Main features of urban development
Municipal self-government in Offenbach begins in 1820. Industrialization sets in powerfully in the middle of the century. Offenbach becomes a "workers' town" and "leather town". In 1914, Offenbach is on the verge of becoming a major city.
The regency of the Isenburg princes ends in 1815. Offenbach is now a municipality in the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt. The history of municipal self-government begins with the constitution and the Hessian municipal code of 1820. There are now elected city councillors who appoint a mayor and an alderman. Georg d'Orville is the first mayor from a noble Huguenot family of manufacturers. The city administration remains very small for many decades. Taxes are also very low. There were hardly any public services. Those who have can buy goods, education and services. Three quarters of the population have little or nothing.
Offenbach's economic recovery begins slowly and always in a tense relationship with Frankfurt from 1825. It turns into the industrial revolution. Offenbach becomes the industrial city of the Grand Duchy. Offenbach is therefore spared the pauperism of the years from 1830. Although Georg Büchner's "Hessischer Landbote" is secretly printed in Offenbach in 1833, it has no echo in the town.
The bourgeois national and freedom movement of 1848 also has many supporters in Offenbach, who organize themselves into political associations and send high-profile representatives to the Frankfurt Paulskirche parliament. The movement splits after a few months and ends the following year. The radical supporters fled to Switzerland or emigrated to free America.
From 1850, industrial growth becomes ever faster. The steam engine becomes established. Offenbach now becomes the focus of the leather industry, mechanical engineering and metal processing. The population grows rapidly. Famines and epidemics are a thing of the past.
The labor movement emerges in the 1860s from educational associations. Social democracy is founded in 1872, survives the Socialist Laws (which are not strictly enforced in Hesse) and produces strong leaders in Offenbach. From 1900, the Social Democrats dominate local politics in the working-class town of Offenbach - unique in the German Empire, made possible by a relatively democratic electoral law in the Grand Duchy and a voter turnout of almost 90% (of men). In 1908, the liberal Grand Duke even approved the appointment of the Social Democrat Leonhardt Eißnert as a full-time alderman - a highly controversial first in the German Empire.
Modern social policy is developed in Offenbach - "municipal socialism" is the buzzword of the time. The city's employees receive vacation and significantly better salaries under a modern pay scale system. The city is the school authority - numerous schools and the technical college are built, teachers are hired and the number of classes in elementary school falls from 90 to 55. There are deep differences between the bourgeois parties and the Social Democrats - but when it comes to expanding the city's infrastructure, a grand coalition prevails.
The rapid, debt-financed expansion of the port, energy supply, hospital, abattoir, crèches, supply house, municipal baths and parks is therefore undisputed: they are all built in just under 20 years between 1895 and 1915.
Before the start of the First World War, Offenbach is on the verge of becoming a major city. At the current rate of growth, the 100,000 mark will be reached in 1925. Plans for a magnificent new town hall and a theater are in the drawers of the building department.