Town builder, explorer, resistance fighter

But what exactly do the street names on the Holländischer Platz campus and the other university locations mean? Who were Nora Platiel and Heinrich Plett? What does Holländischer Platz have to do with Holland? These are the questions we answer in the first part of the series on street names at the University of Kassel.

Diagonal

One of the street names is easy to explain: Diagonale; affectionately called "Diagon Alley" by students. It connects Holländischer Platz with the  University Library and the Central Dining Hall. In doing so, it cuts diagonally through the campus, hence the name. Most of the other street names at the university locations are named after people who have left their mark in Kassel. The search for the meaning of the street names is therefore an exciting journey into Kassel's past.

Nora-Platiel-Strasse

Nora-Platiel-Straße runs from Henschelstraße on the western edge of the HoPla campus, past the AstA and the Department of Economics to the campus library. Nora-Platiel-Straße? You know it. Only a few know Nora Platiel herself. Wrongly so. She was a lawyer of the Jewish faith and a resistance fighter against  National Socialism. She was born Nora Block in Bochum in 1896. During her studies in Frankfurt and Göttingen, she became a member of the International Socialist Fighting League. She then completed her legal clerkship in Kassel in 1927. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, Nora Block fled to Paris, where she wrote for exile magazines. After the Wehrmacht occupied the country, she was interned, but managed to escape from the camp. She fled to Montabaun, France, where she met her future husband Herrmann Platiel, and from there to Switzerland. After the end of the war, Platiel returned to her homeland. In 1949, she moved to Kassel. Here she became a district court councilor and joined the SPD. In 1951 she became district court director. Between 1954 and 1966, she was a member of the Hessian state parliament. She then became a judge at the Hessian State Court. She worked for understanding between Germany and Israel and for the promotion of art and culture. However, she was particularly committed to women's rights. Nora Platiel died in Kassel in 1979. Visitors can see her grave of honor at Kassel's main cemetery.

Georg-Forster-Strasse

Georg-Forster-Strasse is not long. It runs from the Blaues Tor to the Ahne. Modest for a man whose life offers enough material for a thousand-page novel. Georg Forster lived from 1754 to 1794 and was a natural scientist, explorer, travel writer, ethnologist, translator and politician; all this in only 39 years of his life. At 13, he translated a Russian history book into English, his first book publication. At 17, he accompanied Captain James Cook on his second circumnavigation of the globe. In the
South Seas, he explored plant species as well as the native population with their way of life and language. With his "Voyage Around the World," an account of the circumnavigation of the globe, he became the founder of travel literature. In 1778, Forster came to Kassel as a respected researcher to teach natural history at the Collegium Carolinum; he later moved to the University in Vilnius. After his stay in the Baltic States, he accepted a position as senior librarian at the University of Mainz in 1788. This marked the beginning of his shift from research to politics. In Mainz, Forster experienced the French Revolution, initially as an observer. The city on the Rhine was occupied by French troops, with whose help the "Mainz Republic" was founded: a French daughter republic based on the values of the Revolution. Forster became vice-president of the administration of the young republic and wrote for the new Mainz newspaper. After the withdrawal of the French, the Holy Roman Emperor placed Forster under imperial guard. He went to France and was not allowed to return to his homeland. Forster died completely penniless in Paris in 1794. His legacy was long disputed. Discredited by Nazis and nationalists as a traitor to the fatherland, today he is considered an outstanding figure in the history of science. Every two years, the  University Society of Kassel awards the Georg Forster Prize for outstanding scientific or artistic work. The Kassel-based Georg Forster Society also cultivates the legacy of the famous discoverer.

Heinrich Plett Street

Heinrich-Plett-Strasse is one of the main thoroughfares of Kassel's Oberzwehren district. The campus of the Department 10 Mathematics and  Natural Sciences is located here. But who was Heinrich Plett? Plett was one of the best-known housing entrepreneurs of post-war Germany. Many streets in Germany where Plett's construction projects can be found are named after him today. Not only in the city on the Fulda River, but also in Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt and other cities, streets bear his name. Plett was born in Kassel in 1908. After school, he did a bank apprenticeship and worked as a bank clerk. At the age of 21, he took his Abitur and studied economics. During the Nazi era, the SPD sympathizer was arrested several times by the Gestapo. Nevertheless, during the war he managed a housing company that built apartments for sailors in Wehrmacht-occupied Gdingen near Danzig. Heinrich Plett only became known in the post-war period. By now a member of the SPD and a trade union official, in 1950 he became managing director of "Neue Heimat," a non-profit housing company owned by the
German Trade Union Federation. In this position, he realized several social housing projects throughout the Federal Republic. One of these is a high-rise housing development in Oberzwehren on the very street that now bears Plett's name.

Kurt-Wolters-Strasse

Kurt-Wolters-Straße runs south past the HoPla campus, from Weserstraße to Holländischer Platz. This is also the location of the "Glass Box," the representative glass building of the University of North Hesse. Kurt Wolters was born in 1907 in Alsace. He studied engineering at the Hanover Technical University. His name is closely associated with the reconstruction of the city of Kassel, which was destroyed after World War II. The civil engineer was head of Kassel's civil engineering office from 1951 to 1961. His work gave today's Kassel transportation network its face. His best-known project is probably the Altmarkt crossing between the Fulda Bridge and Kurt-Schumacher-Strasse. In its day, it was considered the "most modern street intersection in Europe." Kurt Wolters was never a member of the NSDAP, but he worked for the regime as a civil engineer: Among other things, he built a motor vehicle repair plant in the occupied Soviet Union during the war [Editor's note: It has been brought to our attention that Kurt Wolters was a member of the NSDAP, according to recent findings. "He was a member of the NSDAP since 1937, a member of the SA from November 1933 to January 1934 and February 1937 to August 1941, and promoted to Rottenführer of the SA in 1940." (A.Belke-Herwig and B.Orth. Mitläufer und Strategien der Selbstentlastung - Zum Umgang mit der nationalsozialistischen Zeit in der Stadtpolitik nach 1945, in: Kassel in der Moderne - Studien und Forschungen zur Stadtgeschichte, ed. by Jens Flemming and Dietfrid Krause-Vilmar, Schüren Verlag Marburg 2013, p. 542)].

Dutch Square

This name is also quickly explained: an old trunk road connected Kassel with the Netherlands. It led out of the city through the "Holländisches Tor". This former city gate was located near today's university campus in the northern part of the city (officially: Nord-Holland). The central traffic junction of the Nordstadt, which we know today as the Holländischer Platz, was later named after the Holländisches Tor.

By David Wüstehube