Frankfurt is a city that punches well above its weight. Despite its
diminutive size--it has fewer than a million inhabitants--it is a
financial center of global importance, named alongside metropolises and
capitals such as Tokyo, London, and New York. Yet Frankfurt is a city
that is also continually underestimated: many of the millions who visit
it on business--both German and from other countries--see little more of
it than its airport and its skyscrapers. The city's role in the global
financial markets often obscures its importance as a historical and
cultural center, not just for Germany, but for Europe and the West as a
whole. In the Middle Ages, Frankfurt was the city in which the Holy
Roman Emperors were crowned and in which, at the dawn of the
Renaissance, a tradition of printing and publishing was established
which lives on in today's Frankfurt Book Fair. The German language's
most enduring author, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, was born in the city,
and the university named for him gave birth to one of the twentieth
century's most revolutionary academic developments, the Frankfurt
School. Architecturally, too, the city has always been a pioneer: its
famous skyline is only the latest and most visible in a series of bold
experiments. Frankfurt has always been a capital without a country: the
capital of the book trade, the capital of modern social studies, the
capital of the Eurozone. Today, it rivals Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and
London, and yet retains a deeply provincial, down-to-earth identity
interwoven with the thick forests and farming country of its Hessian
hinterland. While its population is one of the world's most
international, its dialect is one of Germany's most impenetrable. For
those looking to do more than just change flights or sign a contract,
this cultural guide takes a closer look at Frankfurt, exploring and
explaining these dichotomies.
