Babenhausen, Hesse

the town in Unterallgäu

Babenhausen is a town in the Darmstadt Dieburg district, in Hesse, Germany.

It is situated on the river Gersprenz, 25 km southeast of Frankfurt, and 14 km west of Aschaffenburg. South of its general borders, the mountain range of the Odenwald is situated about 15 km away. The landscape is rather flat due to the landscape forming process of the Gersprenz and other small rivers. Some sections along the Gersprenz are set aside as nature reserves with valuable plants and animals, e. g. the white stork or the kingfisher. The forests in the municipal area are mostly pine woods on ice age dunes with heath fields. The sandy soil is regionally famous for growing white asparagus.

The town of Babenhausen includes a medieval core with a castle (12 13th century), numerous old houses and a large part of the city wall (1445). Babenhausen was chartered as a town in 1295. It belonged first to the Lords of Hanau Münzenberg and was – after the last male descendant of this family died inherited by the Lords of Hanau in the 13th century. In 1458 a minor line of them (first called Hanau Babenhausen, later called Hanau Lichtenberg) founded a county (they had received the title of Graf (Count) in 1429) on its own within the town and its district. In 1736 the last of the family died and the two potential inheritors, the Landgraves of Hesse Darmstadt and of Hesse Kassel (or Hesse Cassel) nearly went to war over it. It took 35 years to settle the conflict and to arrange a compromise under which the town of Babenhausen came to Hesse Kassel. But this was soon revised by the territorial rearrangements during and after Napoleonic times: From the beginning 19th century Babenhausen belonged to Hesse Darmstadt. In the aftermath of World War II Babenhausen was the site of a UNRRA sponsored DP camp.

Dominik Stadler (independent) was elected mayor in November 2020 with 54.9% of the votes.