: Ideas, Institutions, and Reform under Frederick II, 1760-1785 (2003)
5. ^ "Hessen - 60 stolze Jahre - Zeittafel 1945/1946". http://60stolzejahre.hessen.de/dynasite.cfm?dssid=77&dsmid=1898. Retrieved 2006-12-01. 
6. ^ ^{a b} "Our State". State of Hesse. http://www.hessen.eu/irj/hessen_en_Internet?cid=42734bf7b41385446b3a113d3314add9. Retrieved 14 April 2011. 
7. ^ (German) "Bruttoinlandsprodukt". Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnungen. Statistische Ämter des Bundes und der Länder. 2011. http://vgrdl.de/Arbeitskreis_VGR/tbls/tab01.asp. Retrieved 22 May 2011. 
8. ^ See the list of countries by GDP (nominal).
9. ^ Hessian constitution (in German)
10. ^ Grundgesetz (in German)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hessen

• Official government portal
• Wiki about Hesse in Hessian language
• "Hesse". Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07298c.htm. 
• Geographic data related to Hesse at OpenStreetMap

v t e States of the Federal Republic of Germany States  Baden-Württemberg (since 1952)  Bavaria (since 1949)  Brandenburg (since 1990)  Hesse (since 1949)  Lower Saxony (since 1949)  Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (since 1990)  North Rhine-Westphalia (since 1949)  Rhineland-Palatinate (since 1949)  Saarland (since 1957)  Saxony (since 1990)  Saxony-Anhalt (since 1990)  Schleswig-Holstein (since 1949)  Thuringia (since 1990) City-states  Berlin (since 1990)  Bremen (since 1949)  Hamburg (since 1949) Former states  Baden (south) (1949–1952)  Württemberg-Baden (1949–1952)  Württemberg-Hohenzollern (1949–1952)

v t e Urban and rural districts in the state of Hesse in Germany Urban districts Darmstadt Frankfurt Kassel Offenbach Wiesbaden Rural districts Bergstraße Darmstadt-Dieburg Fulda Gießen Groß-Gerau Hersfeld-Rotenburg Hochtaunuskreis Kassel Lahn-Dill-Kreis Limburg-Weilburg Main-Kinzig-Kreis Main-Taunus-Kreis Marburg-Biedenkopf Odenwaldkreis Offenbach Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis Schwalm-Eder-Kreis Vogelsbergkreis Waldeck-Frankenberg Werra-Meißner-Kreis Wetteraukreis

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Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse in 1927
Born	(1877-07-02)2 July 1877 Calw, Württemberg, Germany
Died	9 August 1962(1962-08-09) (aged 85) Montagnola, Switzerland
Occupation	Novelist, short story author, essayist, poet
Nationality	German, Swiss
Period	1904–1953
Genres	Fiction
Notable work(s)	The Glass Bead Game, Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha
Notable award(s)	Nobel Prize in Literature 1946
Influences Plato, Spinoza, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, J.P. Jacobsen, Burckhardt, Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophy, Carl Jung[1]
Signature

Hermann Hesse (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛɐ̯man ˈhɛsə]; July 2, 1877 – August 9, 1962) was a German poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game (also known as Magister Ludi), each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality.

Biography[link]

Family background[link]

Hermann Hesse was born on 2 July 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw in Württemberg, Germany. Both of Hesse's parents served in India at a mission under the auspices of the Basel Mission, a Protestant Christian missionary society. Hesse's mother, Marie Gundert, was born at such a mission in India in 1842. In describing her own childhood, she said, "A happy child I was not..." As was usual among missionaries at the time, she was left behind in Europe at the age of four when her parents went to India.^[2] In her teens she attempted to rebel against her authoritarian father, Hermann Gundert, but finally submitted.^[3]

Hesse's father, Johannes Hesse, the son of a doctor, was born in 1847 in the Estonian town of Paide (Weissenstein). In his own way, Dr Hesse was just as tyrannical as Dr Gundert.^[4] Once Johannes Hesse was married, he moved into his father-in-law's house. Due at least in part to the crowded conditions there, in 1889 he suffered his first bout of deep depression. He continued to have such attacks of "melancholia, weeping and headaches" for the rest of his life.^[5]

Since Johannes Hesse belonged to the sizable German minority in that part of the Baltic region, which was then under the rule of the Russian Empire, his son Hermann was at birth both a citizen of the German Empire and of the Russian Empire.^[6] Hesse had five siblings, two of whom died in infancy. In 1873, the Hesse family moved to Calw, where his father worked for the Calwer Verlagsverein, a publishing house specializing in theological texts and schoolbooks. Hesse's grandfather Hermann Gundert managed the publishing house at the time, and Johannes Hesse succeeded him in 1893.

Hesse grew up in a Swabian Pietist household, with its strong tendency to insulate believers into small, deeply thoughtful groups. Furthermore, Hesse described his father's Baltic German heritage as "an important and potent fact" of his developing identity. His father, Hesse stated, "always seemed like a very polite, very foreign, lonely, little-understood guest."^[7] His father's tales from Estonia instilled a contrasting sense of religion in young Hermann. "[It was] an exceedingly cheerful, and, for all its Christianity, a merry world... We wished for nothing so longingly as to be allowed to see this Estonia ... where life was so paradisiacal, so colorful and happy." Hermann Hesse's sense of estrangement from the Swabian petty bourgeoisie further grew through his relationship with his grandmother Julie Gundert, née Dubois, whose French-Swiss heritage kept her from ever quite fitting in among that milieu.^[7]

From early on, Hermann Hesse appeared headstrong and hard for his family to handle. In a letter to her husband Johannes Hesse, Hermann's mother Marie wrote: "The little fellow has a life in him, an unbelievable strength, a powerful will, and, for his four years of age, a truly astonishing mind. How can he express all that? It truly gnaws at my life, this internal fighting against his tyrannical temperament, his passionate turbulence [...] God must shape this proud spirit, then it will become something noble and magnificent -- but I shudder to think what this young and passionate person might become should his upbringing be false or weak."^[8]

Hesse's birthplace, 2007

Hesse showed signs of serious depression as early as his first year at school.^[9]

In his juvenilia collection Gerbersau, Hesse vividly describes experiences and anecdotes from his childhood and youth in Calw: the atmosphere and adventures by the river, the bridge, the chapel, the houses leaning closely together, hidden nooks and crannies, as well as the inhabitants with their admirable qualities, their oddities, and their idiosyncrasies. The fictional town of Gerbersau is pseudonymous for Calw, imitating the real name of a nearby town called Hirsau. It is derived from the German words gerber, meaning "tanner," and aue, meaning "meadow."^[10] Calw had a centuries-old leather-working industry, and during Hesse's childhood the tanneries' influence on the town was still very much in evidence.^[11] Hesse's favorite place in Calw was the St. Nicholas-Bridge (Nikolausbrücke), which is why the Hesse monument by the sculptor Kurt Tassotti was erected there in 2002.

Hermann Hesse's grandfather Hermann Gundert, a doctor of philosophy and fluent in multiple languages, encouraged the boy to read widely, giving him access to his library, which was filled with the works of world literature. All this instilled a sense in Hermann Hesse that he was a citizen of the world. His family background became, he noted, "the basis of an isolation and a resistance to any sort of nationalism that so defined my life."^[7]

Young Hesse shared a love of music with his mother. Both music and poetry were important in his family. His mother wrote poetry, and his father was known for his use of language in both his sermons and the writing of religious tracts. His first role model for becoming an artist was his half-brother, Theo, who rebelled against the family by entering a music conservatory in 1885.^[12] Hesse showed a precocious ability to rhyme, and by 1889-90 had decided that he wanted to be a writer.^[13]

Education[link]

In 1881, when Hesse was four, the family moved to Basel, Switzerland, staying for six years and then returning to Calw. After successful attendance at the Latin School in Göppingen, Hesse began to attend the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Maulbronn Abbey in 1891. Here, in March 1892, Hesse showed his rebellious character, and, in one instance, he fled from the Seminary and was found in a field a day later. Hesse began a journey through various institutions and schools and experienced intense conflicts with his parents. In May, after an attempt at suicide, he spent time at an institution in Bad Boll under the care of theologian and minister Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt. Later, he was placed in a mental institution in Stetten im Remstal, and then a boys' institution in Basel. At the end of 1892, he attended the Gymnasium in Cannstatt. In 1893, he passed the One Year Examination, which concluded his schooling. The same year, he began hanging out with older companions and took up drinking and smoking.^[14]

After this, Hesse began a bookshop apprenticeship in Esslingen am Neckar, but quit after three days. Then, in the early summer of 1894, he began a 14-month mechanic apprenticeship at a clock tower factory in Calw. The monotony of soldering and filing work made him resolve to turn himself toward more spiritual activities. In October 1895, he was ready to begin wholeheartedly a new apprenticeship with a bookseller in Tübingen. This experience from his youth he returns to later in his novel Beneath the Wheel.

Becoming a writer[link]

Modern Book Printing from the Walk of Ideas in Berlin, Germany

On 17 October 1895, Hesse began working in the bookshop in Tübingen, which had a specialized collection in theology, philology, and law.^[15] Hesse's tasks consisted of organizing, packing, and archiving the books. After the end of each twelve-hour workday, Hesse pursued his own work further, and he spent his long, idle Sundays with books rather than friends. Hesse studied theological writings and later Goethe, Lessing, Schiller, and several texts on Greek mythology. He also began reading Nietzsche in '95,^[16] and that philosopher's ideas of "dual...impulses of passion and order" in humankind was a heavy influence on most of his novels.^[17]

By 1898, Hesse had a respectable income that enabled financial independence from his parents. During this time, he concentrated on the works of the German Romantics, including much of the work from Clemens Brentano, Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, Friedrich Hölderlin and Novalis. In letters to his parents, he expressed a belief that "the morality of artists is replaced by aesthetics."

During this time, he was introduced to the home of Fraulein von Reutern, a friend of his family. There he met with young people of his own age. His relationships with his contemporaries was "problematic," in that most of them were now at university. This usually left him feeling awkward in social situations.^[18]

In 1896, his poem "Madonna" appeared in a Viennese periodical. In the autumn, Hesse released his first small volume of poetry, Romantic Songs. In 1897, a published poem of his, "Grand Valse," drew him a fan letter. It was from Helene Voigt, who the next year married Eugen Diederichs, a young publisher. To please his wife, Diederichs agreed to publish Hesse's collection of prose entitled One Hour After Midnight in 1898 (although it is dated 1899).^[19] Both works were a business failure. In two years, only 54 of the 600 printed copies of Romantic Songs were sold, and One Hour After Midnight received only one printing and sold sluggishly. Furthermore, Hesse "suffered a great shock" when his mother disapproved of "Romantic Songs" on the grounds that they were too secular and even "vaguely sinful."^[20]

From the autumn of 1899, Hesse worked in a distinguished antique book shop in Basel. Through family contacts, he stayed with the intellectual families of Basel. In this environment with rich stimuli for his pursuits, he further developed spiritually and artistically. At the same time, Basel offered the solitary Hesse many opportunities for withdrawal into a private life of artistic self-exploration, journeys and wanderings. In 1900, Hesse was exempted from compulsory military service due to an eye condition. This, along with nerve disorders and persistent headaches, affected him his entire life.

In 1901, Hesse undertook to fulfill a long-held dream and travelled for the first time to Italy. In the same year, Hesse changed jobs and began working at the antiquarium Wattenwyl in Basel. Hesse had more opportunities to release poems and small literary texts to journals. These publications now provided honorariums. His new bookstore agreed to publish his next work, Posthumous Writings and Poems of Hermann Lauscher.^[21] In 1902, his mother died after a long and painful illness. He could not bring himself to attend her funeral, afraid that it would worsen his depression.^[22]

Due to the good notices he received for Lauscher, the publisher Samuel Fischer became interested in Hesse^[23] and, with the novel Peter Camenzind, which appeared first as a pre-publication in 1903 and then as a regular printing by Fischer in 1904, came a breakthrough: from now on, Hesse could make a living as a writer. The novel became popular throughout Germany.^[24] Sigmund Freud "praised Peter Camenzind as one of his favorite readings."^[25]

Between Lake Constance and India[link]

Hesse's writing desk, pictured at the Museum Gaienhofen

With the literary fame, Hesse married Maria Bernoulli (of the famous family of mathematicians^[26]) in 1904, settled down with her in Gaienhofen on Lake Constance, and began a family, eventually having three sons. In Gaienhofen, he wrote his second novel, Beneath the Wheel, which was published in 1906. In the following time, he composed primarily short stories and poems. His story "The Wolf," written in 1906-07, was "quite possibly" a foreshadowing of Steppenwolf.^[27]

His next novel, Gertrude, published in 1910, revealed a production crisis, he had to struggle through writing it, and he later would describe it as "a miscarriage". Gaienhofen was the place where Hesse's interest in Buddhism was re-sparked. Following a letter to Kapff in 1895 entitled Nirvana, Hesse had ceased alluding to Buddhist references in his work. In 1904, however, Arthur Schopenhauer and his philosophical ideas started receiving attention again, and Hesse discovered theosophy. Schopenhauer and theosophy renewed Hesse's interest in India. Although it was many years before the publication of Hesse's Siddhartha (1922), this masterpiece was to be derived from these new influences.

During this time, there also was increased dissonance between him and Maria, and in 1911 Hesse left for a long trip to Sri Lanka and Indonesia. He also visited Sumatra, Borneo, and Burma, but "the physical experience... was to depress him."^[28] Any spiritual or religious inspiration that he was looking for eluded him, but the journey made a strong impression on his literary work. Following Hesse's return, the family moved to Bern (1912), but the change of environment could not solve the marriage problems, as he himself confessed in his novel Rosshalde from 1914.

During the First World War[link]

At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Hesse registered himself as a volunteer with the Imperial army, saying that he could not sit inactively by a warm fireplace while other young authors were dying on the front. He was however, found unfit for combat duty, but was assigned to service involving the care of war prisoners.^[29] In September 1914, Hesse wrote an essay entitled "O Friends, Not These Tones" ("O Freunde, nicht diese Töne"),^[a] which was published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, on November 3.^[30] In this essay he appealed to German intellectuals not to fall for patriotism.^[30] He called for subdued voices and a recognition of Europe's common heritage.^[31] What followed from this, Hesse later indicated, was a great turning point in his life: For the first time, he found himself in the middle of a serious political conflict, attacked by the German press, the recipient of hate mail, and distanced from old friends. He did receive continued support from his friend Theodor Heuss, and the French writer Romain Rolland, who visited Hesse in August 1915.^[32] In 1917, Hesse wrote to Rolland, "The attempt...to apply love to matters political has failed."^[33]

This public controversy was not yet resolved when a deeper life crisis befell Hesse with the death of his father on 8 March 1916, the serious sickness of his son Martin, and his wife's schizophrenia. He was forced to leave his military service and begin receiving psychotherapy. This began for Hesse a long preoccupation with psychoanalysis, through which he came to know Carl Jung personally, and was challenged to new creative heights. During a three-week period in September and October 1917, Hesse penned his novel Demian, which would be published following the armistice in 1919 under the pseudonym Emil Sinclair.

Casa Camuzzi[link]

Hermann Hesse in 1925

By the time Hesse returned to civilian life in 1919, his marriage had shattered. His wife had a severe episode of psychosis, but, even after her recovery, Hesse saw no possible future with her. Their home in Bern was divided, and Hesse resettled alone in the middle of April in Ticino. He occupied a small farm house near Minusio (close to Locarno), living from 25 April to 11 May in Sorengo. On 11 May, he moved to the town Montagnola and rented four small rooms in a castle-like building, the Casa Camuzzi. Here, he explored his writing projects further; he began to paint, an activity reflected in his next major story, "Klingsor's Last Summer", published in 1920. In 1922, Hesse's novella Siddhartha appeared, which showed the love for Indian culture and Buddhist philosophy that had already developed in his earlier life. In 1924, Hesse married the singer Ruth Wenger, the daughter of the Swiss writer Lisa Wenger and aunt of Meret Oppenheim. This marriage never attained any stability, however.

In 1923, Hesse received Swiss citizenship. His next major works, Kurgast (1925) and The Nuremberg Trip (1927), were autobiographical narratives with ironic undertones and foreshadowed Hesse's following novel, Steppenwolf, which was published in 1927. In the year of his 50th birthday, the first biography of Hesse appeared, written by his friend Hugo Ball. Shortly after his new successful novel, he turned away from the solitude of Steppenwolf and married art historian Ninon Dolbin, née Ausländer. This change to companionship was reflected in the novel Narcissus and Goldmund, appearing in 1930. In 1931, Hesse left the Casa Camuzzi and moved with Ninon to a large house (Casa Hesse) near Montagnola, which was built according to his wishes.

In 1931, Hesse began planning what would become his last major work, The Glass Bead Game (aka Magister Ludi). In 1932, as a preliminary study, he released the novella Journey to the East. The Glass Bead Game was printed in 1943 in Switzerland. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946.