10 largest cities in Germany
Berlin
Hamburg
Munich
Cologne
Frankfurt am Main
Hanover
Dusseldorf
Leipzig
Bremen
Dresden
The city of Frankfurt (Oder), which is over 750 years old, also
spelled Frankfurt an der Oder or Frankfurt / Oder, is the fourth
largest city in the state of Brandenburg with around 60,000
inhabitants; it is a border town in the eastern part of the country
with neighboring Poland.
Frankfurt was once a Hanseatic and
trade fair city on the middle Oder, which flows into the Baltic Sea
below Stettin (Polish: Szczecin) behind the Oderhaff. The city was
already settled in 1226 and was granted city rights in 1253.
Heinrich von Kleist, born on October 18, 1777, is one of the most
famous people in Frankfurt (Oder). The Brandenburg State University
Viadrina in Frankfurt was opened in 1506. Among other things, Ulrich
von Hutten, C. Ph. E. Bach, the Humboldt brothers, Michael
Prätorius, Heinrich v. Kleist u. v. a. more.
Due to the
fighting of the Red Army and the retreating German army units around
April 22, 1945, Frankfurt (Oder) was very badly destroyed (almost
93%). After the Potsdam Agreement, Frankfurt became a border town
and the former Dammvorstadt became the Polish neighboring town of
Słubice. The Oder (Polish: Odra) had become a border river for long
stretches. Since 1990 the two cities on the river, which are
connected by a city bridge, have been growing together again in many
ways. In the former district town of the GDR, a brisk residential
construction activity began in the 1950s, so that post-war and new
buildings dominate the cityscape today. But there are still historic
buildings and neighborhoods. The city territory has been further
expanded through the incorporation of surrounding places. Today, for
example, the local recreation area with leisure and camping park on
the Helenesee, the "small Baltic Sea", about 12 km away, belongs to
Frankfurt.
middle age
After 1200 a merchant settlement developed on a
valley sand island on a narrow part of the Oder. It was at the
crossroads of several long-distance trade routes. Duke Heinrich I of
Silesia granted her market and settlement rights in 1225. The influx
of wealthy long-distance traders from northwest Germany and Flanders
increased.
The mayor Gottfried von Herzberg negotiated with
Margrave Johann I at Spandau Castle about granting city rights. On
Saturday, July 12th, 1253, Margrave Johann I issued the document for
the foundation of the city. The Berlin city law, which was derived
from Magdeburg city law, should apply. On July 14, 1253, the
following Monday, a supplementary certificate was issued. This
document assured the future city of "Vrankenvorde" the sole right of
residence in its area and more land to the right of the Oder.
Frankfurt was named as a participant in the files of the Lübeck
day trip of 1430. Only members of the Hanseatic League were allowed
to take part in the day trips - as a result, Frankfurt had been a
member of the Hanse by this year at the latest.
The Hussites
burned down the Guben suburb on April 6, 1432. The Carthusian
monastery was also reduced to rubble that day. An attack on the city
itself on April 13, 1432 failed.
The fish above the southern
decorative gable of the town hall, which probably symbolizes the
right to “elevate” in the herring barrels, is dated to the year
1454.
Early modern age
At the end of January 1506,
teaching began at the Brandenburg University of Frankfurt with the
humanistic lecture given by the first “appointed” teacher, Axungia.
The opening ceremony took place on April 26th in the presence of
Elector Joachim I and his brother Albrecht. 950 academics, among
them the young Ulrich von Hutten, came in the first year, more than
at any other German university until then. The first rector was the
Leipzig theologian Konrad Wimpina.
Martin Luther published
his theses in Wittenberg in 1517, which were also directed against
Albrecht von Brandenburg, now Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mainz. The
Brandenburg University responded with a disputation on January 20,
1518 in front of 300 friars. The answer theses submitted by the
Dominican and later indulgence preacher Johannes Tetzel, however,
had been written by Konrad Wimpina. They were approved by the
congregation and Luther was thus considered refuted. In the
following, many students turned away from Frankfurt and moved to
Wittenberg. In the same year, at the request of Elector Joachim I.
Frankfurt formally left the Hanseatic League.
In 1535 Jodocus
Willich founded Germany's first civil music community, convivium
musicum, in Frankfurt. In it twelve people dealt with secular music
and discussed musical questions.
In October 1536 the
Hohenzollern held a family day in Frankfurt, at which plans were
concretized to establish family connections with the Silesian line
of the Piasts.
In 1548 the oldest city view of Frankfurt
(Oder) appeared in Sebastian Munster's "Cosmographia".
The
Thirty Years' War first reached the city in April 1626, when the
army of Peter Ernst II von Mansfeld, defeated by Wallenstein near
Dessau, fled eastwards through the city. Thereupon, Elector Georg
Wilhelm called on the Brandenburg estates to set up a standing army.
Colonel Hillebrand von Kracht was commissioned with the formation of
3,000 foot soldiers. On May 1st, nine companies were called up on
foot for this purpose “at the bird bars near the Carthaus” (today's
Anger). This event was considered to be the foundation of the 4th
Grenadiers and is viewed as the foundation of the Prussian army in
general.
After the Swedish King Gustav Adolf landed with an
army on the Pomeranian coast in July 1630, he attacked Frankfurt in
the summer of 1631 in order to force the Brandenburg Elector Georg
Wilhelm into an alliance with him. The city was besieged for a few
days and then in the battle of Frankfurt the storming and sacking of
the city followed with great losses for the defenders.
In the
course of the Thirty Years War, the population had decreased from
around 12,000 to 2,366. Economically, the city could no longer
recover from the extorted war contributions. But after the end of
the Thirty Years' War in 1648, the university regained importance,
250 students were enrolled that year.
Matthäus Gottfried
Purmann carried out the first successful blood transfusion on German
soil from lamb to human in Frankfurt in 1668.
During the Seven Years' War, a Russian vanguard under General de
Villebois occupied the dam suburb at the end of July 1759. The small
garrison under Major von Arnim withdrew after a short bombardment.
General de Villebois demanded 600,000 thalers contributions from the
city. The Austrians who arrived later made the same request. Thanks
to the negotiating skills of Mayor Ungnad, the total claim was
reduced to 100,000 thalers. On August 12, 1759, Friedrich II
suffered his worst defeat in the battle of Kunersdorf on the eastern
side of the Odra not far from Frankfurt. The Prussian army was
subject to the united Russians and Austrians. 19,000 men were
killed; among them Ewald Christian von Kleist.
On April 28,
1785, the dam broke during the spring flood and the entire dam
suburb was flooded. The only casualty was garrison commander Leopold
von Braunschweig, whose boat turned over on the way to the rescue
work.
Frankfurt was temporarily of considerable importance
for the trade between Eastern Europe and Germany and not only for
the fur trade mentioned by Krünitz. Krünitz wrote around 1800: “The
local [German] furriers buy the foreign furs at the fairs in Leipzig
and in Frankfurth on the Oder. [...] At the fair in Frankfurth on
the Oder, there are especially Polnian Jews who trade in Ukrainian
sheepskins, and also sometimes Gdansk, but generally Leipzig
smokers' dealers ”.
19th century
At the beginning of
February 1811, the Frankfurter received the final news that the
university had been relocated to Breslau. The reason was the
University of Berlin, which Wilhelm von Humboldt opened last year.
The farewell party for the students took place on August 10th.
As a replacement for the relocation of the university to
Breslau, Frankfurt became the seat of the government of the new
administrative district of Frankfurt and a higher regional court on
January 1, 1816.
The Frankfurt district, formed in 1816, was
made up of the city of Frankfurt and areas that had previously
belonged to the Lebus district and the Sternberg district, including
the suburbs Carthaus, Kliestow, Boossen, Buschmühle, Lossow,
Rosengarten, Schiffersruh, Tschetschnow and Ziegelei. The district
office for the Lebus district was also located in Frankfurt.
On January 1, 1827, the Frankfurt district was dissolved again. The
city of Frankfurt was independent again in 1827, but remained the
capital of the Lebus district.
On October 22, 1842, the
Berlin-Frankfurt (Oder) line of the Berlin-Frankfurt Railway Company
was inaugurated. In 1870 the railway line to Poznan was opened with
the 444 meter long railway bridge over the Oder.
In 1895 the
first stone bridge over the Oder was inaugurated. At the end of the
19th century, Frankfurt an der Oder had five Protestant churches, a
Catholic church and a synagogue.
20th century
The first
aircraft landed in Frankfurt on August 19, 1911 at the Kunersdorf
parade ground, which had not been used since the beginning of the
century.
Between 1919 and 1926, 8,254 refugees came to
Frankfurt from areas of Germany that fell to Poland after the First
World War. The loss of the eastern territories through the formation
of Poland meant an enormous loss for the Frankfurt economy due to
the loss of sales and reference markets. Traffic was also affected.
Compared to 1913, in 1928 40% less passenger transport and over a
third less freight transport were recorded on the Frankfurt – Posen
railway line.
From June 16 to 24, 1924, the Ostmarkschau for
trade and agriculture (“Ogela”) took place in Frankfurt and was
attended by almost 100,000 people. The city hoped that this would
stimulate the settlement of industry and founded a GmbH for the
project. This prepared 250,000 m² of space in Dammvorstadt, on which
the four main areas of the trade show, agricultural machinery show,
small animal show and animal show were to take place. The organizers
were satisfied with the event despite a loss of 100,000 Reichsmarks.
Industrial companies were not attracted by this.
On April 1,
1930, the new building of the state building trade school (Higher
Technical State College for Civil Engineering) was inaugurated.
A new building was also built from 1931 for the new Pedagogical
Academy in Frankfurt (Oder), which was closed again in 1932 for
reasons of economy, but reopened as a college for teacher training
in 1934. The new building in Bismarckstr. 51/52 was inaugurated in
1935.
Time of the national socialism
The National
Socialists locked their political opponents (including the later
mayor Willy Jentsch) in the historic judicial prison on
Collegienstraße, which was a Gestapo prison from 1933 to 1945.
In 1937 the motorway to Berlin was inaugurated.
During the
November pogroms in 1938, the interior of the synagogue, built in
1822 by the then large Jewish community, was destroyed by the
National Socialists.
With the exception of an attack by the
British Air Force in early 1944, the city was largely spared from
the warfare of World War II until 1945, as there were hardly any
important industrial or military facilities. With the beginning of
the Vistula-Oder operation by the Soviet armed forces, a large wave
of German refugees began, which also passed through Frankfurt
(Oder). The total number of refugees passing through was between
264,000 and 300,000 people. The city was declared a fortress on
January 26, 1945. On April 19 at 5:29 in the morning, the Oder
Bridge was blown up by the Wehrmacht. Russian air raids began on
April 20. On the afternoon of April 21st, the fortress status was
lifted and the fortress troops began to withdraw one day later. On
April 22nd and 23rd, Soviet bombers flew further attacks. This
resulted in numerous fires, especially in the center of Frankfurt.
On the morning of April 23, 1945, the first Soviet units reached
Frankfurt. 93% of the inner city was destroyed by the previous
bombardment and arson, which started in the following days. On the
evening of April 24th, the tower of St. Mary's Church burned down,
the vault of the church collapsed months later.
Between 1933
and 1945, thousands of Frankfurters were killed by the Nazis. By
2018, a stumbling block had been set for more than 170 of them.
SBZ / GDR
As early as May 1945, the connection to the
Dammvorstadt was restored by a temporary bridge. According to the
Potsdam Agreement, Frankfurt (Oder) - Ffo for short - became a
border town. The Dammvorstadt was separated, completely cleared
within two days and placed under Polish administration. This
resulted in today's Polish neighboring city of Frankfurt, Słubice.
In 1951 the treaty to mark the state border between the GDR and
Poland was signed in Frankfurt [22] (after the Görlitz Agreement in
1950). The Federal Republic did not recognize this border until 1970
(Warsaw Treaty), and finally only in 1990.
With the
dissolution of the states, including Brandenburg, by the GDR,
Frankfurt (Oder) became a district town in 1952. In 1957 the
motorway bridge over the Oder was completed. The city center was
rebuilt in the 1950s and 1960s, largely abandoning the old town
plan. Few historical buildings, such as the town hall, have been
restored. In the 1970s and 1980s, several large new building areas
were built using slab construction, including Hansa Nord, Südring
and Neuberesinchen.
Peaceful revolution and German unity
On November 1, 1989, 35,000 people responded to the New Forum's call
to protest against the SED: The central rally took place on
Brunnenplatz, and a memorial reminds us of this with words from the
speech by doctor Karl-Ludwig von Klitzing: “We need a perfect one
Democratization, freedom of travel, freedom of speech and the press,
equal opportunities, perspectives for each individual, a better
education system. And we need effective controls. The peaceful
demonstration is supposed to announce that we are all here for the
turnaround, work on it, support it, urgently demand it. "
With the restoration of the states still in the GDR in 1990, the
city came back to the state of Brandenburg. On July 15, 1991 the
official (re) establishment of the European University Viadrina was
completed. In September 1994, the last occupation soldier in the
Soviet army left the city. In 2001, the larger demolition of houses,
mainly prefabricated buildings, from the GDR era began. Up to and
including 2005, the city lost 3,500 largely vacant apartments.
Jewish life in the city
From 1294 at the latest, Jews lived
in the city. The Jewish cemetery was first mentioned in 1399. In a
pogrom in 1491/1492 all Jews were killed. A new synagogue was built
in 1561 and the Talmud was first printed in Germany in 1697–1699.
In 1933 around 800 Jews lived in the city, most of whom had
immigrated from Posen and West Prussia after the First World War,
because they felt as Germans and did not want to live in Poland. On
the night of the pogrom in 1938, the synagogue was set on fire and
burned down. Jewish shops were looted and destroyed, Jewish fathers
arrested and deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The
synagogue building was later used as a storage room and was
demolished in the 1950s to create living space. A memorial plaque
and brass strips embedded in the roadway remind of them.
In
1944 only 62 Jews lived in Frankfurt (Oder) after they were forced
to leave the country and were deported to their death. In the Soviet
Zone / GDR, Jewish history hardly played a role.
Since 1998, after the immigration of Jews from the areas of the former Soviet Union to Frankfurt (Oder), there has been a Jewish community again, which had more than 240 members in 2017 and a community center in the Halbe Stadt area, but no synagogue. The new Jewish cemetery was inaugurated on June 27, 2011 in the Südring district of Frankfurt.
The population of Frankfurt (Oder) rose only slowly in the Middle
Ages and early modern times and fell again and again due to the
numerous wars, epidemics and famine. The city lost 82% of its
inhabitants as a result of the Thirty Years' War. The population
sank from 13,000 in 1625 to only 2,366 in 1653. Only with the
beginning of industrialization in the 19th century did population
growth accelerate. In 1816 15,600 people lived in the city, in 1900
there were already 62,000.
The halving of the population from
83,000 in 1939 to 42,000 in December 1945 is due to the effects of
World War II and the separation of the Dammvorstadt district -
today's Polish city of Słubice. In 1980 there were 1,471 births in
the city, 766 of them boys, and 80,414 inhabitants, of which 42,241
were women. The population grew by 1,461 people compared to 1979. In
1988 the population of the city of Frankfurt (Oder) reached its
historical high of 88,000. During the GDR era, Frankfurt benefited
from the fact that the supply and housing situation in the district
towns was significantly better than in the other regions. In the
meantime, however, the population has fallen sharply again.
On June 30, 2005, the "official population" for Frankfurt (Oder) was
64,429 (only main residences and after comparison with the other
state offices) according to updates by the State Office for Data
Processing and Statistics Brandenburg, on December 31, 2005,
according to the same source, only 63,748 inhabitants (30,877 male,
32,871 female). In contrast, according to the city administration,
there were 63,210 people on that day. Of these, 30,389 were male and
32,731 were female. 2,488 foreign citizens were registered as having
their main residence in the city. Since the turning point and
peaceful revolution in the GDR in 1989, the city has lost almost 30
percent of its residents (28,000 people) due to high unemployment
and the decline in the birth rate.
Estimates published in
2009 assumed that Frankfurt would lose around 28 to 30 percent of
its population by 2025, bringing the population to below 44,000,
which would mean more than halving since 1988. A population forecast
prepared on behalf of the city (based on data from 2005 to 2008), on
the other hand, forecast a more moderate population decline.
According to this study, the population should be less than 54,000
in 2020, a little over 51,000 in 2025 and around 48,500 in 2030. In
fact, according to statistics from Berlin-Brandenburg, around 58,200
people lived in Frankfurt (Oder) in December 2017.
In January
2006, 46 people were counted as homeless in Frankfurt, in January
2007 there were 49.
Frankfurt is located in eastern Germany, in the south of the
Lebus countryside. In the north it borders on the district of
Märkisch-Oderland, in the south and west on the district of
Oder-Spree.
The Oder forms the eastern city limit and at the
same time the German state border with Poland. On the other bank of
the river is Słubice, which emerged from the former Frankfurt
district of Dammvorstadt.
The city is located in the
Brandenburg meadow, forest and lake landscape at 22–56 m above sea
level; the city center is about 27 m above sea level. The highest
point is the Hirschberge at 135 m above sea level. The 250 hectare
and 56.63 m deep Helenesee is located in the middle of the
Brandenburg pine forests and is a popular leisure area. Because of
the interesting nature of the bottom, this lake is very popular with
divers. The Helenesee emerged from an earlier lignite mine, the
so-called Helene shaft. Adjacent to it was the Katja shaft. Both
shafts were flooded in the 1960s and are now connected by a canal.
Geomorphology
Frankfurt lies in the basement moraine area of
the Warsaw-Berlin glacial valley.