Modem Industry with a Long Tradition : Hesse in Germany

Together with the e metropolis Frankfurt (650,000 inhabitants), branches of industry - the chemical, vehicle, -chamcal engineering and electrical industries -have been instrumental in propelling this state to a position of economic strength: Hesse’s per-capita gross domestic product is approximately DM 57,000. With their chemical products, pharmaceuticals, dyes, or assembly components for the computer industry, firms such as Hoechst, Degussa and Rutgers in Frankfurt or Merck in Darmstadt are fixtures in the world’s markets just like the Opel main plant in Russelsheim, the Volkswagen plant in Baunatal and the Thyssen-Hen-schel-Werke (machinery and transport technology) in Kassel (202,000 inhabitants).

Teves in Frankfurt produces asbestos-free brake linings used by vehicle manufacturers worldwide; VOD is the world’s secondLargest producer of automobile instruments and electronic regulation and control instruments for vehicle engineering. Honeywell in Offenbach (117,000 inhabitants) produces electronic measurement and control systems for climate control engineering.

Crucial to Hesse’s economic success is the state’s central location with its many junctions of air, rail and waterway traffic. The Rhine-Main Airport is one of the most important traffic hubs in Europe. With about 52,000 employees it has meanwhile become the largest local employer in Germany - and is still growing.

Research scientists and inventors from what is now the state of Hesse laid the foundations for entire branches of industry and new technologies with their trailblaz-ing discoveries and inventions. The Darmstadt chemist Justus Liebig developed the chemical fertilization of agricultural plants around 1840. The Gelnhausen physicist Johann Philipp Reis constructed the first electric telephone in 1861. Television and modern communications technology can be traced back to the invention of the electron tube by the Nobel Prize laureate Karl Ferdinand Braun of Fulda. Konrad Zuse, a resident of Bad Hersfeld, developed the first computer.