Welcome back to Germany and again thank you for accompanying me on these trips. This time we find ourselves in Frankfurt Germany. It is known as Frankfurt am Main now. It had other names also. It was first known as Frakonovurd in Old High German and was one of the first names mentioned in written records in 794.
It then became Frankenfort during the middle ages and then Franckfort in the modern era.
In the 1800’s the name Frankfurt had been established as the official spelling. The city’s full name is Frankfurt am Main and the city is located on an ancient ford on the Main river.
In 300 we see the Franks living on the eastern banks of the lower Rhine area. There were three sects of these Franks, the Salians, the Ripuarians and the Chatti or Hessians. Remember the Hessian troops from your history lessons of the U.S. Revolution where the Hessian’s were hired by England to fight for King George III against the pesky and rebellious Patriots in the colonies of America?
Frankfurt is one of the major cities in Germany and the largest in the Hesse State. It is also known as a global city. It is a major hub for Air, Rail and Auto transportation.Before WWII the city was globally known for its unique old town with timber-framed buildings, the largest old town in Europe.
Frankfurt was the home of Johann Wolfgang Goethe a writer and statesman and his home is now a museum open for tours. He was born in 1749 and died in 1832. He and his sister were educated at home (yay home schooler!) until the age of 16 then studied law. He practiced law but was also a writer one of which he was known for his Faust about the man who sold his soul to the devil. (You can find more of his works here)
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Related Post:Marburg Germany and the Marburg Castle
It is here where I noticed the locks on the bridge again and talked to Tracy about them. The history of the padlocks dates back to a Serbian tale during WWI.
A local mistress named Nada, who was from the spa town called Vrnjacka Banja, fell in love with a Serbian officer named Relja.
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After they have committed their love for each other, Relja was sent to Greece during the war. Sadly while there he fell in love with another woman and broke off his engagement to Nada. She never recovered from the news of her true love, she died due to a broken heart. Young women from that town started writing their names and their loved ones on padlocks and affixing the locks to the railings of the bridge where Nada and Relja used to meet. And in the year 2000, they started showing up on bridges all over Europe.
The Bridge in Frankfurt is called Eiserner Steg and is also known as lover’s bridge.or lock bridge.
Lunchtime came and we had our choice of fare in this beautiful town. We opted for Italian food and this is what we got.
I am sitting at the cafe here taking a photo of people walking about. It was very busy this day because it was during the Fasching (I will talk about this more in another article.)
Ledgend says that the body of James was carried from Jerusalem and taken to Santiago and buried.
Check the Frankfurt City Page here
This building is the Römer. This is where the city council of Frankfurt meets and for more than 600 years the future of Frankfurt has been decided from these halls by it’s leaders. In the year 1405 they purchased the buildings here from the merchant Kunz for “800 guldens of good Frankfurt currency in cash.” Since then they have added other buildings to the original.
These buildings suffered serious damage in 1945 when the city was bombed in WWII. Rebuilding efforts began that same year and they were not reopened until 1955. It was not until 1975 that the three -gabled façade was added once again to the face of the building.
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In 1933 there was a boycott in Frankfurt against the Jewish people and as time went on the restrictions on them began to tighten. Nov. 10, 1938 the largest synagogues were burned to nothing. At this time many of the Jewish people living there began to leave the area. Those that did not were sent away notified with only minutes to grab what they could and leave to the Lodz Ghetto in central Poland. The Lodz ghetto was the second to the largest Jewish ghetto’s next to Warsaw. Eventually those were taken off to Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. In the year 1933 there were 33,000 Jewish people that lived in Frankfurt as noted by the government records of the area. In 1945 there were only just over 600 that remained in the area.
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| Street with the Linen House on the right side. |
Click here for clip of video documentary by the Lodz Children Project
Join us for our next stopFrankfurt Germany | Dreikonigsgemeinde Church
Before you check out our other Germany travels:
- American Guy in Germany
- My First Week In Germany
- 8 Days In Germany
- St Elizabeth’s Church in Marburg Germany
- Marburg, Germany Marburg Castle
- St. Marian’s Church – Marburg Germany
- Traveling Alone – My Third Week In Germany
- Wilhelmshohe Palace and Musiuem Kassel Germany
- Lowenburg Castle – Kassel, Germany
- Hercules Monument – Kassel, Germany
- Kloster Ruin Limburg Monistary Bad Durkhim, Germany
- Hardenburg Castle Bad Durkhim, Germany
- Traveling Germany – Frankfurt <—- YOU ARE HERE
- Dreikonigsgemeinde Church – Frankfurt
- Kassel Hesse Germany part 1
- Frankfurt Germany Fasching
- Amoneburg Castle – Amoneburg Germany
- St Bartholomew Cathedral – Frankfurt, Germany
- Touring Heidelberg, Germany
- Churches of Heidelberg, Germany
- Heidelberg Castle
- Exploring Nuremberg, Germany (part 1)
- Exploring Nuremberg Germany (part 2)
- Churches of Nuremberg – Frauenkirche
- Churches of Nuremberg – St Elizabeth’s
- Churches of Nuremberg – St Jakob
- Churches of Nuremberg – St Lorenz
- Churches of Nuremberg – St Sebald
- Dachau – Concentration Camp
- Victims of Fascism Memorial –
- Neuschwanstein Castle – Swan Castle – Germany
- Simmerath – My Final Days In Germany
