In the 20th century, the city's economy was built on machine-building, leather-making, typography and design, and the automobile and pharmaceutical industries.
Offenbach in 1655The main streetFrankfurter Straße around 1900
The first documented reference to a suburb of Offenbach appears in 770.[4] In a document of the Holy RomanEmperor Otto II dating to 977 exists the first mention of the place of Offenbach.[5] During the Middle Ages Offenbach passed through many hands. Only in 1486 could the Count Ludwig ofIsenburg 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.
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 asGoethe andMozart visited it several times.[citation needed]
During theSecond World War, a third of the city was destroyed by Allied bombing, which claimed 467 lives. With the new districtLauterborn 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.[6]
Before its eradication in theHolocaust, 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 accounted for nearly a quarter of the town's population. They also establishedtheir own cemetery.[7]
The inner city area of Offenbach is quite large and consists of the historic center 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, thenBieber andRumpenheim in 1938 and 1942.
South of the inner city area are the suburbsLauterborn,Rosenhöhe andTempelsee.Kaiserlei is a commercial district in the far west of the city bordering Frankfurt. In the westWaldheim is a residential neighborhood on the city limits withMühlheim am Main. In 2010 the eastern part of the city center was officially namedMathildenviertel, as the area was already unofficially called by the locals.[8]
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 center, 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.[9]
As of July 2019, there are the following 21 districts:
Offenbach experiences atemperate oceanic climate (Köppen climate classificationCfb). Due to its location in theUpper Rhine Plain, the whole Rhein-Main Metropolitan Region generally experiences one of the warmest climates in Germany, making it possible to grow plants such asvineyards,palm trees andolive trees.
The current mayor of Offenbach is Felix Schwenke of theSocial Democratic Party (SPD). He was first elected in 2017,[10] and was re-elected for a second term in 2023.[1]
The Offenbach city council (Stadtverordnetenversammlung) governs the city alongside the mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 14 March 2021, and the results were as follows:
Offenbach has a large non-German population. In 2016, foreign nationals made up 37% of the population.[12] The largest communities are, in that order, from Turkey, Greece, Romania, Poland and Italy.[13]
As of 2019, residents with amigration background enumerated 88,608, or 63.4% of the population, while Germans without a migration background enumerated 51,241 residents.[14] Nearly one-in-three, 29.5%, of foreign residents originate from Europe, particularly from countries likeRomania,Greece,Bulgaria,Poland,Croatia andItaly.[14]
According to census data, Offenbach[15] andDuisburg had the highest share ofMuslim migrants of all German districts in 2011. Muslims were between 14% and 17% of the city's population as of 2011.[15][16][17][18][19][20]Turks made up 11% of the city's population in 2019.[14]
The development of the population in Offenbach between 1540 and 1997
Until the end of the 17th century, Offenbach remained a small town with less than a thousand inhabitants. With the coming into power of the countJohann Philipp in 1685, the city began to develop and the population rose steadily. In the 19th century the city became industrialized and the population increased even tenfold.[21] Offenbach is one of the German cities where Germans without migrant background make up a minority of the population. As of 31 December 2012, approx. 44.3% of residents or 55,047 people had no foreign background. In contrast to that, there were 55.7% or 69,214 people with at least one non-German grandparent.[22] The largest of those groups are:[23]
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 ofHonda,[24][failed verification]Hyundai Motors[25] andKumho Tires.[26]
Klingspor MuseumThe Büsing-Park in winterFrench Protestant church and City Tower
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 theNeo-baroque palaceBüsingpalais with the Büsingpark, reconstructed in the 1980s. Today it is used as a congress center close to the Sheraton hotel. Between the shopping area and the Main, is theLilipark and theLilitemple, named afterJohann Wolfgang von Goethe's fiancée Lili Schönemann. The most important building is theIsenburger Schloss [de] (Isenburg Palace), arenaissance palace from 1576. It is today used by theOffenbach Design University which is next to it. There is also aneoclassic palace in the borough Rumpenheim, theRumpenheimer Schloss it now serves exclusively as domestic dwellings but the park is public.
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 AutobahnenA 3 (Cologne-Würzburg) andA 661 meet. The A661 crosses theA 3 (Cologne-Würzburg) andA 5 (Basel-Hannover).
The city is connected by a major line of theS-Bahn railway system to Frankfurt. The station in the city center isMarktplatz. 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.[citation needed]
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 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. 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.[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
The city is accessed from around the world via theFrankfurt Airport, (Flughafen Frankfurt am Main) which is located 12 kilometres (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.[citation needed]
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