Frankfurt-on-Oder
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Frankfurt-an-der-Oder is an old and important city on the commercial route to Poland and beyond, and was the seat of a university from 1506 to 1811, when it was removed to Breslau. The city is connected by a bridge with the former Oderdamm suburb on the right bank of the river Oder, which is today occupied by Poland, following the Stalin's illegal award to Poland of the German provinces east of the Oder, which became a border, in 1945.
In 1904 the city had 61,800 inhabitants.[1] Its population in 1988 was 87,123.[2]
An early mediaeval settlement of Franconian colonists and traders, Frankfurt was chartered in 1253 and joined the Hanseatic League in 1368. Eleven years later it received the right to free navigation on the Oder, and, later, its fairs became important. It has an inland harbour on the Oder about 6 miles north of its junction with the Oder-Spree canal, and remains an important railway link.
The Wilhelmplatz, where the theatre and post-office were situated in 1904 then contained an equestrian statue of the Emperor Wilhelm I (1900) by the sculptor Max Ungar, also responsible for the [still extant] statue of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia (1828-1885) in front of St.Gertraud's Church Rectory. The nearby Church of St.Mary is a good example of Prussian red brick architecture of the 13th century. The gilded wood-carvings over the altar are from 1419; the font is from 1376. The Rathaus (Town Hall) on the Market-place was rebuilt between 1607 and 1610. To the south of the Halbe Stadt Promenade is a granite obelisk to the poet Ewald von Kleist who died here of wounds received at the battle of Kunersdorf in 1759.[3]
In Oderdamm there was a monument erected in 1787 of Leopold, Duke of Brunswick, who was drowned in 1785.[4] This was destroyed by the Polish occupiers after May 1945.
During World War II Frankfurt was besieged by the Red Army and seriously damaged, but was afterwards reconstructed.