Großalmerode

Großalmerode (German pronunciation: [ˌɡʁoːsʔalməˈʁoːdə] ^ⓘ; or Grossalmerode) is a town in the Werra-Meißner-Kreis in Hesse, Germany.

The small town, which has had town rights since 1775, lies 21 km east of Kassel in the Meißner-Kaufunger Wald Nature Park on the river Gelster. Here the constituent community of Laudenbach can also be found, in the Kaufunger Wald (range) between the Steinberg or Bilstein in the northwest and the Hirschberg in the southwest. Not far to the southeast stands the highest mountain in northeast Hesse, the Hoher Meißner.

These are Witzenhausen, Hessisch Lichtenau, Helsa, Bad Sooden-Allendorf and Berkatal.

Großalmerode’s Ortsteile are Weißenbach, Trubenhausen, Uengsterode, Rommerode, Laudenbach and Epterode. Also within town limits are Bransrode, Gut Giesenhagen and Faulbach, although these are not outlying centres, but rather officially parts of the main town.

In 1386, today’s Großalmerode had its first documentary mention as Almerode. Town rights, though, only came in 1775.

Ceramics manufacture in mediaeval Großalmerode was very advanced. The products (Hessian crucible) were exported worldwide for their high resistance to heat (1 100 to 1 200 °C).

At a gathering of the Christian Gemeinschaftsbewegung (“Fellowship Movement”) in 1907 there were ecstatic phenomena, the condemnation of which led to a rift between the Gemeinschaftsbewegung and the Pentecostal movement in 1909, through the so-called Berlin Declaration.

The municipal election held on 26 March 2006 yielded the following results: