Rodgau
Encyclopedia
Rodgau is a town in the Offenbach district
in the Regierungsbezirk
of Darmstadt
in Hessen, Germany
. It lies southeast of Frankfurt am Main
in the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region and has the greatest population of any municipality in the Offenbach district. It came into being in 1979 when the greater community of Rodgau was raised to town, after having been formed through a merger of five formerly self-administering communities in the framework of municipal reform in Hesse in 1977. The current constituent communities’ history reaches back to the 8th century.
Rodgau is part of the metropolitan area
known as the Rhein-Main-Gebiet in German
, one of Germany’s economically strongest areas. The fiftieth parallel of north latitude (50°N) passes right through Puiseaux-Platz (square) in Nieder-Roden.
The town lies on the so-called Untermainebene, or Lower Main Plain, the northern outlying part of the Rhine rift. The flat land around Rodgau is set against hillier country in the nearby Spessart
, Taunus
, Vogelsberg
, Odenwald
and Bergstraße
, which all serve as recreational areas for the people. The state
boundary with neighbouring Bavaria
runs only a few kilometres away, at the Main.
About a third of the municipal area is made up of woodland, and another third of land under agricultural
use and of open water, while the remaining third is built up with residential and commercial areas and transport facilities. The brook, the Rodau, runs for 15 km through the whole municipal area.
Climatically the area is among Germany’s mildest and least rainy areas (mean yearly measurements for 1982-2004: 10.5°C, 639.1 mm).
and Obertshausen
, in the east on the community of Hainburg
and the town of Seligenstadt
, in the southeast on the town of Babenhausen
and the community of Eppertshausen
(both in Darmstadt-Dieburg
), in the southwest on the town of Rödermark
and in the west on the town of Dietzenbach
.
Today (as at 31 December 2007), Rodgau has 45,236 inhabitants (including 2,035 whose main residence is elsewhere), of whom 22,120 are male and 23,116 female. Foreigners from 52 different nations account for 4,471 inhabitants (9.9%). Those who live in Rodgau longer than ten years account for 64.6% of the population.
Around Saint Peter’s Church (Peterskirche) arose the settlement of Wichenkirchen (or Wizzinkirchin) in Frankish
times as a thorpe (one-street village). It had its first documentary mention in 1287 in the Seligenstadt
Monastery’s accord with the Auheimer Mark. Weiskirchen was at this time Mother Church to the villages of Jügesheim, Hainhausen and Rembrücken
. The first landlords, the Lords of Hagenhausen – later of Eppstein
– sold the Amt of Steinheim in 1425 along with Weiskirchen, a village belonging to it, to the Archbishop and Elector of Mainz
, to whom the village belonged until 1803. With this, Weiskirchen formed an ecclesiastical and economic hub in the Rodgau. When the Auheimer Mark (a communally held parcel of land to which belonged several villages) was divided up in 1786, Weiskirchen received a share of the forest.
After Secularization
in 1803, the Amt of Steinheim along with Weiskirchen passed to Hesse. In 1896 the Rodgaubahn (railway) with a railway station in Weiskirchen opened.
In the course of the 19th century, Weiskirchen shifted from a farming village to a worker’s community. Of the once well known village with its timber-frame
houses very little is left. During National Socialist times, the small Jewish community was driven out. In March 2005, the small, restored former synagogue was ceremoniously reopened as a memorial. Since 1967, the Weiskirchen transmitter
, a medium-wave transmitter owned by Hessischer Rundfunk
, has been in operation on Weiskirchen’s northwestern outskirts on a frequency of 594 kHz.
began styling themselves the Lords of Eppstein, and writing many a page in mediaeval
German history, found themselves holding great importance and power from the 13th century onwards. Four Archbishops of Mainz alone were installed by the Eppsteins. Hainhausen, though, did not benefit from the former lords’ descendants’ lordliness. In 1425, the Lords of Eppstein
sold the Amt of Steinheim along with Hainhausen to the Archbishop and Elector of Mainz
. Its low point came, as it did for all the surrounding villages too, in the Thirty Years' War
, at which time the Plague also raged among the population. The survivors besought the patron saint of Plague sufferers, Saint Roch
for help. The end of the deadly epidemic is still celebrated today every year on 16 August with a procession, whose destination was originally the Rochus-Kapelle (“Saint Roch’s Chapel”), consecrated in 1692. Nowadays, though, the newer Rochus-Kirche (“Saint Roch’s Church”), standing at a different site in the heart of the community, serves as the procession’s endpoint, and has since the late 19th century. Saint Roch’s Church houses as an art history treasure a pietà
from the mid 14th century which depicts in sculpture Mary
and Jesus
after he has been taken down from the Cross
. After Secularization
in 1803, Hainhausen passed to Hesse.
Founded as a clump village, today’s constituent community had its first documentary mention in 1261 under the name Guginsheim. One of Charlemagne
’s Vögte
(singular: Vogt) named Gugin or Guginhart was supposedly the namesake. Other forms of the name used over the course of the Middle Ages
were Gugesheym, Gogeßheym, Goginsheym, and Gugesheim. In the local speech, Jügesheim is sometimes still called Giesem today. Jügesheim was founded in Frankish
times, or more particularly in Merovingian times (between 481 and 560). Near the old Roman roads in the Maingau woods, which crossed near Jügesheim, the Franks
built new military colonies to control the land.
In the Middle Ages
, the surrounding woodlands belonged to the Wildbann Dreieich, a royal hunting forest, one of whose 30 Wildhuben (special estates whose owners were charged with guarding the hunting forest) was maintained in Jügesheim. In 1425, the Lords of Eppstein
sold the Amt of Steinheim along with Jügesheim to the Archbishop and Elector of Mainz
.
The Thirty Years' War
took a heavy toll on the community, which at that time was part of the Rödermark (communal lands). The place only recovered in the 17th century. In the 20th century it established a leather industry with many workers working leather at home. Besides this there were of course many farming households. After Secularization
in 1803, Jügesheim passed to Hesse. In 1896 the Rodgaubahn (railway) with a railway station in Jügesheim opened.
In the mid 1970s, a commercial area was laid out, which over the years that followed further grew. The new Town Hall made Jügesheim into a centre of Rodgau. Today Rodgau’s second biggest constituent community has some 11,700 inhabitants.
North of the constituent community between Hainhausen and Jügesheim is found the 43.5 m-tall watertower built in the years from 1936 to 1938. It was in use until 1979, and is now under monumental protection. It has become a kind of landmark for Jügesheim, and indeed for all Rodgau.
Dudenhofen was founded in the second wave of Frankish
settlement, after the time of the partition of the empire in 561. The place was founded at a newly built road junction in an expanded road network, at the expense of the former hub at Jügesheim. The placename relates to a personal name Tuoto or Dodo.
Dudenhofen had its first documentary mention in 1278 in an accord from Archbishop Werner von Eppstein of Mainz
with the Lords of Eppstein
. The village long belonged to various owners at the same time (the Lords of Falkenstein, Hanau
, Isenburg and Electoral Mainz
), the odd part was bequeathed, others were traded or mortgaged (complete with inhabitants). Between 1450 and 1736, Dudenhofen belonged to the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg and was assigned to the Amt of Babenhausen, thereby making the place as of 1550 an Evangelical
enclave surrounded by Catholic neighbours. The Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg died out in 1736, whereupon Hesse-Darmstadt and Hesse-Kassel found themselves at odds over the village. In 1771, Dudenhofen was annexed by the County of Hesse-Kassel. Above the main entrance to the Baroque
Evangelical church is therefore found Hesse-Kassel’s coat of arms
. Underneath the arms is the inscription Was unter Hessens Lust Erbprinz Wilhelm gebaut, sei Dir, o wahrer Gott, zur Pflege nun vertraut (“That built under Hesse’s desire Hereditary Prince William, be it trusted unto Thee, O true God, for its care”). Meant here is William IX
.
In 1807, the Amt of Babenhausen along with Dudenhofen passed to French
administration. In 1811, Dudenhofen was absorbed into the Grand Duchy of Hesse
. In 1896 the Rodgaubahn (railway) with a railway station in Dudenhofen opened.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, many young men emigrated to the Americas
to seek their fortune. Today, agriculture
, except for asparagus
growing, plays no further rôle.
, the village’s population suffered great losses. In 1622 alone, 155 of the 430 inhabitants lost their lives. In 1631 the Plague claimed 104 victims. Only 26 inhabitants lived to see the war end.
In 1681, Dudenhofen had 38 households and 139 inhabitants. In 1834 there were 1,139 people in the village, almost all Evangelical
but for one long established Jewish family that was driven out of the village in 1938. In 1939 there were 2,120 inhabitants and in 1970, 4,628. In late 2007 the constituent community had 7,967 inhabitants.
. The name might go back to the Siedlung auf einer gerodeten Aue (“Settlement on a cleared floodplain”), but it is also likely that it comes from the Rodau, which runs through the community, and which rises in Rotliegend
near Urberach. During floods, it was once known to run red (rot in German
). Whereabouts the monastery lay is to this day unknown. Finds, however, confirm that people were settling in what is now Nieder-Roden long before the Christian Era. In the Middle Ages
, the surrounding woodlands belonged to the Wildbann Dreieich, a royal hunting forest, one of whose 30 Wildhuben (special estates whose owners were charged with guarding the hunting forest) was maintained in Nieder-Roden.
Nieder-Roden had another documentary mention in 791 when the Frankish
nobleman Erlulf donated all his holdings in Nieder-Roden (rotahen inferiore), Ober-Roden (rotahen superiore) and Bieber to the Lorsch Abbey
. In 1346 the village became an independent parish, although in the years that followed it still remained in a certain dependency relationship with its former mother parish of Ober-Roden.
Formerly an Eppstein holding, the place belonged from 1425 to 1803 to the Archbishopric of Mainz
and enjoyed great importance as the centre of a tithing area and the seat of a tithe court. In 1803, the village, as part of the Amtsvogt
ei of Dieburg, ended up with the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt, the later Grand Duchy of Hesse
. When the Rödermark (a communally held parcel of land to which belonged several villages) was divided up in 1818, Nieder-Roden received a share of the forest. In 1832, Nieder-Roden passed to the Offenbach district. From 1874 to 1977, the community was in the Dieburg district. In 1896 the Rodgaubahn (railway) with a railway station in Nieder-Roden opened.
In the Second World War, during the National Socialist régime, there arose a penal and prison camp, the Lager Rollwald (“Rollwald Camp”) on the land now occupied by the Rollwald community.
After the war, Nieder-Roden grew, especially in the 1960s and 1970s from 2,500 inhabitants to now almost 16,000. In the course of district reform in Hesse in 1977, the community was transferred from the Dieburg district to the Offenbach district, to which the town of Rodgau also belongs.
Town council, as the highest political body in Rodgau, is elected every five years by eligible citizens. The municipal election held on 26 March 2006 yielded the following results: CDU 47.7%, SPD
31.1%, GRÜNE 9.9%, Bürger/FWG 4.2%, FDP
3.9%, Deutsche Liste 3.2%.
This has further yielded the following seat apportionment: CDU = 22, SPD = 14, Grüne = 4, Bürger/FWG = 2, FDP = 2, Deutsche Liste = 1. The CDU and FDP work together and between them have a three-vote majority in local government. These two parties are also the ones from which the two fulltime members of the town executive come. These are each elected for six-year terms.
In late November 2006, three members from the CDU faction were excluded and since then have formed a further faction, styling themselves the CSG (Christlich Soziale Gruppe). This altered the seat apportionment and therefore the majority relationship as follows: CDU = 19, CSG = 3, SPD = 14, Grüne = 4, Bürger/FWG = 2, FDP = 2, Deutsche Liste = 1.
Town council furthermore chooses eight of its members to sit on the town executive (Magistrat), two fulltime and the other six parttime. The mayor, who is directly elected by the citizenry every six years, chairs the executive.
The five constituent communities’ concerns are handled through local councils in each one. These, however, have only an advisory function at town council, and seats are apportioned according to election results in each constituent community.
Political bodies sit in the session chamber at Town Hall, which was completed in 1988 and stands in the constituent community of Jügesheim.
The town’s arms
might be described thus: Party per bend sinister azure a rose argent surmounted by a heart gules, itself surmounted by a Latin cross sable, gules a wheel spoked of six of the second, surmounting the parting a bend sinister wavy of the second, itself surmounted by five mullets of five of the fourth.
In 1978, the then greater community of Rodgau was granted a coat of arms. The German blazon reads: Das Wappen zeigt in Blau und in Rot einen gewellten silbernen Schräglingsbalken, belegt mit fünf Sternen, begleitet oben rechts von einer silbernen Rose mit silbernen Kelchblättern, diese belegt mit einem roten Herzen, dem ein schwarzes Kreuz aufliegt (Lutherrose), unten links von einem sechsspeichigen silbernen Mainzer Rad.
The escutcheon is divided in half by a wavy bend beginning at the upper sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side. This symbolizes the Rodau, which runs through the whole municipal area. The five mullets (stars) stand for the five constituent communities. On the dexter (armsbearer’s right, viewer’s left) side stands the “Luther rose
” as a charge
. This recalls Dudenhofen’s time as an Evangelical
enclave surrounded by Catholic neighbours. On the sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side is the Wheel of Mainz
, borrowed from the arms borne by the Archbishops of Mainz. This recalls the time when Electoral Mainz
succeeded the Lords of Eppstein in all constituent communities in 1425. Mainz’s overlordship lasted in most constituent communities until Secularization
in the early 19th century, but in Dudenhofen ended as early as the 17th century.
Until 1977, each constituent community had its own coat of arms as a self-administering community.
(Granted in 1958) The four waterwheels refer to the mills that were once found in Weiskirchen, and the white churchtower is canting
, referring to the community’s name, from the German
for “white church”.
(Granted in 1954) The arms show a stylized image of the former moated castle that once stood on the Rodau’s right bank south of the road that leads to Weiskirchen, and that was once the family seat of the Lords of Hainhausen, who were first mentioned in 1122. Out of this family grew the Eppstein dynasty, whose arms with three chevronnets are included here in an inescutcheon. The tincture
s silver and red refer to the arms borne by the Archbishops of Mainz, into whose ownership the village was sold in 1425.
(Granted in 1955) The charge
s in these arms, both the oak sprig and the pair of hart’s horns, were chosen to recall the days when Jügesheim was part of the Wildbann (royal hunting forest). The silver and red here likewise refer to the Wheel of Mainz
arms borne by the Archbishops of Mainz.
(Granted in 1954) The three chevronnets recall the community’s former allegiance to the County of Hanau. Below these is the Luther rose
, which recalls Dudenhofen’s time as an Evangelical
enclave surrounded by Catholic neighbours. This charge
is now also in the town’s arms.
(Granted in 1949) The churchtower shown in these arms is the one found at the local church, and is interesting from an art-history point of view. It is flanked in the arms by two inescutcheons, the chevronnets borne by the Lords of Eppstein on the dexter (armsbearer’s right, viewer’s left) side, and the Wheel of Mainz
borne by the Archbishops of Mainz on the sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side. These stand for former feudal overlords.
, Loiret
, France
since 1974 (originally with Nieder-Roden) Hainburg an der Donau
, Bruck an der Leitha district
, Austria
since 1974 (originally with Nieder-Roden) Nieuwpoort
, West Flanders, Belgium
since 1975 (originally with Dudenhofen) Donja Stubica
, Krapina-Zagorje County
, Croatia
since 2002
On 25 May 1974, the mayors Hans Elgner (Nieder-Roden), Georges Bordry (Puiseaux) and Hubert Rein (Hainburg an der Donau) signed the partnership documents at the Nieder-Roden community centre.
Much as agriculture
may have defined life in the formerly self-administering communities until the early 19th century, this changed with creeping industrialization, above all that in Offenbach. Most farmers took work in the nearby cities of Offenbach and Frankfurt and thereafter ran their farms only as a sideline.
In the mid 20th century, many small and midsize businesses in the leather
working industry set up shop in the Rodgau’s communities. Its products – handbags, suitcases, belts, wallets and purses – were made mostly in private homes as a kind of cottage industry. By 1975, this had led to the almost complete disappearance of the farming sideline. In 2004, only eleven farms were still being worked as main income earners, mostly to grow asparagus
, and four were still being worked as a sideline.
Besides leatherworking, metalworking also locally became a field of endeavour at roughly the same time to supply belt buckles, suitcase handles and suchlike. Major works were located in Weiskirchen, Jügesheim and Nieder-Roden. Nowadays, though, leatherware manufacturing and metalworking play only a subordinate rôle.
In 1954, a new field of industry for this region established itself on Dudenhofen’s outskirts, the Dudenhofen Sand Lime Works (Kalksandsteinwerk Dudenhofen), which quarried the fine dune sand available there for making up to 73 million bricks in one year. In the 1990s the company shifted its production focus to manufacturing porous concrete
presicion blocks (Plansteine), today known under the name Porit.
In the early 1960s, Adam Opel AG
chose Dudenhofen as the location for their test centre, which came into service in 1966. In the middle of a 4.8 km-long high-speed loop track are found a crash-test facility and a 6.7 km-long test track with all conceivable road types for longterm tests.
Beginning in the 1960s, Rodgau opened up six major industrial parks with a combined area of 219 ha in which settled mainly service businesses such as the IBM
product distribution centre (until 2005, thereafter Mann-Mobilia logistics centre), the firm Atlas Rhein Main, the FEGRO wholesale market, MEWA Textilservice, GEODIS, Pepsi-Cola Deutschland, PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences
and a DHL
postal freight centre. All together, in mid 2005, there were reported to be 3,871 businesses in Rodgau, among them 23 supermarket
s from the best known chains and 16 hotel
s with 795 beds.
The trend of shifting from producing industries and crafts to service industries became clear when 2003 is compared to 1987: ten years after the greater community was founded, service industries comprised 52% of the economy, but this share rose over the next 15 years to 73%.
In Rodgau, roughly 150 high tech
nology companies are resident. Dominating the technological field is information and communications technology for aviation and space travel, followed by sensor, measuring, control and analytical technology. Furthermore, production technology, automatic surface finishing
, microelectronics and optoelectronics
are also represented.
In 2005, Rodgau’s commercial operations made available all together 9,076 jobs on the social insurance rolls. Moreover, there were roughly 3,000 jobs for the self-employed, officials and those marginally employed.
A great number of Rodgau’s working people have jobs in the neaby cities: Frankfurt am Main
(25 km away), Frankfurt Airport
(30 km away), Offenbach am Main (15 km away), Hanau
(15 km away), Darmstadt
(20 km away) and Aschaffenburg
(20 km away).
by the extension of line S1 from Wiesbaden
to Ober-Roden. Until that time, Rodgau had been served by the Rodgaubahn (railway).
There is regular bus service to the railway stations at Nieder-Roden and Jügesheim on the S1 through district buslines to Babenhausen, Seligenstadt
, Dietzenbach
and Langen
and town buslines to Hainhausen, Weiskirchen and Rollwald.
) runs through the municipal area and crosses Bundesstraße
45 (Hanau-Dieburg
), which has been expanded to expresswaylike proportions, and which runs north-south, touching all constituent communities, and has four interchange
s. The Weiskirchen service centre
within Rodgau town limits on the A 3 can be reached by drivers going in either direction. Adjoining the northern rest area is a motel
. With the A 3’s extension from Offenbach to Würzburg in the 1960s, both service centres, for the first time in Germany, were outfitted as automat
s. This concept, however, was abandoned in the early 1980s and they were converted to self-service restaurants.
The western residential areas are linked by the 11 km-long Rodgau-Ring-Straße (ringroad), which in the north runs on to Heusenstamm
and Offenbach. The Dietzenbach
-Rodgau-Seligenstadt
cross-district road links Rodgau once again to the A 3. Weiskirchen is furthermore linked to the A 3 through the Obertshausen interchange.
Since 2001, six heavily used intersections within Rodgau town limits have been replaced with roundabout
s with raised, plant-covered islands. To reduce traffic in residential areas, four further, small roundabouts have been built.
– and the easy access thereto afforded by the S-Bahn – make possible international economic links. Of course, holidaymakers also benefit from this proximity.
Between Offenbach and Darmstadt, some 25 km from Rodgau, lies Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport
, the busiest airport for general aviation in Germany. With its roughly 77,000 movements each year, it relieves and complements Frankfurt Airport.
s Frankfurter Rundschau
and Offenbach-Post contain in their editions for the Offenbach district a Rodgau local section. Also, on Thursdays comes the free Rodgau-Post from the Offenbach-Post’s publishing house. Also free are two further locally oriented weekly newspapers which are delivered to households, the Bürgerblatt and the Rodgau-Zeitung. Also, the Dreieich-Spiegel deals with Rodgau happenings peripherally.
centre. Since 2005, Rodgau has also had a broadband network which can bring digital television and radio channels to every household.
On 28 May 2006, transmission of analogue television
signals to Rodgau from the Großer Feldberg and Würzberg Transmitters ended. Digital terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T
) took over broadcasting over the area the next day. Since then Rodgau has lain in the broadcast areas of the Großer Feldberg and Frankfurt Transmitters. Reception of the broadcast television signal has been forecast throughout the town according to whether a mere indoor antenna will be enough to receive it or a simple outdoor antenna. The map at the side shows the areas in which each kind of antenna should be used.
Since August 2008, the local radio station K.C.-Radio in the Rodgau constituent community of Jügesheim has been on the air.
Despite the town’s neverending growth, it has no hospital. The nearest one is found in Seligenstadt
.
Carefully laying out new building developments since 1979 has on the one hand made possible the population growth that has led to the current levels, but on the other hand it has also led to the establishment of the needed social infrastructure such as kindergartens, schools, and sport and leisure facilities. Although the town has slowly been growing together, as yet there is no true town centre. The individual constituent communities look after their own structures as they have thus far grown.
Since 1998, the Lokale Agenda 21
has been flowing as the leading stream of thought in shaping the town. A board of dedicated citizens developed a guiding image for the townsfolk whose goal is sustainability as a “roof” for economy, environment, social services, culture, one world, and so on. The board was granted an advisory function to town council and the right to speak at council meetings, and it worked out suggestions for, among other things, renaturalization and desegregation. Since 2002, the Agenda 21 Quality Phase has been running, that is to say the actual implementation of the suggestions until 2017. The board itself was dissolved in 2003 after the end of the Growth Phase (1998–2002).
At five Evangelical
and six Catholic churches and community centres, regular services are held. The Islam
ic community gathers at a small mosque
in Nieder-Roden. Evangelical Christians number 25.5% in Rodgau, Catholics 39.0%. The other 35.5% either belong to other denominations, or adhere to no faith.
On Rodgau-Weiskirchen’s eastern outskirts, there has been since 1982 a conference and training centre of the Catholic International Apostolic Schönstatt Movement
in the Bishopric of Mainz.
upper level at the Claus-von-Stauffenberg-Schule in Dudenhofen with grade levels 11 to 13. There are the Georg-Büchner-Schule in Jügesheim and the Geschwister-Scholl-Schule in Hainhausen, both coöperative comprehensive school
s, and also the Heinrich-Böll-Schule in Nieder-Roden, an integrated comprehensive school. There are six primary schools: the Freiherr-vom-Stein-Grundschule in Dudenhofen, the Carl-Orff-Schule in Jügesheim, the Gartenstadt-Schule in Nieder-Roden, the Grundschule am Bürgerhaus in Nieder-Roden, the Münchhausen-Schule in Hainhausen and the Wilhelm-Busch-Schule in Jügesheim. The Georg-Büchner-Schule, the Heinrich-Böll-Schule, the Geschwister-Scholl-Schule and a few other schools located elsewhere form a school league within whose framework an exchange of experience and the planning of common projects and classwork take place. Moreover, there is in Weiskirchen the Friedrich-von-Bodelschwingh-Schule für Praktisch Bildbare (special school for trainable pupils). The town also maintains a folk high school
and promotes the Freie Musikschule Rodgau.
Besides the bathing beach on the 32.4 ha Rodgausee with its up to 300,000 visitors yearly, there are several forest recreational facilities, barbecue pits and two miniature golf courses within town limits. Those who play sports have on hand three sport centres, five sport fields, five sport halls with several functions, four gymnasia, two fitness paths and several horseback riding facilities. Seven tennis facilities and a tennis hall are likewise among the offerings, along with a beach volleyball facility with three courts at the bathing beach and a big skating facility. Sporting life in Rodgau is in the care of 55 sport clubs in the town.
Among the regular yearly highlights in municipal sport are the 50-km-Ultramarathon Rodgau run by RLT Rodgau in January, a triathlon in August, the 24-Stunden-Lauf Rodgau (24-hour walk) in September and the Drachenfest (“Dragon Festival”), likewise in September.
Two other community centres are found in the constituent communities of Weiskirchen and Dudenhofen.
In the constituent communities of Weiskirchen Jügesheim and Nieder-Roden, “homeland clubs” take it upon themselves to run museums whose collections deal with each community’s history. On Friedensstraße in Nieder-Roden is found the region’s only DDR-Museum (“East Germany Museum”). This museum offers a detailed overview of what were once the consequences of a divided Germany.
Four cinemas and seven public libraries round the cultural life out.
Since 1979, the €2,500 “Cultural Prize of the Town of Rodgau” (Kulturpreis der Stadt Rodgau) for outstanding performance by a Rodgau artist or project has been given out every year, since 1992 alternating with the “Cultural Promotion Prize” (Kulturförderpreis), specially for young artists.
Rodgau became well known countrywide for hits by the band the Rodgau Monotones, for example St. Tropez am Baggersee (“St. Tropez on the Quarry Pond”, which is the nickname for the local bathing beach in the town) or Erbarme, die Hesse komme (“Have mercy, the Hessians are coming”). The Rodgau Monotones received the Cultural Prize of the Town of Rodgau in 1983.
In Rodgau, four amateur theatrical groups, whose productions are a firm part of Rodgau’s cultural life, are active on a club level. The Nieder-Roden group Das Große Welttheater, having gained note among thousands of spectators both in and beyond the region for its theatre projects, won the Cultural Prize in 1996 and the Cultural Promotion Prize in 2000.
Fasching
(Fastnacht, Fassenacht) is celebrated lustily in Rodgau. Said to be the Carnival’s stronghold in Rodgau is Jügesheim (dialectal name: Giesem). Here, before the Town hall on 11 November, the opening of the “campaign” takes place, and on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday the opening of the “Town Hall storm”, the symbolic transfer of the town’s administration to the fools. On the Thursday before Ash Wednesday the Carnival parade winds its way through Jügesheim’s streets.
The Carnival representatives, the Carnival Prince and Princess and the Child Prince and Princess, have in more recent times not always come from Jügesheim. Other constituent communities may now enter contestants.
buildings in the old communities. Only in the early 1970s were historical buildings that were still standing systematically catalogued and ranked according to criteria for monumental protection.
The five former village churches from the 13th to 19th centuries even today still mark the old village cores. In the 1990s, with the church parishes’, the municipality’s and many volunteers’ support, they were renovated and also put back in their original states. The Gothic
tower at the Matthias-Kirche (“Saint Matthew’s Church”) in Nieder-Roden is Rodgau’s oldest preserved building. Within the churches themselves are found objects of importance to art history from various epochs. Particularly worthy of mention among these is the Late Gothic Marienaltar (“Mary’s Altar”) in Nieder-Roden’s Catholic Matthias-Kirche, which comes from the time about 1520, and is ascribed to the Riemenschneider school.
Single timber-frame
houses scattered about the municipal area from the 16th to 19th centuries have been restored and today adorn the old village cores. A few buildings, such as the bakehouse (Backes) in Dudenhofen have been built once again from old plans.
The watertower in Jügesheim, opened in 1938 and operated until 1979 is said from its architectural uniqueness and bold static construction to be an industrial monument. It shows clear echoes of the expressionistic style of the 1920s.
Three of the four railway station buildings on the former Rodgaubahn opened in 1896 are said to be worthy of preservation, but are still awaiting renovation and new uses. Another historical building is an old fire station in which is housed the Weiskirchen local history museum.
Worth seeing, too, are the eleven artistically made fountains as well as many sculptures and façade paintings that characterize the town.
Many dedicated citizens contribute to the further bettering of the town’s appearance through donations, street festivals and hands-on work, and to the building and expansion of a civic culture.
A further highlight of Rodgau is the Drachenfest (“Kite Festival”) with its firework contest, held every year in late September.
Offenbach (district)
Offenbach is a Kreis in the south of Hesse, Germany and is part of the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Neighbourhood districts are Main-Kinzig, Aschaffenburg, Darmstadt-Dieburg, Groß-Gerau and the cities of Darmstadt, Frankfurt and Offenbach.-History:The district Offenbach was first...
in the Regierungsbezirk
Regierungsbezirk
In Germany, a Government District, in German: Regierungsbezirk – is a subdivision of certain federal states .They are above the Kreise, Landkreise, and kreisfreie Städte...
of Darmstadt
Darmstadt (region)
Darmstadt is one of the three Regierungsbezirke of Hesse, Germany, located in the south of the state.- External links :*...
in Hessen, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. It lies southeast of Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
in the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region and has the greatest population of any municipality in the Offenbach district. It came into being in 1979 when the greater community of Rodgau was raised to town, after having been formed through a merger of five formerly self-administering communities in the framework of municipal reform in Hesse in 1977. The current constituent communities’ history reaches back to the 8th century.
Location
Metropolitan area
The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...
known as the Rhein-Main-Gebiet in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, one of Germany’s economically strongest areas. The fiftieth parallel of north latitude (50°N) passes right through Puiseaux-Platz (square) in Nieder-Roden.
The town lies on the so-called Untermainebene, or Lower Main Plain, the northern outlying part of the Rhine rift. The flat land around Rodgau is set against hillier country in the nearby Spessart
Spessart
The Spessart is a low mountain range in northwestern Bavaria and southern Hesse, Germany. It is bordered on three sides by the Main River. The two most important towns located at the foot of the Spessart are Aschaffenburg and Würzburg....
, Taunus
Taunus
The Taunus is a low mountain range in Hesse, Germany that composes part of the Rhenish Slate Mountains. It is bounded by the river valleys of Rhine, Main and Lahn. On the opposite side of the Rhine, the mountains are continued by the Hunsrück...
, Vogelsberg
Vogelsberg
Vogelsberg is a municipality in the Sömmerda district of Thuringia, Germany....
, Odenwald
Odenwald
The Odenwald is a low mountain range in Hesse, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg in Germany.- Location :The Odenwald lies between the Upper Rhine Rift Valley with the Bergstraße and the Hessisches Ried in the west, the Main and the Bauland in the east, the Hanau-Seligenstadt Basin – a subbasin of...
and Bergstraße
Bergstraße
Bergstraße is the name of a mountainous theme route, and the area around it, stretching across the western edge of the Odenwald in southern Hesse and northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany....
, which all serve as recreational areas for the people. The state
States of Germany
Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...
boundary with neighbouring Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
runs only a few kilometres away, at the Main.
About a third of the municipal area is made up of woodland, and another third of land under agricultural
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
use and of open water, while the remaining third is built up with residential and commercial areas and transport facilities. The brook, the Rodau, runs for 15 km through the whole municipal area.
Climatically the area is among Germany’s mildest and least rainy areas (mean yearly measurements for 1982-2004: 10.5°C, 639.1 mm).
Neighbouring communities
Rodgau borders in the north on the towns of HeusenstammHeusenstamm
Heusenstamm is a town of over 18,000 in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany.- Geography :- Location :The town lies on the river Bieber. Heusenstamm is one of 13 towns and communities in the Offenbach district...
and Obertshausen
Obertshausen
Obertshausen is a town in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany.-Geography:-Location:Obertshausen is one of 13 towns and communities in the Offenbach district...
, in the east on the community of Hainburg
Hainburg
Hainburg may refer to the following places:* Hainburg an der Donau, Lower Austria, Austria* Hainburg, Germany, Hesse, Germany...
and the town of Seligenstadt
Seligenstadt
Seligenstadt is a town in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany. Seligenstadt is one of Germany’s oldest towns and was already of great importance in Carolingian times.-Location:...
, in the southeast on the town of Babenhausen
Babenhausen
Babenhausen is a town in the Darmstadt-Dieburg district, in Hesse, Germany.-Geography:It is situated on the river Gersprenz, 25 km southeast of Frankfurt, and 14 km west of Aschaffenburg. South of its general borders, the mountain range of the Odenwald is situated about 15 km away...
and the community of Eppertshausen
Eppertshausen
Eppertshausen is a municipality in southern Hesse in the district Darmstadt-Dieburg. The municipality has a total population of 5,805 inhabitants. Currently, the mayor is Carsten Helfmann.-External links:*...
(both in Darmstadt-Dieburg
Darmstadt-Dieburg
Darmstadt-Dieburg is a Kreis in the south of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Offenbach, Aschaffenburg, Miltenberg, Odenwaldkreis, Bergstraße, Groß-Gerau, and the district-free city of Darmstadt, which it surrounds.-History:...
), in the southwest on the town of Rödermark
Rödermark
Rödermark is a town in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany, southeast of Frankfurt am Main and northeast of Darmstadt.-Location:...
and in the west on the town of Dietzenbach
Dietzenbach
Dietzenbach is the seat of Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany and lies roughly 12 km southeast of Frankfurt am Main on the river Bieber. Before the Second World War, the current town was a farming village with not quite 4,000 inhabitants...
.
Constituent communities
Rodgau’s Stadtteile are Weiskirchen, Hainhausen, Jügesheim, Dudenhofen and Nieder-Roden with its own Ortsteil of Rollwald.Town’s founding
On 1 January 1977, in the course of municipal reform in Hesse, the greater community of Rodgau came into being as the communities of Weiskirchen, Hainhausen, Jügesheim, Dudenhofen and Nieder-Roden, along with the settlement of Rollwald belonging to Nieder-Roden were amalgamated. The greater community was granted town rights on 15 September 1979. The old cropfield name Rodgau, like Bachgau and Kinziggau belonging to the Maingau, gave the town its name. The original communities, though, have hundreds of years of history behind them.Today (as at 31 December 2007), Rodgau has 45,236 inhabitants (including 2,035 whose main residence is elsewhere), of whom 22,120 are male and 23,116 female. Foreigners from 52 different nations account for 4,471 inhabitants (9.9%). Those who live in Rodgau longer than ten years account for 64.6% of the population.
Weiskirchen
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
times as a thorpe (one-street village). It had its first documentary mention in 1287 in the Seligenstadt
Seligenstadt
Seligenstadt is a town in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany. Seligenstadt is one of Germany’s oldest towns and was already of great importance in Carolingian times.-Location:...
Monastery’s accord with the Auheimer Mark. Weiskirchen was at this time Mother Church to the villages of Jügesheim, Hainhausen and Rembrücken
Heusenstamm
Heusenstamm is a town of over 18,000 in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany.- Geography :- Location :The town lies on the river Bieber. Heusenstamm is one of 13 towns and communities in the Offenbach district...
. The first landlords, the Lords of Hagenhausen – later of Eppstein
Lords of Eppstein
The Lords of Eppstein were a family of German nobility in the Middle Ages. From the 12th century they ruled extensive territories in the Rhine Main area from their castle in Eppstein, northwest of Frankfurt, Germany.-History:...
– sold the Amt of Steinheim in 1425 along with Weiskirchen, a village belonging to it, to the Archbishop and Elector of Mainz
Archbishopric of Mainz
The Archbishopric of Mainz or Electorate of Mainz was an influential ecclesiastic and secular prince-bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire between 780–82 and 1802. In the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, the Archbishop of Mainz was the primas Germaniae, the substitute of the Pope north of the Alps...
, to whom the village belonged until 1803. With this, Weiskirchen formed an ecclesiastical and economic hub in the Rodgau. When the Auheimer Mark (a communally held parcel of land to which belonged several villages) was divided up in 1786, Weiskirchen received a share of the forest.
After Secularization
Secularization
Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...
in 1803, the Amt of Steinheim along with Weiskirchen passed to Hesse. In 1896 the Rodgaubahn (railway) with a railway station in Weiskirchen opened.
In the course of the 19th century, Weiskirchen shifted from a farming village to a worker’s community. Of the once well known village with its timber-frame
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
houses very little is left. During National Socialist times, the small Jewish community was driven out. In March 2005, the small, restored former synagogue was ceremoniously reopened as a memorial. Since 1967, the Weiskirchen transmitter
Weiskirchen transmitter
Weiskirchen transmitter, which is property of the Hessian broadcasting company is a mediumwave broadcasting facility, situated in the northwest area of the hessian village Weiskirchen, which is a part of Rodgau , close of the motorway A 3.- Frequency and transmission diagrams :The quarter...
, a medium-wave transmitter owned by Hessischer Rundfunk
Hessischer Rundfunk
Hessischer Rundfunk is the public broadcaster for the German state of Hesse. The main offices of HR are in Frankfurt am Main. HR is a member of the ARD.- Studios :...
, has been in operation on Weiskirchen’s northwestern outskirts on a frequency of 594 kHz.
Population development
In 1576, Weiskirchen had 37 households. In 1681, 111 inhabitants lived in 26 households. In 1834, 655 people lived in the village. A century later, in 1939, that figure had risen to 1,740. By 1970, the population had risen to 4,840 inhabitants. In late 2007, the constituent community had 6,115 inhabitants.Hainhausen
As early as 1108, Rodgau’s smallest constituent community (with a population today of roughly 3,800) had a documentary mention as the location of a moated castle belonging to the Lords of Hagenhausen, in which it was named as Haginhusen. Remains of this castle still lie under a meadow near the Rodau on today’s Burgstraße (road). The Hagenhausen noble family, who after moving to the TaunusTaunus
The Taunus is a low mountain range in Hesse, Germany that composes part of the Rhenish Slate Mountains. It is bounded by the river valleys of Rhine, Main and Lahn. On the opposite side of the Rhine, the mountains are continued by the Hunsrück...
began styling themselves the Lords of Eppstein, and writing many a page in mediaeval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
German history, found themselves holding great importance and power from the 13th century onwards. Four Archbishops of Mainz alone were installed by the Eppsteins. Hainhausen, though, did not benefit from the former lords’ descendants’ lordliness. In 1425, the Lords of Eppstein
Lords of Eppstein
The Lords of Eppstein were a family of German nobility in the Middle Ages. From the 12th century they ruled extensive territories in the Rhine Main area from their castle in Eppstein, northwest of Frankfurt, Germany.-History:...
sold the Amt of Steinheim along with Hainhausen to the Archbishop and Elector of Mainz
Archbishopric of Mainz
The Archbishopric of Mainz or Electorate of Mainz was an influential ecclesiastic and secular prince-bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire between 780–82 and 1802. In the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, the Archbishop of Mainz was the primas Germaniae, the substitute of the Pope north of the Alps...
. Its low point came, as it did for all the surrounding villages too, in the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
, at which time the Plague also raged among the population. The survivors besought the patron saint of Plague sufferers, Saint Roch
Roch
Saint Roch or Rocco ; lived c.1348 - 15/16 August 1376/79 was a Christian saint, a confessor whose death is commemorated on 16 August; he is specially invoked against the plague...
for help. The end of the deadly epidemic is still celebrated today every year on 16 August with a procession, whose destination was originally the Rochus-Kapelle (“Saint Roch’s Chapel”), consecrated in 1692. Nowadays, though, the newer Rochus-Kirche (“Saint Roch’s Church”), standing at a different site in the heart of the community, serves as the procession’s endpoint, and has since the late 19th century. Saint Roch’s Church houses as an art history treasure a pietà
Pietà
The Pietà is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus, most often found in sculpture. As such, it is a particular form of the Lamentation of Christ, a scene from the Passion of Christ found in cycles of the Life of Christ...
from the mid 14th century which depicts in sculpture Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
and Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
after he has been taken down from the Cross
Crucifixion of Jesus
The crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...
. After Secularization
Secularization
Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...
in 1803, Hainhausen passed to Hesse.
Population development
In 1681, 101 inhabitants lived in 18 households. In 1834, there were 341 inhabitants in Hainhausen. In 1939, this had risen to 835 inhabitants. In 1970, Hainhausen had 2,051 inhabitants. In late 2007 the constituent community had 3,820 inhabitants.Jügesheim
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
’s Vögte
Vogt
A Vogt ; plural Vögte; Dutch voogd; Danish foged; ; ultimately from Latin [ad]vocatus) in the Holy Roman Empire was the German title of a reeve or advocate, an overlord exerting guardianship or military protection as well as secular justice...
(singular: Vogt) named Gugin or Guginhart was supposedly the namesake. Other forms of the name used over the course of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
were Gugesheym, Gogeßheym, Goginsheym, and Gugesheim. In the local speech, Jügesheim is sometimes still called Giesem today. Jügesheim was founded in Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
times, or more particularly in Merovingian times (between 481 and 560). Near the old Roman roads in the Maingau woods, which crossed near Jügesheim, the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
built new military colonies to control the land.
In the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, the surrounding woodlands belonged to the Wildbann Dreieich, a royal hunting forest, one of whose 30 Wildhuben (special estates whose owners were charged with guarding the hunting forest) was maintained in Jügesheim. In 1425, the Lords of Eppstein
Lords of Eppstein
The Lords of Eppstein were a family of German nobility in the Middle Ages. From the 12th century they ruled extensive territories in the Rhine Main area from their castle in Eppstein, northwest of Frankfurt, Germany.-History:...
sold the Amt of Steinheim along with Jügesheim to the Archbishop and Elector of Mainz
Archbishopric of Mainz
The Archbishopric of Mainz or Electorate of Mainz was an influential ecclesiastic and secular prince-bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire between 780–82 and 1802. In the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, the Archbishop of Mainz was the primas Germaniae, the substitute of the Pope north of the Alps...
.
The Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
took a heavy toll on the community, which at that time was part of the Rödermark (communal lands). The place only recovered in the 17th century. In the 20th century it established a leather industry with many workers working leather at home. Besides this there were of course many farming households. After Secularization
Secularization
Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...
in 1803, Jügesheim passed to Hesse. In 1896 the Rodgaubahn (railway) with a railway station in Jügesheim opened.
In the mid 1970s, a commercial area was laid out, which over the years that followed further grew. The new Town Hall made Jügesheim into a centre of Rodgau. Today Rodgau’s second biggest constituent community has some 11,700 inhabitants.
North of the constituent community between Hainhausen and Jügesheim is found the 43.5 m-tall watertower built in the years from 1936 to 1938. It was in use until 1979, and is now under monumental protection. It has become a kind of landmark for Jügesheim, and indeed for all Rodgau.
Population development
In 1576 Jügesheim had 36 households. In 1681, 121 persons lived in only 26 households. In 1834, the village had 1,071 inhabitants. In the 20th century this rose to 3,174 in 1939, and to 7,673 in 1970. In late 2007 the constituent community had 11,855 inhabitants.Dudenhofen
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
settlement, after the time of the partition of the empire in 561. The place was founded at a newly built road junction in an expanded road network, at the expense of the former hub at Jügesheim. The placename relates to a personal name Tuoto or Dodo.
Dudenhofen had its first documentary mention in 1278 in an accord from Archbishop Werner von Eppstein of Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
with the Lords of Eppstein
Lords of Eppstein
The Lords of Eppstein were a family of German nobility in the Middle Ages. From the 12th century they ruled extensive territories in the Rhine Main area from their castle in Eppstein, northwest of Frankfurt, Germany.-History:...
. The village long belonged to various owners at the same time (the Lords of Falkenstein, Hanau
Hanau
Hanau is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main. Its station is a major railway junction.- Geography :...
, Isenburg and Electoral Mainz
Archbishopric of Mainz
The Archbishopric of Mainz or Electorate of Mainz was an influential ecclesiastic and secular prince-bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire between 780–82 and 1802. In the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, the Archbishop of Mainz was the primas Germaniae, the substitute of the Pope north of the Alps...
), the odd part was bequeathed, others were traded or mortgaged (complete with inhabitants). Between 1450 and 1736, Dudenhofen belonged to the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg and was assigned to the Amt of Babenhausen, thereby making the place as of 1550 an Evangelical
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
enclave surrounded by Catholic neighbours. The Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg died out in 1736, whereupon Hesse-Darmstadt and Hesse-Kassel found themselves at odds over the village. In 1771, Dudenhofen was annexed by the County of Hesse-Kassel. Above the main entrance to the Baroque
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...
Evangelical church is therefore found Hesse-Kassel’s coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
. Underneath the arms is the inscription Was unter Hessens Lust Erbprinz Wilhelm gebaut, sei Dir, o wahrer Gott, zur Pflege nun vertraut (“That built under Hesse’s desire Hereditary Prince William, be it trusted unto Thee, O true God, for its care”). Meant here is William IX
William I, Elector of Hesse
William I, Elector of Hesse was the eldest surviving son of Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel and Princess Mary of Great Britain, the daughter of George II.-Early life:...
.
In 1807, the Amt of Babenhausen along with Dudenhofen passed to French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
administration. In 1811, Dudenhofen was absorbed into the Grand Duchy of Hesse
Grand Duchy of Hesse
The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine , or, between 1806 and 1816, Grand Duchy of Hesse —as it was also known after 1816—was a member state of the German Confederation from 1806, when the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt was elevated to a Grand Duchy, until 1918, when all the German...
. In 1896 the Rodgaubahn (railway) with a railway station in Dudenhofen opened.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, many young men emigrated to the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
to seek their fortune. Today, agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
, except for asparagus
Asparagus
Asparagus officinalis is a spring vegetable, a flowering perennialplant species in the genus Asparagus. It was once classified in the lily family, like its Allium cousins, onions and garlic, but the Liliaceae have been split and the onion-like plants are now in the family Amaryllidaceae and...
growing, plays no further rôle.
Population development
In the Thirty Years' WarThirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
, the village’s population suffered great losses. In 1622 alone, 155 of the 430 inhabitants lost their lives. In 1631 the Plague claimed 104 victims. Only 26 inhabitants lived to see the war end.
In 1681, Dudenhofen had 38 households and 139 inhabitants. In 1834 there were 1,139 people in the village, almost all Evangelical
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
but for one long established Jewish family that was driven out of the village in 1938. In 1939 there were 2,120 inhabitants and in 1970, 4,628. In late 2007 the constituent community had 7,967 inhabitants.
Nieder-Roden
The centre that is now Rodgau’s biggest constituent community had its first documentary mention as early as 786 when the Rotaha Monastery was bequeathed to the Lorsch AbbeyLorsch Abbey
The Abbey of Lorsch is a former Imperial Abbey in Lorsch, Germany, about 10 km east of Worms, one of the most renowned monasteries of the Carolingian Empire. Even in its ruined state, its remains are among the most important pre-Romanesque–Carolingian style buildings in Germany...
. The name might go back to the Siedlung auf einer gerodeten Aue (“Settlement on a cleared floodplain”), but it is also likely that it comes from the Rodau, which runs through the community, and which rises in Rotliegend
Rotliegend
The Rotliegend or Rotliegendes is a lithostratigraphic unit of Cisuralian age that is found in the subsurface of large areas in western and central Europe. The Rotliegend mainly consists of sandstone layers...
near Urberach. During floods, it was once known to run red (rot in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
). Whereabouts the monastery lay is to this day unknown. Finds, however, confirm that people were settling in what is now Nieder-Roden long before the Christian Era. In the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, the surrounding woodlands belonged to the Wildbann Dreieich, a royal hunting forest, one of whose 30 Wildhuben (special estates whose owners were charged with guarding the hunting forest) was maintained in Nieder-Roden.
Nieder-Roden had another documentary mention in 791 when the Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
nobleman Erlulf donated all his holdings in Nieder-Roden (rotahen inferiore), Ober-Roden (rotahen superiore) and Bieber to the Lorsch Abbey
Lorsch Abbey
The Abbey of Lorsch is a former Imperial Abbey in Lorsch, Germany, about 10 km east of Worms, one of the most renowned monasteries of the Carolingian Empire. Even in its ruined state, its remains are among the most important pre-Romanesque–Carolingian style buildings in Germany...
. In 1346 the village became an independent parish, although in the years that followed it still remained in a certain dependency relationship with its former mother parish of Ober-Roden.
Archbishopric of Mainz
The Archbishopric of Mainz or Electorate of Mainz was an influential ecclesiastic and secular prince-bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire between 780–82 and 1802. In the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, the Archbishop of Mainz was the primas Germaniae, the substitute of the Pope north of the Alps...
and enjoyed great importance as the centre of a tithing area and the seat of a tithe court. In 1803, the village, as part of the Amtsvogt
Vogt
A Vogt ; plural Vögte; Dutch voogd; Danish foged; ; ultimately from Latin [ad]vocatus) in the Holy Roman Empire was the German title of a reeve or advocate, an overlord exerting guardianship or military protection as well as secular justice...
ei of Dieburg, ended up with the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt, the later Grand Duchy of Hesse
Grand Duchy of Hesse
The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine , or, between 1806 and 1816, Grand Duchy of Hesse —as it was also known after 1816—was a member state of the German Confederation from 1806, when the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt was elevated to a Grand Duchy, until 1918, when all the German...
. When the Rödermark (a communally held parcel of land to which belonged several villages) was divided up in 1818, Nieder-Roden received a share of the forest. In 1832, Nieder-Roden passed to the Offenbach district. From 1874 to 1977, the community was in the Dieburg district. In 1896 the Rodgaubahn (railway) with a railway station in Nieder-Roden opened.
In the Second World War, during the National Socialist régime, there arose a penal and prison camp, the Lager Rollwald (“Rollwald Camp”) on the land now occupied by the Rollwald community.
After the war, Nieder-Roden grew, especially in the 1960s and 1970s from 2,500 inhabitants to now almost 16,000. In the course of district reform in Hesse in 1977, the community was transferred from the Dieburg district to the Offenbach district, to which the town of Rodgau also belongs.
Population development
In 1576 there were 66 households. In 1681, 117 people lived in only 29 households. In 1829 Nieder-Roden had 787 inhabitants. In 1939, this had risen to 3,616 and by 1970 the number had reached 11,033. In late 2007 the constituent community had 15,479 inhabitants.Politics
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
31.1%, GRÜNE 9.9%, Bürger/FWG 4.2%, FDP
Free Democratic Party (Germany)
The Free Democratic Party , abbreviated to FDP, is a centre-right classical liberal political party in Germany. It is led by Philipp Rösler and currently serves as the junior coalition partner to the Union in the German federal government...
3.9%, Deutsche Liste 3.2%.
This has further yielded the following seat apportionment: CDU = 22, SPD = 14, Grüne = 4, Bürger/FWG = 2, FDP = 2, Deutsche Liste = 1. The CDU and FDP work together and between them have a three-vote majority in local government. These two parties are also the ones from which the two fulltime members of the town executive come. These are each elected for six-year terms.
In late November 2006, three members from the CDU faction were excluded and since then have formed a further faction, styling themselves the CSG (Christlich Soziale Gruppe). This altered the seat apportionment and therefore the majority relationship as follows: CDU = 19, CSG = 3, SPD = 14, Grüne = 4, Bürger/FWG = 2, FDP = 2, Deutsche Liste = 1.
Town council furthermore chooses eight of its members to sit on the town executive (Magistrat), two fulltime and the other six parttime. The mayor, who is directly elected by the citizenry every six years, chairs the executive.
The five constituent communities’ concerns are handled through local councils in each one. These, however, have only an advisory function at town council, and seats are apportioned according to election results in each constituent community.
Political bodies sit in the session chamber at Town Hall, which was completed in 1988 and stands in the constituent community of Jügesheim.
Coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
might be described thus: Party per bend sinister azure a rose argent surmounted by a heart gules, itself surmounted by a Latin cross sable, gules a wheel spoked of six of the second, surmounting the parting a bend sinister wavy of the second, itself surmounted by five mullets of five of the fourth.
In 1978, the then greater community of Rodgau was granted a coat of arms. The German blazon reads: Das Wappen zeigt in Blau und in Rot einen gewellten silbernen Schräglingsbalken, belegt mit fünf Sternen, begleitet oben rechts von einer silbernen Rose mit silbernen Kelchblättern, diese belegt mit einem roten Herzen, dem ein schwarzes Kreuz aufliegt (Lutherrose), unten links von einem sechsspeichigen silbernen Mainzer Rad.
The escutcheon is divided in half by a wavy bend beginning at the upper sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side. This symbolizes the Rodau, which runs through the whole municipal area. The five mullets (stars) stand for the five constituent communities. On the dexter (armsbearer’s right, viewer’s left) side stands the “Luther rose
Luther rose
The Luther seal or Luther rose is a widely-recognized symbol for Lutheranism. It was the seal that was designed for Martin Luther at the behest of Prince John Frederick, in 1530, while Luther was staying at the Coburg Fortress during the Diet of Augsburg. Lazarus Spengler, to whom Luther wrote his...
” as a charge
Charge (heraldry)
In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...
. This recalls Dudenhofen’s time as an Evangelical
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
enclave surrounded by Catholic neighbours. On the sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side is the Wheel of Mainz
Wheel of Mainz
thumb|150px|version until 1992thumb|150px|version from 1992 - 2008thumb|150px|version from 2008The Wheel of Mainz or Mainzer Rad, in German, was the coat of arms of the Archbishopric of Mainz and thus also of the Electorate of Mainz , in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It consists of a silver wheel...
, borrowed from the arms borne by the Archbishops of Mainz. This recalls the time when Electoral Mainz
Archbishopric of Mainz
The Archbishopric of Mainz or Electorate of Mainz was an influential ecclesiastic and secular prince-bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire between 780–82 and 1802. In the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, the Archbishop of Mainz was the primas Germaniae, the substitute of the Pope north of the Alps...
succeeded the Lords of Eppstein in all constituent communities in 1425. Mainz’s overlordship lasted in most constituent communities until Secularization
Secularization
Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...
in the early 19th century, but in Dudenhofen ended as early as the 17th century.
Until 1977, each constituent community had its own coat of arms as a self-administering community.
Weiskirchen
Canting arms
Canting arms are heraldic bearings that represent the bearer's name in a visual pun or rebus. The term cant came into the English language from Anglo-Norman cant, meaning song or singing, from Latin cantāre, and English cognates include canticle, chant, accent, incantation and recant.Canting arms –...
, referring to the community’s name, from the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
for “white church”.
Hainhausen
Tincture (heraldry)
In heraldry, tinctures are the colours used to emblazon a coat of arms. These can be divided into several categories including light tinctures called metals, dark tinctures called colours, nonstandard colours called stains, furs, and "proper". A charge tinctured proper is coloured as it would be...
s silver and red refer to the arms borne by the Archbishops of Mainz, into whose ownership the village was sold in 1425.
Jügesheim
Charge (heraldry)
In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...
s in these arms, both the oak sprig and the pair of hart’s horns, were chosen to recall the days when Jügesheim was part of the Wildbann (royal hunting forest). The silver and red here likewise refer to the Wheel of Mainz
Wheel of Mainz
thumb|150px|version until 1992thumb|150px|version from 1992 - 2008thumb|150px|version from 2008The Wheel of Mainz or Mainzer Rad, in German, was the coat of arms of the Archbishopric of Mainz and thus also of the Electorate of Mainz , in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It consists of a silver wheel...
arms borne by the Archbishops of Mainz.
Dudenhofen
Luther rose
The Luther seal or Luther rose is a widely-recognized symbol for Lutheranism. It was the seal that was designed for Martin Luther at the behest of Prince John Frederick, in 1530, while Luther was staying at the Coburg Fortress during the Diet of Augsburg. Lazarus Spengler, to whom Luther wrote his...
, which recalls Dudenhofen’s time as an Evangelical
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
enclave surrounded by Catholic neighbours. This charge
Charge (heraldry)
In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...
is now also in the town’s arms.
Nieder-Roden
Wheel of Mainz
thumb|150px|version until 1992thumb|150px|version from 1992 - 2008thumb|150px|version from 2008The Wheel of Mainz or Mainzer Rad, in German, was the coat of arms of the Archbishopric of Mainz and thus also of the Electorate of Mainz , in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It consists of a silver wheel...
borne by the Archbishops of Mainz on the sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side. These stand for former feudal overlords.
Town partnerships
PuiseauxPuiseaux
The Canton of Puiseaux is a canton of the Loiret département, in the Centre région, in France. It was created in 1800 with the Arrondissement of Pithiviers. In 1926, the French government removed two of its cantons and was part of the Arrondissement of Montargis...
, Loiret
Loiret
Loiret is a department in north-central FranceThe department is named after the river Loiret, a tributary of the Loire. The Loiret is located wholly within the department.- History :...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
since 1974 (originally with Nieder-Roden) Hainburg an der Donau
Hainburg an der Donau
Hainburg an der Donau is a town in the Bruck an der Leitha district, Lower Austria, Austria.-Geography:The city Hainburg is located next to the Danube river and Bratislava in Slovakia and 50 km east of Vienna. It is part of the Industrial Quarter Industrieviertel in Lower Austria.45.87% of the...
, Bruck an der Leitha district
Bruck an der Leitha (district)
Bezirk Bruck an der Leitha is a district of the state of Lower Austria in Austria.-Municipalities:Towns are indicated in boldface; market towns in italics; suburbs, hamlets and other subdivisions of a municipality are indicated in small characters.* Au am Leithaberge* Bad Deutsch-Altenburg* Berg*...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
since 1974 (originally with Nieder-Roden) Nieuwpoort
Nieuwpoort, Belgium
Nieuwpoort is a municipality located in Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium, and in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Nieuwpoort proper and the towns of Ramskapelle and Sint-Joris. On January 1, 2008 Nieuwpoort had a total population of 11,062....
, West Flanders, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
since 1975 (originally with Dudenhofen) Donja Stubica
Donja Stubica
Donja Stubica is a town in Croatia, about 40 km northeast of Zagreb on the northern slope of Medvednica. The total population is 5,727, with 2,202 people in Donja Stubica itself , with a total area of 44.6 km²...
, Krapina-Zagorje County
Krapina-Zagorje County
Krapina-Zagorje county is a county in northern Croatia. It encompasses most of the historic region called Hrvatsko Zagorje.The Krapina-Zagorje county is a candidate for being the most idyllic county in Croatia: the many villages and small towns spread out across the hillsides are perfect for...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
since 2002
On 25 May 1974, the mayors Hans Elgner (Nieder-Roden), Georges Bordry (Puiseaux) and Hubert Rein (Hainburg an der Donau) signed the partnership documents at the Nieder-Roden community centre.
Economic development
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
may have defined life in the formerly self-administering communities until the early 19th century, this changed with creeping industrialization, above all that in Offenbach. Most farmers took work in the nearby cities of Offenbach and Frankfurt and thereafter ran their farms only as a sideline.
In the mid 20th century, many small and midsize businesses in the leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...
working industry set up shop in the Rodgau’s communities. Its products – handbags, suitcases, belts, wallets and purses – were made mostly in private homes as a kind of cottage industry. By 1975, this had led to the almost complete disappearance of the farming sideline. In 2004, only eleven farms were still being worked as main income earners, mostly to grow asparagus
Asparagus
Asparagus officinalis is a spring vegetable, a flowering perennialplant species in the genus Asparagus. It was once classified in the lily family, like its Allium cousins, onions and garlic, but the Liliaceae have been split and the onion-like plants are now in the family Amaryllidaceae and...
, and four were still being worked as a sideline.
Besides leatherworking, metalworking also locally became a field of endeavour at roughly the same time to supply belt buckles, suitcase handles and suchlike. Major works were located in Weiskirchen, Jügesheim and Nieder-Roden. Nowadays, though, leatherware manufacturing and metalworking play only a subordinate rôle.
In 1954, a new field of industry for this region established itself on Dudenhofen’s outskirts, the Dudenhofen Sand Lime Works (Kalksandsteinwerk Dudenhofen), which quarried the fine dune sand available there for making up to 73 million bricks in one year. In the 1990s the company shifted its production focus to manufacturing porous concrete
Aerated autoclaved concrete
Autoclaved aerated concrete , also known as autoclaved cellular concrete or autoclaved lightweight concrete , was invented in the mid-1920s by the Swedish architect and inventor Johan Axel Eriksson. It is a lightweight, precast building material that simultaneously provides structure, insulation,...
presicion blocks (Plansteine), today known under the name Porit.
Opel
Adam Opel AG, generally shortened to Opel, is a German automobile company founded by Adam Opel in 1862. Opel has been building automobiles since 1899, and became an Aktiengesellschaft in 1929...
chose Dudenhofen as the location for their test centre, which came into service in 1966. In the middle of a 4.8 km-long high-speed loop track are found a crash-test facility and a 6.7 km-long test track with all conceivable road types for longterm tests.
Beginning in the 1960s, Rodgau opened up six major industrial parks with a combined area of 219 ha in which settled mainly service businesses such as the IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
product distribution centre (until 2005, thereafter Mann-Mobilia logistics centre), the firm Atlas Rhein Main, the FEGRO wholesale market, MEWA Textilservice, GEODIS, Pepsi-Cola Deutschland, PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences
PerkinElmer
PerkinElmer, Inc. is an American multinational technology corporation, focused in the business areas of human and environmental health, including environmental analysis, food and consumer product safety, medical imaging, drug discovery, diagnostics, biotechnology, industrial applications, and life...
and a DHL
DHL
DHL Express is a division of the German logistics company Deutsche Post providing international express mail services. DHL is a world market leader in sea and air mail....
postal freight centre. All together, in mid 2005, there were reported to be 3,871 businesses in Rodgau, among them 23 supermarket
Supermarket
A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...
s from the best known chains and 16 hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
s with 795 beds.
The trend of shifting from producing industries and crafts to service industries became clear when 2003 is compared to 1987: ten years after the greater community was founded, service industries comprised 52% of the economy, but this share rose over the next 15 years to 73%.
In Rodgau, roughly 150 high tech
High tech
High tech is technology that is at the cutting edge: the most advanced technology currently available. It is often used in reference to micro-electronics, rather than other technologies. The adjective form is hyphenated: high-tech or high-technology...
nology companies are resident. Dominating the technological field is information and communications technology for aviation and space travel, followed by sensor, measuring, control and analytical technology. Furthermore, production technology, automatic surface finishing
Surface finishing
Surface finishing is a broad range of industrial processes that alter the surface of a manufactured item to achieve a certain property. Finishing processes may be employed to: improve appearance, adhesion or wettability, solderability, corrosion resistance, tarnish resistance, chemical resistance,...
, microelectronics and optoelectronics
Optoelectronics
Optoelectronics is the study and application of electronic devices that source, detect and control light, usually considered a sub-field of photonics. In this context, light often includes invisible forms of radiation such as gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet and infrared, in addition to visible light...
are also represented.
In 2005, Rodgau’s commercial operations made available all together 9,076 jobs on the social insurance rolls. Moreover, there were roughly 3,000 jobs for the self-employed, officials and those marginally employed.
A great number of Rodgau’s working people have jobs in the neaby cities: Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
(25 km away), Frankfurt Airport
Frankfurt Airport
Frankfurt Airport may refer to:Airports of Frankfurt, Germany:*Frankfurt Airport , the largest airport in Germany*Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport, a general aviation airport*Frankfurt-Hahn Airport , a converted U.S...
(30 km away), Offenbach am Main (15 km away), Hanau
Hanau
Hanau is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main. Its station is a major railway junction.- Geography :...
(15 km away), Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
(20 km away) and Aschaffenburg
Aschaffenburg
Aschaffenburg is a city in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg is not considered part of the district of Aschaffenburg, but is the administrative seat.Aschaffenburg is known as the Tor zum Spessart or "gate to the Spessart"...
(20 km away).
Transport
Local public transport
Since 14 December 2003, all Rodgau’s constituent communities have been linked to the broad network of the Rhine-Main S-BahnRhine-Main S-Bahn
The Rhine-Main S-Bahn system is an integrated rapid transit and commuter transport system for the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main region, which includes the cities Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Offenbach am Main, Hanau and Darmstadt...
by the extension of line S1 from Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
to Ober-Roden. Until that time, Rodgau had been served by the Rodgaubahn (railway).
There is regular bus service to the railway stations at Nieder-Roden and Jügesheim on the S1 through district buslines to Babenhausen, Seligenstadt
Seligenstadt
Seligenstadt is a town in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany. Seligenstadt is one of Germany’s oldest towns and was already of great importance in Carolingian times.-Location:...
, Dietzenbach
Dietzenbach
Dietzenbach is the seat of Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany and lies roughly 12 km southeast of Frankfurt am Main on the river Bieber. Before the Second World War, the current town was a farming village with not quite 4,000 inhabitants...
and Langen
Langen, Hesse
Langen is a town of roughly 36,000 in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany, between Darmstadt and Frankfurt am Main...
and town buslines to Hainhausen, Weiskirchen and Rollwald.
Cycle path network
The town of Rodgau is slowly finding at its disposal a network of cycle paths which are being laid out in collaboration with the Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club (“General German Bicycle Club”, ADFC), and which link all five constituent communities together. Since 2005, the signposted Rodgau-Rundweg has run through fields and woods right round the town. At 42.1 km in length it runs to almost marathon distance. On both sides of the S-Bahn line, a 14 km-long, asphalt-paved cycle path from Rollwald to Weiskirchen links all constituent communities. Special bicycle parking places with stands and lockable rental boxes are to be found at every S-Bahn station.Pedestrian precincts
Pedestrian precincts have been laid out in Nieder-Roden between the S-Bahn station and Puiseauxplatz (square) and in Jügesheim on Rodgau-Passage. Areas with much reduced traffic with their attendant paving can be found in all constituent communities, mostly in the old community cores and in new development areas. Walking paths through the Rodau-Aue in Dudenhofen and Jügesheim, partly laid out like a park, are reserved for pedestrians. An extensive network of signposted hiking trails threads its way through fields and woods in Rodgau’s municipal area.Roads
In Rodgau’s north, the A 3 (Frankfurt-WürzburgWürzburg
Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....
) runs through the municipal area and crosses Bundesstraße
Bundesstraße
Bundesstraße , abbreviated B, is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.-Germany:...
45 (Hanau-Dieburg
Dieburg
Dieburg is a town in southern Hessen, Germany. It was formerly the seat of the district of Dieburg, but is now part of the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg.-History:...
), which has been expanded to expresswaylike proportions, and which runs north-south, touching all constituent communities, and has four interchange
Interchange (road)
In the field of road transport, an interchange is a road junction that typically uses grade separation, and one or more ramps, to permit traffic on at least one highway to pass through the junction without directly crossing any other traffic stream. It differs from a standard intersection, at which...
s. The Weiskirchen service centre
Rest area
A rest area, travel plaza, rest stop, or service area is a public facility, located next to a large thoroughfare such as a highway, expressway, or freeway at which drivers and passengers can rest, eat, or refuel without exiting on to secondary roads...
within Rodgau town limits on the A 3 can be reached by drivers going in either direction. Adjoining the northern rest area is a motel
Motel
A motor hotel, or motel for short, is a hotel designed for motorists, and usually has a parking area for motor vehicles...
. With the A 3’s extension from Offenbach to Würzburg in the 1960s, both service centres, for the first time in Germany, were outfitted as automat
Automat
An automat is a fast food restaurant where simple foods and drink are served by coin-operated and bill-operated vending machines.-Concept:Originally, the machines took only nickels...
s. This concept, however, was abandoned in the early 1980s and they were converted to self-service restaurants.
The western residential areas are linked by the 11 km-long Rodgau-Ring-Straße (ringroad), which in the north runs on to Heusenstamm
Heusenstamm
Heusenstamm is a town of over 18,000 in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany.- Geography :- Location :The town lies on the river Bieber. Heusenstamm is one of 13 towns and communities in the Offenbach district...
and Offenbach. The Dietzenbach
Dietzenbach
Dietzenbach is the seat of Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany and lies roughly 12 km southeast of Frankfurt am Main on the river Bieber. Before the Second World War, the current town was a farming village with not quite 4,000 inhabitants...
-Rodgau-Seligenstadt
Seligenstadt
Seligenstadt is a town in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany. Seligenstadt is one of Germany’s oldest towns and was already of great importance in Carolingian times.-Location:...
cross-district road links Rodgau once again to the A 3. Weiskirchen is furthermore linked to the A 3 through the Obertshausen interchange.
Since 2001, six heavily used intersections within Rodgau town limits have been replaced with roundabout
Roundabout
A roundabout is the name for a road junction in which traffic moves in one direction around a central island. The word dates from the early 20th century. Roundabouts are common in many countries around the world...
s with raised, plant-covered islands. To reduce traffic in residential areas, four further, small roundabouts have been built.
Parking
At the bathing lake in Nieder-Roden there are roughly 2,000 parking places right near the entrance to the bathing beach. At all six S-Bahn stations, 400 “park & ride” places are available all together. Jügesheim has at its disposal two underground parking garages in the community core, and at the community centres in Dudenhofen, Weiskirchen and Nieder-Roden, and at every sport hall are found major carparks. Even the five forest leisure facilities offer goodly parking, as does the hiking carpark in the eastern woods on the Lange Schneise (“Long Aisle”).Air transport
The proximity to Frankfurt AirportFrankfurt Airport
Frankfurt Airport may refer to:Airports of Frankfurt, Germany:*Frankfurt Airport , the largest airport in Germany*Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport, a general aviation airport*Frankfurt-Hahn Airport , a converted U.S...
– and the easy access thereto afforded by the S-Bahn – make possible international economic links. Of course, holidaymakers also benefit from this proximity.
Between Offenbach and Darmstadt, some 25 km from Rodgau, lies Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport
Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport
Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport is a busy general aviation airport located near Egelsbach, a city in the German state of Hesse. It is just southeast of Frankfurt Airport.-History:...
, the busiest airport for general aviation in Germany. With its roughly 77,000 movements each year, it relieves and complements Frankfurt Airport.
Newspapers
The widely distributed daily newspaperNewspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s Frankfurter Rundschau
Frankfurter Rundschau
The Frankfurter Rundschau is a German daily newspaper, based in Frankfurt am Main. It is published every day but Sunday as a city, two regional and one nationwide issues and offers an online edition as well as an e-paper...
and Offenbach-Post contain in their editions for the Offenbach district a Rodgau local section. Also, on Thursdays comes the free Rodgau-Post from the Offenbach-Post’s publishing house. Also free are two further locally oriented weekly newspapers which are delivered to households, the Bürgerblatt and the Rodgau-Zeitung. Also, the Dreieich-Spiegel deals with Rodgau happenings peripherally.
Cable network
All households in Rodgau can choose to have a supply of 32 television and 35 radio channels over the cable network run by Unitymedia. The signals are fed into the system at the RödermarkRödermark
Rödermark is a town in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany, southeast of Frankfurt am Main and northeast of Darmstadt.-Location:...
centre. Since 2005, Rodgau has also had a broadband network which can bring digital television and radio channels to every household.
DVB-T reception
Analog television
Analog television is the analog transmission that involves the broadcasting of encoded analog audio and analog video signal: one in which the message conveyed by the broadcast signal is a function of deliberate variations in the amplitude and/or frequency of the signal...
signals to Rodgau from the Großer Feldberg and Würzberg Transmitters ended. Digital terrestrial broadcasting (DVB-T
DVB-T
DVB-T is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial; it is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in the UK in 1998...
) took over broadcasting over the area the next day. Since then Rodgau has lain in the broadcast areas of the Großer Feldberg and Frankfurt Transmitters. Reception of the broadcast television signal has been forecast throughout the town according to whether a mere indoor antenna will be enough to receive it or a simple outdoor antenna. The map at the side shows the areas in which each kind of antenna should be used.
Radio
Owing to the proximity to the economic metropolis of Frankfurt, Rodgau lies within the reporting area of the following radio stations:- Hessischer RundfunkHessischer RundfunkHessischer Rundfunk is the public broadcaster for the German state of Hesse. The main offices of HR are in Frankfurt am Main. HR is a member of the ARD.- Studios :...
1-4 as well as youfm and hr-info - Hitradio FFH (Bad VilbelBad VilbelBad Vilbel is a spa town with many mineral waters. Bad Vilbel is the town with the most inhabitants in the Wetteraukreis district in Hessen, Germany. The city center of Bad Vilbel is located 8 km northeast of the center of Frankfurt am Main...
) - Radio Primavera (AschaffenburgAschaffenburgAschaffenburg is a city in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg is not considered part of the district of Aschaffenburg, but is the administrative seat.Aschaffenburg is known as the Tor zum Spessart or "gate to the Spessart"...
) - Radio Fortuna (HeusenstammHeusenstammHeusenstamm is a town of over 18,000 in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany.- Geography :- Location :The town lies on the river Bieber. Heusenstamm is one of 13 towns and communities in the Offenbach district...
)
Since August 2008, the local radio station K.C.-Radio in the Rodgau constituent community of Jügesheim has been on the air.
Development
Given each constituent community’s original village structure, their natural centres each lay around the church. This was so even after the merger into the greater community in 1977, except for Nieder-Roden. There, beginning in 1950, the fivefold swelling of the population demanded that residential building be expanded heavily towards the northwest, establishing the so-called Gartenstadt (“Garden Town”), and that a new community core be developed, with a post office, shops, a clinic, and a community and social services centre. Here, under planning by the Baugilde Süd (“Building Guild South”) also arose in the late 1960s several developments of compact dwellings with up to twelve floors. Most striking in today’s skyline is the development known locally as the Chinamauer (“China Wall”), a roughly 300 m-long block of maisonette flats. The original plan called for the development to be 900 m long, but this never came about.Despite the town’s neverending growth, it has no hospital. The nearest one is found in Seligenstadt
Seligenstadt
Seligenstadt is a town in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany. Seligenstadt is one of Germany’s oldest towns and was already of great importance in Carolingian times.-Location:...
.
Carefully laying out new building developments since 1979 has on the one hand made possible the population growth that has led to the current levels, but on the other hand it has also led to the establishment of the needed social infrastructure such as kindergartens, schools, and sport and leisure facilities. Although the town has slowly been growing together, as yet there is no true town centre. The individual constituent communities look after their own structures as they have thus far grown.
Since 1998, the Lokale Agenda 21
Agenda 21
Agenda 21 is an action plan of the United Nations related to sustainable development and was an outcome of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992...
has been flowing as the leading stream of thought in shaping the town. A board of dedicated citizens developed a guiding image for the townsfolk whose goal is sustainability as a “roof” for economy, environment, social services, culture, one world, and so on. The board was granted an advisory function to town council and the right to speak at council meetings, and it worked out suggestions for, among other things, renaturalization and desegregation. Since 2002, the Agenda 21 Quality Phase has been running, that is to say the actual implementation of the suggestions until 2017. The board itself was dissolved in 2003 after the end of the Growth Phase (1998–2002).
Churches
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
and six Catholic churches and community centres, regular services are held. The Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic community gathers at a small mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
in Nieder-Roden. Evangelical Christians number 25.5% in Rodgau, Catholics 39.0%. The other 35.5% either belong to other denominations, or adhere to no faith.
On Rodgau-Weiskirchen’s eastern outskirts, there has been since 1982 a conference and training centre of the Catholic International Apostolic Schönstatt Movement
Schoenstatt Movement
The Apostolic Movement of Schoenstatt is a Roman Catholic Marian Movement founded in Germany in 1914 by Father Joseph Kentenich. Fr. Kentenich saw the movement as being a means of spiritual renewal in the Catholic Church...
in the Bishopric of Mainz.
Education
Besides 25 kindergartens, there is in Rodgau – owing in some measure to the long time during which the current constituent communities were self-administering – a broad array of different kinds of school. There is the GymnasiumGymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
upper level at the Claus-von-Stauffenberg-Schule in Dudenhofen with grade levels 11 to 13. There are the Georg-Büchner-Schule in Jügesheim and the Geschwister-Scholl-Schule in Hainhausen, both coöperative comprehensive school
Comprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...
s, and also the Heinrich-Böll-Schule in Nieder-Roden, an integrated comprehensive school. There are six primary schools: the Freiherr-vom-Stein-Grundschule in Dudenhofen, the Carl-Orff-Schule in Jügesheim, the Gartenstadt-Schule in Nieder-Roden, the Grundschule am Bürgerhaus in Nieder-Roden, the Münchhausen-Schule in Hainhausen and the Wilhelm-Busch-Schule in Jügesheim. The Georg-Büchner-Schule, the Heinrich-Böll-Schule, the Geschwister-Scholl-Schule and a few other schools located elsewhere form a school league within whose framework an exchange of experience and the planning of common projects and classwork take place. Moreover, there is in Weiskirchen the Friedrich-von-Bodelschwingh-Schule für Praktisch Bildbare (special school for trainable pupils). The town also maintains a folk high school
Folk high school
Folk high schools are institutions for adult education that generally do not grant academic degrees, though certain courses might exist leading to that goal...
and promotes the Freie Musikschule Rodgau.
Sport and leisure facilities
Among the regular yearly highlights in municipal sport are the 50-km-Ultramarathon Rodgau run by RLT Rodgau in January, a triathlon in August, the 24-Stunden-Lauf Rodgau (24-hour walk) in September and the Drachenfest (“Dragon Festival”), likewise in September.
Culture and sightseeing
Forty-nine clubs nurture the town’s cultural life with many choir and orchestra concerts, readings, theatrical productions, dance tournaments, art exhibitions and workshops. The town’s cultural office yearly offers a theatre season (three subscription series) with well known artists and the regionally noted art exhibition at the Nieder-Roden community centre.Two other community centres are found in the constituent communities of Weiskirchen and Dudenhofen.
In the constituent communities of Weiskirchen Jügesheim and Nieder-Roden, “homeland clubs” take it upon themselves to run museums whose collections deal with each community’s history. On Friedensstraße in Nieder-Roden is found the region’s only DDR-Museum (“East Germany Museum”). This museum offers a detailed overview of what were once the consequences of a divided Germany.
Four cinemas and seven public libraries round the cultural life out.
Since 1979, the €2,500 “Cultural Prize of the Town of Rodgau” (Kulturpreis der Stadt Rodgau) for outstanding performance by a Rodgau artist or project has been given out every year, since 1992 alternating with the “Cultural Promotion Prize” (Kulturförderpreis), specially for young artists.
Rodgau became well known countrywide for hits by the band the Rodgau Monotones, for example St. Tropez am Baggersee (“St. Tropez on the Quarry Pond”, which is the nickname for the local bathing beach in the town) or Erbarme, die Hesse komme (“Have mercy, the Hessians are coming”). The Rodgau Monotones received the Cultural Prize of the Town of Rodgau in 1983.
In Rodgau, four amateur theatrical groups, whose productions are a firm part of Rodgau’s cultural life, are active on a club level. The Nieder-Roden group Das Große Welttheater, having gained note among thousands of spectators both in and beyond the region for its theatre projects, won the Cultural Prize in 1996 and the Cultural Promotion Prize in 2000.
Fasching (Fastnacht)
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
(Fastnacht, Fassenacht) is celebrated lustily in Rodgau. Said to be the Carnival’s stronghold in Rodgau is Jügesheim (dialectal name: Giesem). Here, before the Town hall on 11 November, the opening of the “campaign” takes place, and on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday the opening of the “Town Hall storm”, the symbolic transfer of the town’s administration to the fools. On the Thursday before Ash Wednesday the Carnival parade winds its way through Jügesheim’s streets.
The Carnival representatives, the Carnival Prince and Princess and the Child Prince and Princess, have in more recent times not always come from Jügesheim. Other constituent communities may now enter contestants.
Sightseeing
An historic town core is something that Rodgau, given the way it came into being, simply cannot offer. A lack of awareness of the worth of old buildings led, especially in the years after the Second World War, to the wholesale destruction of many timber-frameTimber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
buildings in the old communities. Only in the early 1970s were historical buildings that were still standing systematically catalogued and ranked according to criteria for monumental protection.
The five former village churches from the 13th to 19th centuries even today still mark the old village cores. In the 1990s, with the church parishes’, the municipality’s and many volunteers’ support, they were renovated and also put back in their original states. The Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
tower at the Matthias-Kirche (“Saint Matthew’s Church”) in Nieder-Roden is Rodgau’s oldest preserved building. Within the churches themselves are found objects of importance to art history from various epochs. Particularly worthy of mention among these is the Late Gothic Marienaltar (“Mary’s Altar”) in Nieder-Roden’s Catholic Matthias-Kirche, which comes from the time about 1520, and is ascribed to the Riemenschneider school.
Single timber-frame
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
houses scattered about the municipal area from the 16th to 19th centuries have been restored and today adorn the old village cores. A few buildings, such as the bakehouse (Backes) in Dudenhofen have been built once again from old plans.
The watertower in Jügesheim, opened in 1938 and operated until 1979 is said from its architectural uniqueness and bold static construction to be an industrial monument. It shows clear echoes of the expressionistic style of the 1920s.
Three of the four railway station buildings on the former Rodgaubahn opened in 1896 are said to be worthy of preservation, but are still awaiting renovation and new uses. Another historical building is an old fire station in which is housed the Weiskirchen local history museum.
Worth seeing, too, are the eleven artistically made fountains as well as many sculptures and façade paintings that characterize the town.
Many dedicated citizens contribute to the further bettering of the town’s appearance through donations, street festivals and hands-on work, and to the building and expansion of a civic culture.
A further highlight of Rodgau is the Drachenfest (“Kite Festival”) with its firework contest, held every year in late September.
Honorary citizens
- Willy Purm (b. 27 April 1918, d. 4 December 1991) – town executive chairman 1972–1989
- Paul Scherer (b. 19 October 1935) – mayor 1980–1998
Sons and daughters of the town
- Rodgau Monotones, rock band that named itself after Rodgau in 1977
- Carmen Giese, airgun markswoman on the German national shooting team at the Olympic GamesOlympic GamesThe Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
in SeoulSeoulSeoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
1988 - Steffen Hartig, triathlonTriathlonA triathlon is a multi-sport event involving the completion of three continuous and sequential endurance events. While many variations of the sport exist, triathlon, in its most popular form, involves swimming, cycling, and running in immediate succession over various distances...
world champion of the Masters, MontréalMontrealMontreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
1999 - Daniyel CimenDaniyel CimenDaniyel Cimen is a German footballer of Assyrian/Syriac ethnicity who plays for Eintracht Frankfurt II. He was playing for Eintracht Frankfurt, but had some problems earning a spot in the regular squad. Eintracht Frankfurt loaned him to the then 2. Bundesliga side Eintracht Braunschweig...
, professional footballer with Eintracht FrankfurtEintracht FrankfurtEintracht Frankfurt is a German sports club, based in Frankfurt, Hesse that is best known for its association football club.- Club origins :...
, Eintracht BraunschweigEintracht BraunschweigEintracht Braunschweig is a German association football club based in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony. The club was one of the founding members of the Bundesliga in 1963 and won the national title in 1967.-History:...
and Kickers OffenbachKickers OffenbachKickers Offenbach is a German association football club in Offenbach am Main, Hesse. The club was founded on 27 May 1901 in the Rheinischer Hof restaurant by footballers who had left established local clubs including Melitia, Teutonia, Viktoria, Germania and Neptun...
, currently with FC Erzgebirge AueFC Erzgebirge AueFC Erzgebirge Aue is a German football club based in Aue, Saxony. The former East German side was a charter member of the 3. Liga in 2008–09, after being relegated from the 2. Bundesliga in 2007–08. The city of Aue has a population of about 18,000 making it one of the smallest cities to ever...
under contract - Christian DemirtasChristian DemirtasChristian Demirtaş is a German footballer of Assyrian/Syriac descent from Turkey .- External links :* at kicker.de * at transfermarkt.de * at worldfootball.net...
, professional footballer with second-league 1 FSV Maynz 05 - Petrus Gratian Grimm (b. 28 July 1901 in Rodgau-Jügesheim, d. 24 November 1972 in LindenfelsLindenfelsLindenfels is a town in the Bergstraße district in Hesse, Germany.- Location :The climatic spa, also known as the “Pearl of the Odenwald”, lies in the Odenwald in southern Hesse and is nestled in a mountain landscape with a great deal of woodland....
), learned leather craftsman, ordained a priest 10 August 1930 in MünsterMünsterMünster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
after theological studies; later also ordained a bishop on 25 July 1949 in Tienshiu (China). - Prof. Dr. Helmut Ritter, born in Nieder-Roden in 1948, holds the chair in organic chemistryOrganic chemistryOrganic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, composition, reactions, and preparation of carbon-based compounds, hydrocarbons, and their derivatives...
/macromolecular chemistry at the University of Düsseldorf - Jennifer HofJennifer HofJennifer Karin-Luise Hof is a German fashion model and winner of the third cycle of Germany's Next Topmodel.-Early life:Hof lives in the Hessian town of Rodgau, where she attended a Realschule...
, model; winner of the third squad of the talent showIdol seriesThe British talent search television series Pop Idol has spawned spin-offs in 42 territories, in what is now referred to as the "Idols" format, as described by FremantleMedia...
Germany’s Next Topmodel
Others with links to the town
- Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen in 1634-1636 temporarily took shelter in Nieder-Roden during the Thirty Years' WarThirty Years' WarThe Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
and the Siege of HanauHanauHanau is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main. Its station is a major railway junction.- Geography :...
. - Rio ReiserRio ReiserRio Reiser , was a German rock musician and singer of the famous rock group Ton Steine Scherben. He was born Ralph Christian Möbius in Berlin and died at the age of 46 in the little German town of Fresenhagen. Rio Reiser was politically active during his whole life...
, Front man of the band Ton Steine ScherbenTon Steine ScherbenTon Steine Scherben was one of the first and most influential German language rock bands of the 1970s and early 1980s. Well-known for the highly political and emotional lyrics of vocalist Rio Reiser, they became a musical mouthpiece of new left movements, such as the squatting movement, during...
, lived from 1965 to 1968 in Rodgau Nieder-Roden. - R.P.S. Lanrue, guitarist with the German band Ton Steine ScherbenTon Steine ScherbenTon Steine Scherben was one of the first and most influential German language rock bands of the 1970s and early 1980s. Well-known for the highly political and emotional lyrics of vocalist Rio Reiser, they became a musical mouthpiece of new left movements, such as the squatting movement, during...
lived in the 1960s in Rodgau Nieder-Roden. In this time he completed a decorator apprenticeship and played together with Rio ReiserRio ReiserRio Reiser , was a German rock musician and singer of the famous rock group Ton Steine Scherben. He was born Ralph Christian Möbius in Berlin and died at the age of 46 in the little German town of Fresenhagen. Rio Reiser was politically active during his whole life...
in the Beatkings, out of which grew Ton Steine ScherbenTon Steine ScherbenTon Steine Scherben was one of the first and most influential German language rock bands of the 1970s and early 1980s. Well-known for the highly political and emotional lyrics of vocalist Rio Reiser, they became a musical mouthpiece of new left movements, such as the squatting movement, during...
after the move to BerlinBerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. - Britta Neander, drummer and percussionist with the German band Ton Steine ScherbenTon Steine ScherbenTon Steine Scherben was one of the first and most influential German language rock bands of the 1970s and early 1980s. Well-known for the highly political and emotional lyrics of vocalist Rio Reiser, they became a musical mouthpiece of new left movements, such as the squatting movement, during...
, Carambolage and Britta lived in Rodgau Nieder-Roden. Sister of Ali Neander (Rodgau Monotones). - Hans-Joachim Rauschenbach, Sport reporter with Hessischer RundfunkHessischer RundfunkHessischer Rundfunk is the public broadcaster for the German state of Hesse. The main offices of HR are in Frankfurt am Main. HR is a member of the ARD.- Studios :...
, moderator of the ARD-Sportschau, lived from 1965 to 1995 in Rodgau Nieder-Roden. - Herbert FeuersteinHerbert FeuersteinHerbert Feuerstein is a German comedian and entertainer.Feuerstein studied music at the Salzburg Mozarteum from 1956 to 1958, majoring in piano, cembalo and composition. However, he never graduated and in 1960, he followed his first wife to New York...
, former “MAD” editor-in-chief, Harald SchmidtHarald SchmidtHarald Franz Schmidt is a German actor, writer, comedian and television entertainer best known as host of two popular German late-night shows.- Early life :...
’s “favourite victim”, lived from 1989 to 1993 in Rodgau Nieder-Roden. - Nicole Brown SimpsonNicole Brown SimpsonNicole Brown Simpson was a former wife of professional football player O. J. Simpson.- Relationship with O. J. Simpson :...
, lived as a child in Nieder-Roden-Rollwald. - Steffen Wink, German actor, lived from 1969 to 1993 in Rodgau Nieder-Roden.
- Gerhard Zwerenz, German writer, lived in the early 1970s in Rodgau Nieder-Roden
- Michael ThurkMichael ThurkMichael Thurk is a German football player who plays for Augsburg although now he is suspended by his club.- Career :The offensive player Thurk went from Hessian Oberliga club SV Jügesheim in to 1...
, professional footballer with Eintracht FrankfurtEintracht FrankfurtEintracht Frankfurt is a German sports club, based in Frankfurt, Hesse that is best known for its association football club.- Club origins :...
and FC AugsburgFC AugsburgFC Augsburg is a German football club based in Augsburg, Bavaria. The team was founded as Fußball-Klub Alemania Augsburg in 1907 and played as BC Augsburg from 1921 to 1969....
, played from 1997 to 1999 for SV Jügesheim - Walter Picard, German paedagogue and politician (CDUChristian Democratic Union (Germany)The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...
)
Language
- Hermann Bonifer: Giesemer Platt – ein kernig-derber Dialekt im Kreis Offenbach. Jügesheim 1993.
- Ilse Eberhardt u. a.: Jedes Örtchen hat sein Wörtchen - Nieder-Röder Wörterbuch. Nieder-Roden um 1989.
History
- Arbeitskreis für Heimatkunde Nieder-Roden: Nieder-Röder Gedenkbuch, Gefallene und Vermißte 1554 - 1946, Nieder-Roden 2005
- Hermann Bonifer: Alte Flurnamen erzählen aus Jügesheims Geschichte. Rodgau 1995.
- Hermann Bonifer: Jügesheim und St. Nikolaus - Dorf und Pfarrei in der Geschichte. Rodgau 2004.
- Heidi Fogel: Das Lager Rollwald. Rodgau 2004. ISBN 3-00-013586-3
- Geschichts- und Kulturverein Hainhausen: 900 Jahre Hainhausen. Hainhausen 2008
- Michael Hofmann: Die Eisenbahn in Offenbach und im Rodgau. DGEG Medien, Hövelhof 2004. ISBN 3-937189-08-4
- Michael Jäger: Rodgau 1945. Frankfurt 1994. ISBN 3-9803619-0-X
- Alfred Kurt: Am Main, im Rodgau und in der Dreieich. Offenbach a.M. 1998. ISBN 3-87079-009-1
- Gisela Rathert u. a.: Nieder-Roden - 786-1986. Nieder-Roden 1986.
- Manfred Resch u. a.: Unsere Kirche unsere Heimat - 450 Jahre evangelischer Glauben in Dudenhofen. Gudensberg-Gleichen,
- Helmut Simon: Chronik der Pfarrgemeinde St. Matthias Nieder-Roden. Nieder Roden 1996.
- Johann Wilhelm Christian Steiner: Geschichte und Alterthümer des Rodgaus im alten Maingau. Heyer, Darmstadt 1833.
- Werner Stolzenburg: Rollwald - vom Wald zur Siedlung. Frankfurt 1992.
- Werner Stolzenburg u. a.: 100 Jahre Rodgau-Bahn 1896-1996. Rodgau 1996.
- Helmut Trageser: Christen, wollt ihr Rochus ehren, 300 Jahre Rochusgelübde Weiskirchen. Weiskirchen 2002.
Stories
- Hans F. Busch: Kleine Geschichten aus dem Rodgau. Nidderau 1992. ISBN 3-924490-44-9
- Adam Geißler: Dudenhofen zwischen Gestern und Morgen. Frankfurt 1971.
- Ljubica Perkman u. a.: Rodgau - Stadt im Herzen. 2002.
- Philipp Rupp: Geschichten aus Alt-Nieder-Roden. Nieder-Roden 1985
- Helmut Trageser u. a.: Geschichte und Geschichten, 700 Jahre Weiskirchen. Weiskirchen 1986
Picturebooks
- Bezirkssparkasse Seligenstadt (Hrsg.): Am Main und im Rodgau. Steinheim, Main 1965.
- Bärbel Armknecht: Rodgau - Impressionen einer Stadt entlang der Rodau. Rodgau 1998
- Max Herchenröder: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Landkreises Dieburg. Darmstadt 1940 (betr. nur Nieder-Roden).
- Manfred Resch: Dudenhofen - wie es einmal war, Gudensberg-Gleichen 1992
- Dagmar Söder: Kulturdenkmäler in Hessen, Kreis Offenbach. Braunschweig/Wiesbaden 1987.