New cultural plaque commemorates liberation on May 8, 1945
02.05.2025
A new cultural plaque in front of the German Leather Museum provides information about the liberation from the National Socialists on May 8, 1945, the day on which the Second World War ended for Germany with the victory of the Allied forces over the National Socialists. In Offenbach, liberation came a little earlier: on March 26, 1945, American troops moved in, ending the war and the Nazi dictatorship for the people of Offenbach. The previously unnamed square in front of the Leather Museum was given its name on May 8, 1985, when two contemporary witnesses of the anti-fascist resistance against the Nazi regime, Karl Schild and Karl Gültig, unveiled the street sign in the presence of around 1,500 people.
This place was chosen to commemorate the crimes of the Offenbach Gestapo (Secret State Police), which was located in the former police headquarters on the corner of Frankfurter Straße and Ludwigstraße. Many people who resisted the Nazi regime of terror were arrested in Offenbach from February 1933 and interrogated and tortured in the Gestapo's offices. They were social democrats, communists, trade unionists or other members of the opposition. Afterwards, they were often sent to other prisons or the Osthofen concentration camp. Later, most of them were sentenced to many years in prison and other punishments - or murdered.
Unveiling on Remembrance Day at 5 pm
The Office for Public Relations erected the plaque at the request of the Offenbach History Workshop and the Offenbach City and District Association of the DGB, which commemorate the crimes of the Nazis and the Second World War on the square in front of the Leather Museum every year. The plaque will be ceremonially unveiled on the occasion of this year's Remembrance Day. The plaque is part of the city of Offenbach's cultural signage system, which documents sights and the city's history at 40 locations.