Offenbach am Main, Hesse, Germany

🇩🇪 Offenbach am Main is a city in Hesse, Germany, on the left bank of the river Main. It borders Frankfurt and is part of the Frankfurt urban area and the larger Frankfurt Rhein-Main urban area.

In the 20th century, the city's economy was built on machine-building, leather-making, typography and design, and the automobile and pharmaceutical industries.

Subdivision The inner city area of Offenbach is quite large and consists of the historic centre of the city and its expansions of the 1800s. Three formerly independent suburbs were incorporated in the first half of the 20th century: Bürgel being the first in 1908, then Bieber and Rumpenheim in 1938 and 1942.

South of the inner city area are the suburbs Lauterborn, Rosenhöhe and Tempelsee. Kaiserlei is a commercial district in the far west of the city bordering Frankfurt. In the west Waldheim is a residential neighborhood on the city limits with Mühlheim am Main. In 2010 the eastern part of the city centre was officially named Mathildenviertel, as the area was already unofficially called by the locals.

Unlike most larger cities in Germany, Offenbach was not completely divided into districts. Only the nine neighborhoods mentioned above were officially districts, leaving the largest parts of the city officially unnamed. Although specific names for neighborhoods and areas were already in use among the locals and residents.

In June 2019 the city council approved a new act that subdivides the city's area entirely into 21 districts. The nine existing districts largely remained the same, most of them were even expanded. The new districts were laid out after the already by locals commonly known neighborhoods, such as the Westend, the Nordend or Buchhügel. A completely new name was only needed to be found for one neighborhood south of the city centre, which never had commonly used name before: Lindenfeld. The name derived from an old name of a land lot in this area, when it was still fields in agricultural use prior to the 1800s.

As of July 2019 there are the following 21 districts: • Bieber • Bieberer Berg • Buchhügel • Buchrain • Bürgel • Carl-Ulrich-Siedlung • Hafen • Kaiserlei • Lauterborn • Lindenfeld • Mathildenviertel • Musikerviertel • Nordend • Offenbach-Ost • Rosenhöhe • Rumpenheim • Senefelderquartier • Tempelsee • Waldheim • Westend • Zentrum.

History The first documented reference to a suburb of Offenbach appears in 770. In a document of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II dating to 977 exists the first mention of the place of Offenbach. During the Middle Ages Offenbach passed through many hands. Only in 1486 could the Count Ludwig of Isenburg 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 was given to the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt, but it was returned to the Isenburg-Birstein Count (later Prince) in 1642. It remained in that principality until 1815, when the Congress of Vienna gave the city to the Austrian Emperor, Francis I. 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 were 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 centre 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. Offenbach is a so-called "Sozialer Brennpunkt" (deprived area) because of unemployment, poverty, gang related crime and migration.

Before its eradication in the Holocaust, the city had a Jewish population. Jews settled in the city as late as the late 16th century, and it is believed that out of the 871 residents of the town as of 1829, the 40 Jewish families comprised nearly a quarter of the town's population. They also established their own cemetery.

Economy 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 centre 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 Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main (HfG) 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, Hyundai Motors and Kumho Tires.

Attractions In Offenbach there is no specific Old Town, but there are several buildings 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. Today it is used as a congress centre close to the Sheraton hotel. Between the shopping area and the Main, is the Lilipark and the Lilitemple, named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's fiancée Lili Schönemann. The most important building is the Isenburger Schloss  (Isenburg Palace), a renaissance palace from 1576. 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. • Isenburger Schloss, a Renaissance building, 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

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

Sport Kickers Offenbach football club was founded in 1901.

Transport: Road 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).

Transport: Public The city is connected by a major line of the S-Bahn railway system to Frankfurt. The station in the city centre is Marktplatz. In general, six stations are located in Offenbach: Offenbach-Kaiserlei, Offenbach-Ledermuseum, Offenbach-Marktplatz, Offenbach-Ost, Offenbach-Bieber, Offenbach-Waldhof. Trains run every 5–10 minutes between Offenbach and Frankfurt. A 24 hours Service between both cities was introduced in 2013. The journey from Offenbach Marktplatz to Frankfurt Main Station takes 15 minutes, Frankfurt Airport can be reached within 26 minutes. Suburban trains run underground in downtown Offenbach. The city tunnel was opened in 1996. Services split up at Offenbach-Ost Station to Hanau (S8 and S9 trains), Rödermark (S1) and Dietzenbach (S2). An often-addressed problem is that there is no direct interchange between regional and suburban trains in Offenbach, since the lines were separated when the tunnel was built. Therefore, residents and city officials have proposed several times that platforms for regional trains should be added to the Offenbach-Ost Station.

The city's municipal public transportation services are operated by the "Offenbacher Verkehrsbetriebe" (OVB) and its subcontractors. Nine routes (numbered 101–108 and 120) connect all boroughs with the major train stations at Marktplatz, Offenbach-Ost and Kaiserlei as well as the Central Station. The bus network has a very good coverage and frequency of service. All routes except for number 102 and number 107 busses stop at Marktplatz station, making it the most important transit hub in the city. Buses usually run with a 15-minute headway on working days and a 30-minute headway on Sundays, public holidays and after 8:00 pm. Exemptions are routes 103, 107 and 120 which run every 30 minutes. Although number 103 and 120 buses share most of their route, creating a 15-minute headway on the shared section in downtown Offenbach. Those two routes also connect the city of Offenbach with its surrounding towns, Frankfurt am Main, Mühlheim am Main and Obertshausen. Out of all municipal bus services the number 101 bus is the most frequented route. It runs every 7 or 8 minutes Mondays through Fridays. Service on the other most frequented routes (104 and 105) is also increased to a 7/8-minute headway during rush hours. In addition to the municipal bus services there are regional buses that serve the city. Two express bus routes connect Offenbach to the city of Langen (route X83) and Bad Vilbel (X97). Other services are the number OF-30 bus to Heusenstamm, the 41 bus to Fechenheim as well as the 551 to Gravenbruch, Enkheim and Bad Vilbel.

Regional trains stop at the Offenbach Central Station in the city's center. The station is on the Frankfurt-Hanau main line which is one of railway with the most traffic in Germany. Mostly hourly service for Wächsersbach, Fulda, Würzburg and Erbach call at the Offenbach Central Station. There is no long-distance train service at central station, although many high-speed trains pass through on their way from Frankfurt to Munich, Berlin or Hamburg. The station lost most of its importance when the suburban trains were re-routed through the newly build tunnel beneath Berliner Straße. Nonetheless a train ride from Offenbach Central Station to Frankfurt Central Station takes only ten minutes which makes it a much-appreciated route for commuters.

Frankfurt Airport The city is accessed from around the world via the Frankfurt Airport, (Flughafen Frankfurt am Main) which is located 12 km (7.5 miles) 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 25 minutes from the airport to get to Offenbach.