DEUTSCHLAND	GERMANY
Bundesland: Hessen	Hesse
Regierungsbezirk: Kassel
Kreis: Hersfeld-Rotenburg

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Bad Hersfeld is situated at an elevation of 212 m in the Hersfeld depression, which is formed where the river Haune flows into the river Fulda. Kassel, the centre of the eponymous administrative region, lies about 52 km to the northwest, Wiesbaden, the capital of Germany's state of Hesse about 136 km to the southwest. Bad Hersfeld is the administrative centre of the district Hersfeld-Rotenburg. The municipality has a population of about 30,700 (2022).

According to written tradition, the history of Bad Hersfeld began with the monk Sturmius, who built a monastic hermitage in Haerulfisfelt in 736 (or, more likely in 742/743), and with Lullus, who founded the Benedictine monastery of Hersfeld in the same place in 769. Sturmius later became the first abbot of the monastery at Fulda, Lullus was the first abbot of Hersfeld and the first archbishop of Mainz. Both were disciples of Saint Bonifatius (Boniface). Archeological finds, however, show that the history of human settlements certainly goes back to at least the late Stone Ages. Hersfeld was first mentioned as a market town in 1142 and as a town in 1170, at a time where the importance of Hersfeld Abbey had its greatest historical importance. In the centuries that followed, the Abbey's might ebbed as after the Great Interregnum (1254–1273) it could no longer enjoy the Holy Roman Emperor’s support. Beginning in 1373, the Landgraviate of Hesse acquired influence over the town through defensive alliances. As a consequence of the German Peasants' War in 1525, great parts of the town and the Abbey passed to Hesse. In 1606, the last abbot died and in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Imperial Abbey, raised to Electorate, was awarded to the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel. Hersfeld, now a worldly electorate, henceforth belonged to Hesse-Kassel. In 1821, Hersfeld became the seat of the Hersfeld district in the Electorate of Hesse. Hersfeld was linked to the railway network in 1866. Since 1949, the official name of the town is Bad Hersfeld in recognition of its role as a spa town, and in 1963 it was recognised as a Hessian State Spa, which was municipalized in 2006.

The sanatorium Wigbertshöhe [left, no. 4546] opened in 1906. In 1978 it became a specialist clinic for psychosomaticall oriented therapy for patents afflicted by addition and since 1978 operates as one of the Median Clinics network.

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Hersfeld, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Hersfeld; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_der_Stadt_Bad_Hersfeld; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmius, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lullus_(Erzbischof_von_Mainz); https://konradlipphardt.hier-im-netz.de/dat2.htm, https://www.median-kliniken.de/de/median-klinik-wigbertshoehe/ueber-uns/]