"Offenbach am Main" a Offenbach Travel Page by Weissdorn

Just ask any German - Offenbach is a world of it's own. An Offenbacher is a unique individual, and you can't compare this place or the people who live here to anywhere else in the world. But most countries already have such a place; in Holland it's called Urk; the Swiss have the Raeto-Romanish; the French have the Lyonese, and Germany has Offenbach am Main.

It's important that we stress AM MAIN, because we wouldn't want to confuse it with the two other Offenbachs in Germany.

Offenbach is located to the south-east of Frankfurt am Main, across the Main River. To make it perfectly clear, Offenbach is NOT part of Frankfurt; it never was part of Frankfurt; and Frankfurters are Frankfurters and Offenbachers are Offenbachers. Throughout the centuries they have learned to tolerate each other, but if you should ever get the notion that only a river separates the bothers and sisters of Hesse, just watch a soccer match between FSV (Frankfurter Sport Verein) and OFC (Offenbacher Fussball Club).

They even have different dialects, but it takes years of practice to hear the differences.

I lived nearly ten years in this city, and learned to love it and loath it. Why? Well, I'm not really sure. Maybe because it's so different from what Americans think Germany is.

To start with, Offenbach was never a place that too many people really wanted to call home. Not now, and not even centuries ago. Offenbach was not Frankfurt's little sister - it was the Holy Roman Empire's bastard neighbour city. Offenbach has changed hands so many times throughout history, that the poor city could almost be entitled, "Offenbach - the City Nobody Wanted". The best example is the city's own castle. I really had to do some digging to find out anything about the Offenbach Castle - the Isenburger Schloss. This castle was hardly built, when the owner moved out and became the Bishop of Mainz, then it was rented out throughout the centuries to the most obscure noblemen, because..... well whoever rented it already had a big ancestrial home somewhere else, and well what could you say about Offenbach? It wasn't exactly the hub of the Empire now, was it?

Offenbach was the collection place for all of the people who couldn't afford or weren't allowed to live in the nearby Imperial City-State, Frankfurt - Jews, foreigners, religious fugatives, such as the French Protestant Huganots - in fact the last tennant of the Isenburger Schloss were members of the Russian Zar family - you see, once again foreigners. And so, Offenbach received it's reputation of being the "melting pot" in Germany.

But a melting pot isn't something bad - in fact that's the very reason why Offenbach is an interesting place. Keep in mind that Offenbach is not really a tourist city; however, it represents one of the most interesting opportunities to observe human behavior, because the most amazing thing about this city is despite the huge ethnical diversity here, the people pretty much get along with each other. Neo-Nazis are not a problem here, and this is not the leading criminal pit of Europe, as some tourists have reported. Offenbach is much safer than Frankfurt, Berlin and Hamburg. This city is a mixture of proletarian provence and small big-city life. Offenbach is not a city to tour to - it's a city to live in.