Frankfurt
[meyn]
Points of Interest
Points of interest include the Römer (the city hall, begun in the 15th cent.); the Gothic Church of St. Bartholomew (13th-15th cent.), also called the coronation cathedral, which has a high (312 ft/95 m) tower; the house (now a museum) in which Goethe was born (1749); the Lutheran Church of St. Paul, or Paulskirche (built 1789-1833), where the Frankfurt Parliament met; the Städel Art Institute (founded 1816); the German Postal Museum; the Jewish Museum; and museums of applied arts, ethnology, film, and architecture. The Commerzbank Tower (850 ft/259 m) and Messeturm Building (843 ft/257 m) are among the tallest buildings in Europe. Frankfurt is the seat of a university (opened 1914) and a national library.
History
A Roman town founded in the 1st cent. A.D., Frankfurt became (8th cent.) a royal residence under Charlemagne. After the Treaty of Verdun (843) it was briefly the capital of the kingdom of the Eastern Franks (i.e., Germany). It prospered as a commercial center and held annual fairs (first mentioned 1240) that drew merchants from all of Europe. Frankfurt was designated in the Golden Bull (1356) of Emperor Charles IV as the seat of the imperial elections, which took place in the chapel of the Church of St. Bartholomew. It was made a free imperial city in 1372.
After the emperors ceased to be crowned by the popes, the coronation ceremonies took place (1562-1792) at Frankfurt. The emperors-elect, after being crowned at St. Bartholomew's by the archbishop-elector of Mainz, proceeded with much pageantry to a banquet in the city hall, called Römer [Ger.,=Romans] because the emperors-elect were crowned kings of the Romans. The coronation (1764) of Joseph II has been described in the autobiography of the writer Goethe, a native of Frankfurt.
Frankfurt accepted the Reformation in 1530, and was a member of the Schmalkaldic League. It was occupied many times in the wars of the 17th and 18th cent. Frankfurt was the original home of the Rothschilds, who, along with other Jewish merchants and bankers, played a leading role in the economic growth of the city (especially after 1700). After the dissolution (1806) of the Holy Roman Empire, Frankfurt was included in the ecclesiastic principality of Regensburg and Aschaffenburg, created by Napoleon I for Karl Theodor von Dalberg. The principality was converted in 1810 into the grand duchy of Frankfurt, also under Dalberg.
The Congress of Vienna (1814-15) restored Frankfurt to the status of a free city and made it the seat of the diet of the German Confederation. The Frankfurt Parliament, the first German national assembly, met there in 1848-49. Having sided with Austria in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Frankfurt was annexed by Prussia. In 1871 the Treaty of Frankfurt, which ended the Franco-Prussian War, was signed there. The city was heavily damaged in World War II, but after 1945 many of its historic landmarks were restored and numerous modern structures were built.
Licensed from Columbia University Press
Licensed from Columbia University Press
Group of thinkers associated with the Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research), founded in Frankfurt in 1923 by Felix J. Weil, Carl Grünberg, Max Horkheimer, and Friedrich Pollock. Other important members of the school are Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, and Jürgen Habermas. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Horkheimer moved the institute to Columbia University in New York City, where it functioned until 1941; it was reestablished in Frankfurt in 1950. Though the institute was originally conceived as a centre for neo-Marxian social research, there is no doctrine common to all members of the Frankfurt school. Intellectually, the school is most indebted to the writings of G.W.F. Hegel and the Young Hegelians (see Hegelianism), Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Wilhelm Dilthey, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. Seealso critical theory.
Learn more about Frankfurt school with a free trial on Britannica.com.
City (pop., 2002 est.: city, 641,076; metro. area, 1,896,741), western Germany. Located on the Main River, it was the site of a Roman military settlement in the 1st century AD. It served as a royal residence of the Carolingians from the 9th century through the Middle Ages. A free imperial city (1372–1806), it lost its status under Napoleon but regained it in 1815. It was the capital of Germany from 1816 until it was annexed by Prussia in 1866. Its Old Town, once the largest surviving medieval city in Germany, was mostly destroyed in World War II; some landmarks survive, including its red sandstone cathedral, dedicated in 1239. International trade fairs have been held in Frankfurt since 1240; in the modern era, book, automobile, and computer fairs are popular annual events. The city's manufactures include machinery and printing materials, as well as the high-quality sausages known as frankfurters. Frankfurt is the birthplace of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Learn more about Frankfurt (am Main) with a free trial on Britannica.com.
- For the NATO Military use of this facility, see Hahn Air Base
History
During the Cold War Frankfurt-Hahn Airport was a frontline NATO facility known as Hahn Air Base. Hahn Air Base was the home of the United States Air Force 50th Fighter Wing (in various designations) for most of those years as part of the United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE). It was one of several USAFE bases in Germany (Zweibrücken, Ramstein, Sembach, Bitburg, Spangdahlem, and Rhein-Main) all within 100 km (62.5 miles) of each other. Beyond their location in the heart of US troop concentrations, these air bases were well situated to reach all locations within Europe and the Mediterranean region.
On 30 September 1993, most of Hahn Air Base was turned over to civil German authorities, the USAF retaining a small portion as a communications site. It is also frequently used for military charters, these flights being operated by, amongst others, Continental Airlines and United Airlines.
The German government decided to turn the former airfield into a civil airport. One of the main investors in the development of the new Frankfurt-Hahn Airport was Fraport AG, which primarily runs Frankfurt International Airport, the aim being to reduce the amount of traffic using that airport.
Hahn charges its airline operators less due to its remote location. This has made the airport popular with low-cost carriers, especially Ryanair which uses the airport as a major hub.
Although its scheduled traffic is almost exclusively international flights, Hahn Airport does not carry the word "International" as part of its name.
Access
The airport is not served by any railway, but there are bus connections to the main railway station in the following cities: Frankfurt/Main (1h 45min, via Frankfurt International Airport approx. every hour from 5:00AM to 12:30AM); Cologne (2h 15min – infrequent); Mainz (1hr 5min – infrequent), Koblenz (1hr 10 min – infrequent) and Trier (1hr 20 min – infrequent).Hahn is fairly accessible by road, although the nearest Autobahn (Highway) connections are approximately 25 miles (40 km.) to the west (A 1) or east (A 61). Parking and car rental are available at the airport.
Technical information
Frankfurt-Hahn Airport can handle airplanes up to the size of an Antonov An-124 or Boeing 747 cargo jet on a regular basis. The even larger Antonov An-225 cargo transporter has paid visits in 2002 and 2003.
Airlines and destinations
Scheduled
- Belavia (Minsk)
- Iceland Express (Reykjavik)
- Ryanair (Alghero, Bari, Berlin-Schönefeld, Biarritz, Birmingham [begins 27 October], Bratislava, Budapest, Dublin, Edinburgh, Faro, Féz, Forlì, Fuerteventura, Gdańsk, Girona, Glasgow-Prestwick, Gothenburg-City, Granada, Hamburg-Lubeck [begins October] Jerez, Kaunas, Kerry, Klagenfurt [begins 27 October], London-Stansted, Madrid, Malaga, Manchester [begins 26 October], Marrakech, Milan-Bergamo, Montpellier, Oslo-Torp, Palma de Mallorca, Pescara, Pisa, Porto, Prague [begins 27 October], Reus, Riga, Rome-Ciampino, Santander, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Shannon [begins 3rd november], Stockholm-Skavsta, Tampere, Tenerife, Trapani, Treviso, Valencia, Verona, Wrocław)
- Vladivostok Air (Moscow-Vnukovo)
- Wizz Air (Katowice)
Cargo airlines
- Aeroflot-Cargo
- Air Armenia
- Atlas Air
- EgyptAir Cargo
- Emirates SkyCargo
- Etihad Crystal Cargo
- FedEx Express
- MNG Airlines
- PIA Cargo
- Polar Air Cargo
- Qantas Freight
- TAP Cargo
- TESIS Aviation Enterprise
See also
References
- Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982 USAF Reference Series, Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, Washington, D.C., 1989
- Endicott, Judy G., USAF Active Flying, Space, and Missile Squadrons as of 1 October 1995. Office of Air Force History
- Fletcher, Harry R., Air Force Bases Volume II, Active Air Force Bases outside the United States of America on 17 September 1982, Office of Air Force History, 1989
External links
- Frankfurt-Hahn Airport (official site)
- Official Tourist Information for Frankfurt-Hahn Airport (official site)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Sunday September 28, 2008 at 15:23:50 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
