Neu-Isenburg

Neu-Isenburg

Coat of arms
Neu-Isenburg

Coordinates: 50°03′N 8°42′E / 50.050°N 8.700°E / 50.050; 8.700Coordinates: 50°03′N 8°42′E / 50.050°N 8.700°E / 50.050; 8.700
Country Germany
State Hesse
Admin. region Darmstadt
District Offenbach
Government
 • Mayor Herbert Hunkel
Area
 • Total 24.29 km2 (9.38 sq mi)
Population (2015-12-31)[1]
 • Total 37,565
 • Density 1,500/km2 (4,000/sq mi)
Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes 63263
Dialling codes 06102,(Zeppelinheim:069)
Vehicle registration OF
Website www.neu-isenburg.de

Neu-Isenburg is a town in Germany, located in the Offenbach district of Hesse. It is part of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main urban area and has a population of 35,472 (2007).[2] The town is known nowadays mainly for its regionally used shopping centre, the Isenburg-Zentrum (IZ), the Hugenottenhalle, the Hotel Kempinski Frankfurt, the Autokino Gravenbruch (the oldest drive-in cinema in Europe), the Sportpark, the Waldschwimmbad (swimming pool) and not least of all its central location near Frankfurt Airport.

Geography

Neu-Isenburg, in the background at right Dreieich-Sprendlingen and above Dietzenbach

Neighbouring communities

Neu-Isenburg borders in the west and north on the district-free city of Frankfurt am Main, in the east on the district-free city of Offenbach and in the south on the towns of Dreieich, Langen and Mörfelden-Walldorf (Groß-Gerau district).

Constituent communities

In 1959, building work began on the Wohnstadt im Grünen (“Living Town in the Green”), as it was marketed. This was Gravenbruch. Almost 7,000 people found in this satellite town between the main town and Heusenstamm, lying in the woods, a new home. Owing to the great number of young families that moved there, this constituent community was known as the town with Europe’s densest population of children. It is also well known for the Kempinski-Hotel and the drive-in cinema.

With the amalgamation of the formerly self-administering community of Zeppelinheim in the course of municipal reform in 1977, Neu-Isenburg also stretched farther westwards. Here is found the Zeppelinmuseum.

History

Count Johann Philipp von Isenburg-Offenbach, the town’s founder

Neu-Isenburg was founded on 24 July 1699 as a town of exiles by Huguenots, French Protestants who had had to flee their homeland after the Edict of Nantes was revoked. Their new landlord, Count Johann Philipp von Isenburg-Offenbach, guaranteed them safety, the free use of the French language and religious freedom.

He gave them leave to settle in the Wildbann Dreieich, an old royal hunting forest, in the place where in the Middle Ages the pilgrimage chapel Zum Heiligen Kreuz (“To the Holy Cross”) once stood. By way of thanks to the Count, the town was named Neu-Isenburg after him. The town plan was laid out by Andreas Loeber in a right-angled grid pattern. From corners ran diagonal streets to the marketplace. Also, the middles of the outer sides were linked by streets to the square marketplace. This township survives today in the streets of Kronengasse, Pfarrgasse, Löwengasse and Hirtengasse.

Neu-Isenburg was one of the planned towns of the 17th and 18th centuries. The settlers at first worked at farming, but later turned back to the handicraft trades that they had learnt, such as the stocking knitter’s craft, thereby laying the groundwork for Neu-Isenburg’s economic development. The surrounding communities eyed the French settlers with great mistrust and called the town welsches Dorf (the German word welsch refers to peoples who speak Romance languages, especially French; it is cognate with the English word Welsh, but does not have the same meaning).

„Haus zum Löwen“

On 20 May 1700 – a Thursday – the clergyman Isaac Bermond held the first church services under an old oak in the middle of the church square.

About 1701, the Forsthaus was built (today an inn called Frankfurter Haus) by the city of Frankfurt am Main at the city limits with Neu-Isenburg. The first French Reformed church was built of wood between 1702 and 1706. The foundation stone was laid on Ascension Day 1702. Likewise in 1702, the Town Hall was built at the marketplace, and the Haus zum Löwen was mentioned for the first time. This was used until 1918 as an inn called Au Lion d'Or (“At the Golden Lion”), and today it houses the local history museum.

The first school followed in 1704, and in 1705 the Bansamühle (mill). The wooden church was replaced between 1773 and 1775 with a stone building. In 1781, the first German-language school was built.

After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the County of Ysenburg, together with the Oberamt of Offenbach and its member municipalities, passed to the Grand Duchy of Hesse. In 1828, the Prussian-Hessian Customs Union built a customs house (Frankfurter Straße 10) as its main customs office on the border with what was then the Free City of Frankfurt.

Despite considerable reservations, German families, too, were moving into the town beginning in the 18th century, leading to the church’s having to hold services alternately in German and French as of 1761, much to the French-speaking population’s chagrin. In the end, German was confirmed as the town’s official language in 1829.

In 1846, the Main-Neckar railway near Neu-Isenburg was completed, but the town did not get its own railway station until 1852.

The Autokino Gravenbruch, opened in 1960, was Europe’s first drive-in cinema

Other events in Neu-Isenburg’s history, in brief, are as follows:

House on Zeppelinstraße, Neu-Isenburg, where Bertha Pappenheim housed her home for displaced Jewish girls

Population development

In 1834, Neu-Isenburg had only 1,762 inhabitants. By 1939, there were 15,081. After Zeppelinheim was amalgamated and Gravenbruch had been built, the population reached 35,000 by 1983.

Politics

Town council

The municipal elections held on 6 March 2016 yielded the following results,[3] compared to earlier municipal elections:[4][5]

Parties and voter communities CDU SPD AfD GRÜNE FDP LINKE FWG Distribution of seats
2016 Share of the votes 36.8 23.5 12.5 11.9 7.2 4.8 3.2
Seats (out of 45) 17 11 6 5 3 2 1
2011 Share of the votes 44.1 24.5 — 20.2 3.6 3.5 4.2
Seats (out of 45) 20 11 — 9 2 1 2
2006 Share of the votes 52.0 23.3 — 14.0 5.4 — 5.2
Seats (out of 45) 23 11 — 6 3 — 2
2001 Share of the votes 48.0 26.5 — 16.9 5.2 — 3.4
Seats (out of 45) 22 12 — 8 2 — 1
1997 Share of the votes 41.8 29.9 — 16.1 5.7 — 6.5
Seats (out of 45) 19 13 — 7 3 — 3

The CDU formed a coalition with Die Grünen (“The Greens”), the FDP and the Freie Wähler (“Free Voters”).

Mayors

Past mayoral elections have yielded the following results:

Year Candidates Party %
Result
2015 Herbert Hunkel [E 1] 77.4
Thilo Seipel FDP 22.6
Voter turnout it % 30.3
2010 Herbert Hunkel [E 1] 58.9
Christian Beck SPD 36.9
Susann Guber FDP 4.2
Voter turnout in % 38.4
2007 Dirk-Oliver Quilling CDU 83.3
Markus Munari SPD 16.7
Voter turnout in % 40.0
Year Candidates Party %
Result
2001 Dirk-Oliver Quilling CDU 78.5
Wolfgang Lamprecht SPD 19.0
Edgar Schultheis 2.4
Voter turnout in % 41.1
1995[E 2] Dirk-Oliver Quilling CDU 63.1
Berthold Depper FDP 36.9
Voter turnout in % 38.0
1995 Dirk-Oliver Quilling CDU 49.5
Günter Trützschler SPD 14.1
Maria Marx Grüne 17.7
Berthold Depper FDP 18.8
Voter turnout in % 45.7
  1. 1 2 Herbert Hunkel was supported by the CDU
  2. ↑ Runoff

At the last election on 27 September 2015, the independent candidate Herbert Hunkel, who was supported by the CDU, was reelected with 77.4% of the vote over Thilo Seipel (FDP, 22.6%). Voter turnout was 30.3%.

Town partnerships

Town friendships

Economy and infrastructure

Railway station
Tram at the Neu-Isenburg town limits stop

Economy

Given its proximity to the trade fair city of Frankfurt and to Frankfurt Airport, Neu-Isenburg is an attractive location for businesses of the most varied sectors. Among them are many hotels, which see more than 230,000 overnight stays every year, the highest figure in the Offenbach district.

Over time, the town has converted itself from a location for producing businesses to a service-industry-based location and is among the biggest high-technology locations in the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region.

Some of the businesses established here are:

Around the 1980s and 1990s the airline Condor was headquartered in Neu-Isenburg.[6][7]

Transport

The town is close to several routes of the German Autobahn network (A 3, A 5, A 661).

Neu-Isenburg station is on the Main-Neckar Railway and is served by Rhine-Main S-Bahn lines S 3 and S 4, although the station is somewhat remote from the town centre. It is the only station in Hesse that has loading tracks for a motorail service, connecting to several destinations in Austria, Italy and southern France. Line S 7 runs over the Mannheim–Frankfurt railway, stopping at Zeppelinheim station.

The Frankfurt tram network has a terminal at Isenburger Schneise, just within the Frankfurt boundary for reasons of municipal identity, linking the northern margin of Neu-Isenburg with Frankfurt city centre and Frankfurt-Bornheim by way of Frankfurt South railway station.

Frankfurt Airport lies at the town limits.

Culture and sightseeing

Rosenmontagsumzug in Neu-Isenburg

Hugenottenhalle

Neu-Isenburg is known far beyond its limits for the various events staged at the Hugenottenhalle. In this multipurpose hall with a variable capacity of up to 2,000 people, rock concerts are held, guest theatrical performances are given and dancing and music are performed. Citizens are offered a comprehensive cultural programme covering every genre.

Open-Doors-Festival

Neu-Isenburg is especially well known in the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region for its yearly summertime Open-Doors-Festival (formerly Musikspektakel). For three days, some 40 different bands and artists from all genres of music play. The event is attended by some 15,000 guests who enter free of charge, and is held on several different stages throughout the town area.

Fastnacht

The parade on Shrove Monday (Rosenmontag) – sometimes called Lumpenmontag in Neu-Isenburg – running across the town enjoys great popularity.

Education

Media

Ärzte-Zeitung, a newspaper for physicians, has its headquarters in Neu-Isenburg.[8]

Notable people

References

  1. ↑ "Bevölkerung der hessischen Gemeinden". Hessisches Statistisches Landesamt (in German). August 2016.
  2. ↑ http://www.statistik-hessen.de/themenauswahl/bevoelkerung-gebiet/regionaldaten/bevoelkerung-der-hessischen-gemeinden/index.html
  3. ↑ Statistical Office of Hesse: Results of the municipal election 2016
  4. ↑ Statistical Office of Hesse: Results of the municipal elections 2011 and 2006
  5. ↑ Statistical Office of Hesse: Results of the municipal elections 2001 and 1997
  6. ↑ "World Airline Directory." Flight International. 30 March 1985. 70." Retrieved on 17 June 2009.
  7. ↑ "World Airline Directory." Flight International. 24–30 March 1993. 84." Retrieved on 30 September 2009.
  8. ↑ "Impressum." Ärzte-Zeitung. Retrieved on 4 April 2015. "Ärzte Zeitung Verlags-GmbH Am Forsthaus Gravenbruch 5 63263 Neu-Isenburg"
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