MODERN LIVING IN THE GARRISON TOWN
Frankfurt (Oder) looks back on more than 750 years of history. As a member of the Hanseatic League and a university town as of 1506, its
importance dates back as far as the Middle Ages. As the city becomes the headquarters of the administrative district of Frankfurt as well as
of the higher regional court in 1815, the Berlin-Frankfurt railroad line opens in 1842, and the Frankfurt-Breslau line in 1846, the 19th century
sees the city experience expansion on a large-scale. It evolves into a city of civil servants and a garrison town for Brandenburg and Prussia.
After the second world war Frankfurt becomes a divided border town because of the new German/Polish boundary line along the Oder and
Neiße rivers. The former embankment suburb that lies on the Polish side becomes the city of Słubice. Following the extensive damage inflicted
on the inner city by the war, in 1945 there are numerous plans and competitions for the reconstruction of the city. The reconstruction law
introduced by the government of the German Democratic Republic in 1950 and the development of the “16 Basic Principles of Socialist City
Planning“ led to implementation of the first plans in the Bahnhofstraße area. In 1953, aided by Frankfurt‘s status as a district capital, a status
which it acquires in 1952, individual streets are developed in the area of the old town in 1956, where by now the ruins have been cleared. Other
important stages in the development of the inner city are represented by the construction of the main street as a processional route and shopping
district and the ever-increasing consolidation of inner city development resulting from the government‘s housing programme. Frankfurt‘s city
centre is still characterised today by its buildings from the postwar era.