Hanau, Germany

Hanau is a Hessian city of roughly 98,000 residents at the confluence of the Kinzig and Main rivers, about 25 kilometers east of Frankfurt. Count Ulrich I of Hanau founded the settlement in 1303, and it later drew wider significance when the 1597 Hanau Conference under Count Philip Louis II established the first ghetto in Europe. Brothers Jacob (1785 to 1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786 to 1859), the collectors of Grimms' Fairy Tales, were born here, honored today by the 1896 Brothers Grimm National Monument on the Neustadt market square. A 1945 bombing destroyed about 80 percent of the city, while the 1500 Philippsruhe Castle, a baroque palace by the river, still stands.