Offenbach am Main

Offenbach
	Offenbach
	Satellite view of Offenbach and Eastern Frankfurt
	Offenbach
Coordinates	50°6′0″N 8°48′0″E / 50.10000°N 8.80000°ECoordinates: 50°6′0″N 8°48′0″E / 50.10000°N 8.80000°E
	Administration
Country	Germany
State	Hesse
Admin. region	Darmstadt
District	Urban district
Mayor	Horst Schneider (SPD)
	Basic statistics
Area	44.90 km2 (17.34 sq mi)
Elevation	62 m (203 ft)
Population	122,705 (31 December 2011)
- Density	2,733 /km2 (7,078 /sq mi)
	Other information
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Licence plate	OF
Postal codes	63001 - 63075
Area code	069
Website	www.offenbach.de

Offenbach am Main is a city in Hesse, Germany, located on southside of the river Main just next to Frankfurt am Main. In 2009 it had a population of 118,770. The city is part of the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main metropolitan area as well as the Frankfurt urban area.

Offenbach was a center of the leather industry, which has however declined in the last decades. It is still the seat of the Deutsches Leder Museum (German Leather Museum), and also of the international leather fair.

History [edit]

Offenbach in 1655

The main street Frankfurter Straße around 1900

The first documented reference to Offenbach appears in 770. During the Middle Ages Offenbach passed through many hands. Only in 1486 could the Count Ludwig of Isenenburg finally take control of city for his family, and 1556 Count Reinhard of Isenburg relocated his Residence to Offenbach, building a palace, the Isenburger Schloß (Isenburg Palace), which was completed in 1559. It was destroyed by fire in 1564 and rebuilt in 1578.

In 1635 Offenbach given to the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt but it was returned to the Isenburg-Birstein Count (later Prince) in 1642 and remained in that Principality until 1815 when the Congress of Vienna gave the city to the Austrian Emperor, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor. A year later it was given to the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Always very close to the city centre of Frankfurt, Offenbach was a popular location for business. The town has its own trade fair, and many companies have opened facilities here because there are fewer restrictions and no closed businesses. French Protestants (Huguenots) came in the 17th century and settled in Offenbach and contributed to making Offenbach a prosperous city, e.g., bringing knowledge of tobacco with them and turning Offenbach into a centre for rolling cigars. The town was more cosmopolitan than Frankfurt; famous people such as Goethe and Mozart visited it several times.

The Rumpenheim Palace and its park was a popular destination for monarchs in the 19th century. The city was thereafter ruled by Grand Dukes of Hesse and by Rhine until the monarchy was abolished in 1918. Offenbach became the center of the traditional design with figures such as the architect Hugo Eberhardt, the typographer Rudolf Koch, the bookbinder and designer Ignatz Wiemeler and Ernst Engel and the painter Karl Friedrich Lippmann.

During the Second World War a third of the city was destroyed by Allied bombing, which claimed 467 lives. With the new district Lauterborn the city was expanded to the south in the 1960s. On the border with Frankfurt, the office district Kaiserlei was built.

Boroughs of Offenbach [edit]

The inner town of Offenbach is quite large and has only a few suburbs. In the east the three incorporated: Bürgel (incorporated 1908), Bieber (incorporated April 1, 1938), and Rumpenheim (incorporated April 4, 1942) and in the south the newer suburbs Lauterborn and Rosenhöhe, the office town Kaiserlei and the industral area Waldheim.

Economy [edit]

The 120-meter high "City-Tower" is mainly used as the German headquarters of Capgemini

Until the early 1970s Offenbach was dominated by the machine-building and leather industries. The city hosts the German Association for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies to this day. The Deutscher Wetterdienst, commonly abbreviated as DWD, (translated from German as German Meteorological Service), residing in the Westend district.

Offenbach was also the European center of typography, with Gebr. Klingspor and Linotype (inventors of Optima or Palatino typeface) moving to nearby Eschborn in the 1970s and MAN Roland printing machines still a major employer today. Typography and design still remain important with a cluster of graphic design and industrial design companies, as well as the university level HfG Offenbach design school and the Klingspor Museum.

In recent years Offenbach has become a popular location for a wide array of services, especially from the transport sectors. Offenbach is the host to the European headquarters of Honda,^[2] Hyundai Motors^[3] and Kumho Tires.^[4]

Economy of Offenbach

An office building in Offenbach-Kaiserlei
A printing machine produced by Manroland
Honda Small Hybrid Concept developed in Offenbach
The Sheraton Offenbach

Main sights [edit]

Klingspor Museum

The Büsing-Park in winter

In Offenbach there is no specific Old Town, but there are several buildings to see which survived bombing during the war and have been restored. One of them is the neo-Baroque palace Büsingpalais with the Büsingpark, reconstructed in the 1980s. Now it is used as a congress center close to the Sheraton hotel. Between the shopping area and the Main, is the Lilipark and the Lilitemple, named after Goethe’s fiancee Lili Schönemann. The most important building is the Isenburg Palace a renaissance palace from 1576 with an impressive facade. It is today used by the Offenbach Design University which is next to it. There is also a neoclassic palace in the borough Rumpenheim, the Rumpenheimer Schloss it now serves exclusively as domestic dwellings but the park is public.

Isenburg Palace, a typical Renaissance building from 1576, now used by the Offenbach Design University
Büsingpalais with Büsingpark
Wilhelmsplatz a square with coffee houses and three times a week a market.
Buildings of the French Protestant Church and the French Protestant Community.
Rumpenheim Palace.
Former Synagogue "Capitol" (now a concert hall next to the new Synagogue).
The Westend Quarter (19th century).
Several art deco apartment houses.
Buildings by early 20th century architect Hugo Eberhardt: "Heyne" Factory, main building of the Design University, AOK Insurance building.
Prefabricated houses by Egon Eiermann in Lauterborn

Culture [edit]

There are several festivals in Offenbach, some of these are:

Lichterfest im Büsing-Park (festival of lights in the park of the Büsing palais)
Nacht der Museen (with Frankfurt)
Mainuferfest
Cross Media Night

Museums [edit]

German Leather Museum
Klingspor Museum, museum of typography and calligraphy
Haus der Stadtgeschichte, municipal historical museum
Rosenheim-Museum for the painter Bernd Rosenheim

Gallery [edit]

The Isenburg Castle in Offenbach
Büsingpalais
The Rumpenheim palace
The market on Wilhelmsplatz
Detail at the building of the art and design university, designed by Hugo Eberhardt
A typical street in Offenbach
The municipal hospital
The house where Rudolf Koch lived, one of the art deco houses in the southwestern part of the town

Population history [edit]

Offenbach is one of the German cities where Germans without migrant background make up a minority of the population. As of 2011, approx. 45,7% of residents or 55.720 people had no foreign background. In contrast to that, there were 54,3% or 66.250 people of non-German descent. The largest groups of those are:^[5]

Turks: 15,000 or 12,2%

former Yugoslavians (e.g. Serbs, Croats): 13,000 or 10,5%

Arabs: 8,000 or 6,5%

Italians: 8,000 or 6,5%

Greeks: 7,500 or 6,0%

Poles: 4,000 or 3,2%

Afghans: 3,600 or 3%

Pakistanis: 2,700 or 2,2%

Year	Population
1540	480
1685	600
1718	1.500
1800	5.000
1816	6.210
1825	7.147
1828	7.466
1830	7.498
December 1, 1834	9.433
December 1, 1840	9.597
December 3, 1843	9.883
December 3, 1846	11.565
December 3, 1852	11.087
December 3, 1855	13.724
December 3, 1861	16.708
December 3, 1864	19.390

Year	Population
December 3, 1867	20.322
December 1, 1871	22.689
December 1, 1875	26.012
December 1, 1880	28.597
December 1, 1885	31.704
December 1, 1890	35.064
December 2, 1895	39.388
December 1, 1900	50.468
December 1, 1905	59.765
December 1, 1910	75.583
December 1, 1916	67.197
December 5, 1917	67.483
October 8, 1919	75.380
June 16, 1925	79.362
June 16, 1933	81.329
May 17, 1939	85.140

Year	Population
December 31, 1945	70.600
October 29, 1946	75.479
September 13, 1950	89.030
September 25, 1956	104.283
June 6, 1961	116.195
December 31, 1965	117.893
May 27, 1970	117.306
December 31, 1975	115.251
December 31, 1980	110.993
December 31, 1985	107.090
May 25, 1987	111.386
December 31, 1990	114.992
December 31, 1995	116.533
December 31, 2000	117.535
September 30, 2005	119.833
March 31, 2007	117.224

Mayors from 1824 - 2009 [edit]

1824–1826: Peter Georg d'Orville
1826–1834: Heinrich Philipp Schwaner
1834–1837: Peter Georg d'Orville
1837–1849: Jonas Budden
1849–1859: Friedrich August Schäfer
1859–1867: Johann Heinrich Dick
1867–1874: Johann Martin Hirschmann
1874–1882: Hermann Stölting
1883–1907: Wilhelm Brink
1907–1919: Andreas Dullo
1919–1933: Max Granzin
1947–1949: Johannes Rebholz
1950–1957: Hans Klüber
1957–1974: Georg Dietrich
1974–1980: Walter Buckpesch
1980–1986: Walter Suermann
1986–1994: Wolfgang Reuter
1994–2006: Gerhard Grandtke
2006–: Horst Schneider

Notable residents [edit]

Notable people born in Offenbach include:

Helene Mayer

Johann André (1741-1799), founder of the music publishing firm named after him
Gottfried Böhm (1923-) Architect who won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1986
Moritz Wilhelm August Breidenbach (1796–1857) a German jurist
Ray Bumatai, born here
Heinrich von Brentano (1904–1964) a German conservative politician
Olli Dittrich, born here
Hans Hotter
Prince Philipp of Hesse
Helene Mayer, fencer, born here

Others who have resided in Offenbach include:

Rabbi Abraham Bing (1752–1841)
Jacob Frank
Rudi Völler, German football coach
Cornelia Hanisch, fencer, former world champion and 1984 Olympic gold medallist
Heinrich Kaminski, worked here
Friedrich Kellner, attended Goethschule here
Karlgeorg Hoefer
Regina Jonas, first female Rabbi, ordained in Offenbach
Rudolf Koch, worked and taught here
Fritz Kredel, studied here
Philipp Mainländer, died here
Jacques Offenbach
Götz Otto, born here
Anthony Rother Electronic musician
Snap!, German dance group
Berthold Wolpe

People from Offenbach

Alois Senefelder
Salomon Formstecher, rabbi and philosopher
Gottfried Böhm, architect

Transport [edit]

S-Bahn station: Marktplatz

Roads [edit]

The streets of central Offenbach are usually congested with cars during the rush hour. Some areas, especially around the shopping streets, are pedestrian-only streets. There are numerous car parks located throughout the city. The Offenbacher Kreuz is an Autobahn interchange where the Autobahnen A 3 (Cologne-Würzburg) and A 661 meet. The A661 crosses the A 3 (Cologne-Würzburg) and A 5 (Basel-Hannover).

Public transport [edit]

The city is connected by a major line of the S-Bahn railway system to Frankfurt. The station in the city center is Marktplatz. The station Kaiserlei could be used from Frankfurt and Offenbach with the same price. In general, six stations are located in Offenbach: Offenbach-Kaiserlei, Offenbach-Ledermuseum, Offenbach-Marktplatz, Offenbach-Ost, Offenbach-Bieber, Offenbach-Waldhof. The city´s public transportation services OVB and NIO connect all city districts to downtown by bus lines. Information about the public transport can be found on the RMV website Since the construction of the S-Bahn, the central train station, the Offenbach Hauptbahnhof, is no longer considered important.

Frankfurt Airport [edit]

The city is accessed from around the world via the Frankfurt Airport, (Flughafen Frankfurt am Main) which is located 12 km (7 mi) from Offenbach. The airport can be reached by car or bus and has two train stations, one for regional and one for long-distance traffic. The S-Bahn lines S8 and S9 (direction "Offenbach Ost or "Hanau"), departing from the regional traffic station, take 15 minutes from the airport to get to Offenbach.

Bicycles [edit]

In the summer, seasonal bicycles could be rented from nextbike, a rental company in Offenbach and Frankfurt. Only a credit card and a mobile phone is necessary to take a bike parked somewhere in the town.