Before 1969 - The academic prehistory of the University of Kassel

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  • The student movement and educational reform discussions lead to the development of comprehensive university concepts nationwide

  • In a resolution, the Kassel city council demands: Kassel should become the site of a university of science and technology. In 1969, it awards a research contract for the selection of a location.


  • The State Higher Business School (HWF) is opened.


  • Mayor Dr. Karl Branner calls for a university for Kassel.


  • The State Engineering School for Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, renamed the State Engineering School for Mechanical Engineering Kassel in 1963, is founded


  • Reopening of the Academy of Fine Arts as the State Academy of Fine Arts, from 1960 as the State Academy of Fine Arts (Werkakademie), in 1968 it becomes the University of Fine Arts (HbK)

  • The State School of Crafts and Arts resumes its work as the successor to the State Master School of the Designing Crafts, since 1950 as the Kassel State School of Crafts. In 1970, it is absorbed into the Hochschule für bildende Künste (HbK). The Technical School for Home Education and Technical School for Kindergarten Teachers is founded.


  • The Kassel State Building School reopens teaching after the war


  • For two years, a Pedagogical Academy operates in Kassel as a precursor to the Pedagogical Institute founded in 1947 and the Pedagogical Professional Institute (PFI) formed in 1963


  • Foundation of the higher educational institution for practical farmers. From 1935 it becomes Höhere Landbauschule, from 1966 Ingenieurschule für Landbau in Witzenhausen.


  • The Auguste-Förster-Haus opens its doors as a school for childcare workers: the starting point for the later Höhere Fachschule für Sozialarbeit (College for Social Work).


  • The Protestant Fröbelseminar in Kassel is established, from which the Protestant College for Social Pedagogy emerges in 1969.

  • The Deutsche Kolonialschule GmbH (German Colonial School) is founded in Witzenhausen, which provides agricultural training from 1919 as a college for domestic and foreign settlement. After the Second World War, the German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture and the German School of Engineering for Foreign Agriculture develop from this.


  • The Royal School of Building Trades is founded to train structural and civil engineers. It is renamed the State School of Construction in 1918 and the State Construction School in 1935.


  • The Municipal Conservatory - connected with a music seminary in 1939 and transformed into the Academy of Music in 1955 - starts its work

  • Plans to develop the Kassel Polytechnic into a technical university fail due to the city's financial involvement. The Prussian government founds a technical college in Aachen instead. The Gewerbliche Zeichenschule (Commercial Drawing School), expanded in 1881 to become the Zeichen- und Kunstgewerbeschule (Drawing and Applied Arts School), is established to train teachers, architects and craftsmen. Renamed the Royal School of Arts and Crafts in Kassel in 1903, it becomes the "Master School of German Crafts" in 1933 as the State School of Crafts. It is destroyed during the Second World War.


  • Kassel receives Germany's first polytechnic teaching institute. Its teachers include Woehler, Bunsen, Burhenne and Philippi. This marks the beginning of independent engineering education in Kassel.


  • Elector Wilhelm I arranges for the founding of a polytechnic school based on the Parisian "Ecole polytechnique".

  • Landgrave Friedrich II founds an art academy in Kassel, the Academie de Peinture et de Sculpture, which is expanded to include an architecture department in 1881. In 1918 it was renamed the State Academy of Art, and closed in 1932 in the wake of Brüning's emergency decrees.

  • Establishment of the "Collegium Carolinum", which is remodeled in 1766/67 along the lines of a university, with a focus on natural sciences, mathematics and medicine. Georg Forster taught here as professor of natural history, Simon Louis du Ry as professor of civil architecture.


  • The first Kassel University is founded. After the 30 Years' War, Marburg regains its university, the university in Kassel is dissolved again in 1653

  • With the "Collegium Adelphicum", an academic school for knights is established in Kassel. Kassel, as the residence of the landgraves, had already established a first academic institution - at that time for the sons of the nobility - at the end of the 16th century. Several other academies, one of the first polytechnics in Germany and other higher educational institutions are among the forerunners of the young University of Kassel, founded in 1971 as the Gesamthochschule Kassel. Under the umbrella of the Gesamthochschule Kassel, the higher educational institutions and universities of applied sciences that existed at the time were integrated and brought up to university standard, and new teaching and research areas and university buildings were created.

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