"Farben / Abrams / Poelzig Building" Top 5 Page for this destination Frankfurt am Main Things to Do Tip by Nemorino

This is the only large building in Frankfurt that was not bombed during the Second World War. Legend has it that General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the building spared so he could use it as his post-war headquarters.

It was built 1928-1931 for a huge German chemical trust called I.G. Farben. From the name, it sounds like a paint company, and if they had only stuck to making paint the world would perhaps be a better place, but they also made noxious chemicals including the poison gas that murdered millions at Auschwitz and elsewhere. Needless to say this company was dishonorably disbanded after the war.

My first visit to this building was when it was the headquarters of the US Army's V Corps and was still called the I.G. Farben Building. I was in my early twenties and had to report there for a medical examination to see if I was healthy enough to be drafted into the US Army.

At this point I had been cycling around Europe for a year and a half, so I was nothing if not healthy. The examining doctor did his best to find some obscure ailment, but in the end shrugged and said: "I'm afraid you'll do."

(I can't find a photo of myself from this period, but I can assure you that my appearance was decidedly non-military, to say the least.)

In 1975 the Americans renamed the building, calling it the General Creighton W. Abrams Building after one of the losing generals of the Vietnam war -- a name that never caught on locally.

After the American military pulled out of Frankfurt in 1995, the building was again renamed. It is now the Poelzig Building, after the architect who originally designed and built it, and is the center of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University's new Westend Campus -- the first real campus they have ever had in the North American sense of the word.

Address: Grüneburgplatz 1, Frankfurt am Main (Westend)
Directions: It's a nice walk through the Westend district, or take the 36 or 75 bus to Uni Campus Westend. Or cycle -- they have hundreds of good roofed-over bicycle stands.
Just beyond the campus is the Grüneburgpark and then the Palmengarten.
Website: http://www.angelfire.com/ny/IGFarben/

• Updated Feb 28, 2009
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