1900: The dream of a beach promenade

Of course, this cannot be dated to the day and hour. The beginning of the 20th century was a period in which the town was swelling southwards on a broad front, far beyond the railroad line that ran through fields a generation earlier. In 1900, the school on Friedrichsplatz, now the Albert Schweitzer School, was under construction. Further to the west, the town hospital was opened in 1894. Both show the beginnings of today's Ring in their immediate vicinity. But they are not more than beginnings. Where the Starkenburgring moves away from the hospital, it is little more than a country lane.

Another approach can be seen further west in Dreieichpark, then still called Stadtpark. Its grounds have a history of their own. In the very old days, it belonged to the historic Biebelsmühle, which Prince Carl von Isenburg left to his deserving minister Goldner in 1807. The western part was acquired by the town in 1859. The Dick & Kirschten wagon factory had established itself on the eastern part. It later became a private women's clinic, familiar to old Offenbach residents as the Greinische Klinik, then the Klinik Dr. Raub. Today there are apartment blocks on the site.

Offenbach used the municipal section in 1879 to present itself as "the workshop of the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt" with a state exhibition. Memories of the first encounter with electric light and the strange-looking concrete elements in the middle of the park remain. They demonstrated the possibilities of the new building material concrete in 1879. They were preserved when the city later designed the exhibition grounds as a green space.

So there were already sections of the park when the city fathers decided to create a generously designed ring of grounds in 1902. It grew continuously. In 1906 with the Isenburg Ring, in 1907 with the Starkenburgring, in 1908 the Friedrichsring including the pond. Fields and meadows became golden soil. Old fortunes were created, new ones formed. It became chic to build and live there, as the city connected the roads with generously landscaped promenades. Contemporary reports rave about "intoxicating flowerbeds".

The Ring had not yet been completed when the First World War interrupted the urban development. It was not until the mid-1920s that the August-Bebel-Ring and the Hessenring with its chestnut trees followed, which was then joined by the Landgrafenring.

Leonhard Eißnert is regarded as the "father of Offenbach's green spaces" and his memory is honored with the Leonbard Eißnert Park on Bieber Berg. When he was elected to office in 1906, his confirmation by the Grand Duke of Darmstadt caused a stir in conservative Germany, right up to the imperial court. This was because Eißnert was the first Social Democratic alderman in a German city. The prince who had allowed this was henceforth referred to as the "red Grand Duke of Hesse". Eißnert's actions had a history. As early as 1842, a citizens' initiative had called for a perimeter road "which would soon form a promenade". The promenade was to run around the city center from the Main to the Main. Members of the society for the "creation of a promenade around the city" donated money to enable the administration to purchase land for the project.

The promenade that was created in this way did not follow the course of today's Anlagenring. It has since given way to development, like the spacious gardens that extended behind the street frontages in the city center of old Offenbach. August-Bebel-Ring and Parkstraße can be described as remnants. But today's Anlagenring bulges out much further in its extension. And it had just been completed when another ring was already being planned: the traffic axis Taunusring, Odenwaldring, Spessartring, Rhönstraße.

By Lothar R. Braun, published in the Offenbach Post