After the 1944 bombing that leveled almost 100% of the city, Frankfurt, like many of its fellow German cities, had to get a makeover. With one eye looking to medieval times and the other spying on corporate America, the cross-eyed result is a city of wood and concrete, Gothic and post-modern, with one history 1000 years old and another just 50. Some things never change though, and in Frankfurt?s case luckily it?s wealth that decided to stay. Since Charlemagne first put this “Ford of the Franks” on the map in 794, fledgling capitalists sailed down the Main to barter and now full-blown capitalists concord in for the world?s largest trade fair.
In 1356, Frankfurt charged ahead politically too with the promulgation of the “Golden Bull,” an imperial law that would make the trade center also the election and coronation site of the Emperors until the Holy Roman Empire?s dissolution in 1806. It is fitting then that since 1998 Frankfurt is home to the European Central Bank?the parent of that darling coin that will securely realize the dream of ambitious politicians from Julius Caesar to Napoleon: a European empire united?at least economically.
Another empire builder, Hitler, hated the city for the same reason JFK called it “the cradle of democracy:” its tradition of tolerance. From persecuted Huguenots in the 16th century to refugee Dutch in the 18th, Frankfurt has always welcomed immigrants through its gates. And now at least one fourth of the small metropolis? population of 660,000 is likely to be speaking something other than German. This is also true of the animated students at the University that once held the members of the prestigious Frankfurt School.
