Offenbach am Main, Germany

Template:Infobox German Location

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

thumb|left|The 120-meter high "City-Tower". The first documented reference to Offenbach appears in 977. In 1486 the Isenburg Family took control of city, and 1556 Count Reinhard of Isenburg relocated his Residence to Offenbach, building a palace, the Isenburger Schloß, which was completed in 1559. It was destroyed by fire in 1564 and rebuilt in 1578.

In the mid 17th century Offenbach passed into the possession of the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt who ruled it until 1815 when the Congress of Vienna gave the city to the Austrian Emperor, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor. A year later it was returned to the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt. The city was ruled by Grand Dukes of Hesse and by Rhine until the monarchy was abolished in 1918.

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 south in the 1960s.

Offenbach is also the seat of the Deutscher Wetterdienst (German weather service) and home to the soccer club "Kickers Offenbach" and their stadium "Bieberer Berg".

Offenbach is on the Rhine-Main S-Bahn with six stations: Offenbach-Kaiserlei, Offenbach-Ledermuseum, Offenbach-Marktplatz, Offenbach-Ost, Offenbach-Bieber, Bieber-Waldhof.

Boroughs of Offenbach

• Bürgel (incorporated 1908)
• Bieber (incorporated April 1, 1938)
• Lauterborn
• Rumpenheim (incorporated April 4, 1942)
• Waldheim
• Lohwald
• Tempelsee
• Rosenhöhe

Economy

thumb|left|S-Bahn station: Marktplatz 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.

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 host to the European headquarters of Honda, Hyundai Motors and Kumho Tires.^[1]

Main sights

thumb|Klingspor Museum

Edifices

• Isenburg Palace, typical Renaissance building from 1576, now used by the Offenbach Design University
• Büsingpalais.
• Rumpenheim Palace.
• French Protestant Church and French Protestant Community.
• Westend Quarter (19th century).
• Several art deco apartment houses.
• Former Synagogue "Capitol" (now a concert hall).
• 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
• Soccer-stadium "Stadion Bieberer Berg".

Museums

• German Leather Museum
• Klingspor Museum, museum of typography and calligraphy
• Haus der Stadtgeschichte, municipal historical museum

File:HfG Offenbach 03.jpg The HfG is an art and design university.

home to the soccer club Kickers Offenbach stadium "Bieberer Berg"

File:Offenbach Isenburger Schloss c.jpg The Isenburg Castle in Offenbach

Büsingpalais

Population history

Offenbach has the highest percentage of foreign people throughout Germany.

Mayors from 1824 - 2009

thumb|Horst Schneider

• 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

People

• Rabbi Abraham Bing
• Gottfried Böhm
• Moritz Wilhelm August Breidenbach
• Heinrich von Brentano
• Ray Bumatai, born here
• Thea Dorn
• Jacob Frank
• Prince Philipp of Hesse
• Karlgeorg Hoefer
• Hans Hotter
• Regina Jonas, first female Rabbi, ordained in Offenbach
• Heinrich Kaminski, worked here
• Friedrich Kellner, attended Goethschule here
• Rudolf Koch, worked and taught here
• Fritz Kredel, studied here
• Philipp Mainländer, died here
• Helene Mayer, born here
• Jacques Offenbach
• Götz Otto, born here
• Anthony Rother Electronic musician
• Snap!, German dance group
• Jan Trubecki
• Berthold Wolpe
• Pascal Behrenbruch, German decathlete.

External links

• Offenbach website Template:De icon

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Template:Cities in Germany Template:Germany districts Hesse

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