At the same time, they expect them to look good and still retain their 19th Century character, and not get covered in graffiti.  With many of them being listed buildings as well, this is not an easy task.  Another complication is that the buildings are often owned by Deutsche Bahn, reducing the lack of influence that local towns have over how they are used.

Oberursel’s station is one of those that had suffered this fate until recently, but for the past three years things have started to change.  An organisation called SEWO, who were originally created by the town itself to re-develop the Camp King area, were able to buy the property from the railway.

Since then they have been restoring the station building to its former glory and at the same time modernising it so to make the whole thing more economical to run, whilst at the same time ensuring that the work is coherent with the listed building status.  The exterior, for example, has been painted in the original colours.

Finally, last week, the scaffolding was taken down and the front of the station could be seen once again, although work continues inside.

One of the main changes inside is the ceiling.  The original rooms had been 12m high in some places, meaning that a lot of empty space had to be heated and could not otherwise be used.  With the new ceiling/floor the available floorspace has been increased.

Inside the station - the room will be part of the new dance school

The windows are – with one exception – in their original frames.  To insulate these better, a pane of glass has been added on the inside, but not fixed into a second frame like normal double glazing.  Apparently this insulates the windows better, without trapping condensation between the panes.

The whole building has also been re-wired.  The non-public parts used to be used by the railway for a variety of technical elements, but for whatever reason there were no plans of which wires went where.  So the electricians pulled everything out and started again from scratch.

Outside, a small extension has been added which has a kiosk in it selling tickets, and unlike the previous ticket office it is open for most of the day.

The new tenants inside the building will have to wait until the spring before they can start moving in.  These will be: a Kindergarten, language school, dance school, Turkish delicatessen and bistro, and a restaurant.  The variety of the tenants is such, that in combination with the ticket office the building will be in use for most of the day and night, reducing the chance of graffiti and vandalism.

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• When does the last train leave Oberursel during the Hessentag?
• Voting on the future of Stuttgart’s station
• Disabled Access to the Hessentag

And yet in Germany the day means something else to most people as ironically it is the official start of the carnival season!

This does not mean that people in Germany do not remember their war dead, they just do it at a different time.  Volkstrauertag, the equivalent of Remembrance Sunday,  is the second Sunday before advent, which usually places it a week after everyone else.  This year (2011) it happens to fall on the same day.

But another difference can be found in the attitude towards war memorials.  I would image that most people of my generation who grew up in the UK would know where their local war memorial was as they can be found in most towns there.

In Germany, however, I admit that this is not something I had taken much notice of until recently.  I certainly could not have said where one was to be found in Oberursel, let alone in most other towns, and I do not know how many of the local population could either.

And yet they are there, as I recently found out on a guided tour of some of Oberursel’s memorials.

My British image of a war memorial is a place where services are held on Remembrance Sunday, and where the names of the people from the local town who died in either the First or Second World Wars are listed – sometimes even later conflicts like the Falklands War.  ie. one memorial per town.

Oberursel at least has a whole collection of them!  There are a number of reasons for this, which I will go into in a moment.  One of them, however, is because various villages were merged into the town in 1972.  These had often erected their own memorials, adding to the number.  A similar case exists for Bommersheim, which merged with Oberursel in 1929.

In Oberursel itself the story starts in 1871, with German unity and Napoleon’s defeat.  (The same defeat that led to the building of the Niederwalddenkmal near Rüdesheim).  In the “Allee” (now Adenauerallee) a tree was planted soon after the victory and called the Friedenseiche (peace oak).  The location is not a co-incidence, because the veterans’ association held their meetings on the opposite side of the road in a pub called “Alemania”.  The tree is still standing and is listed as a natural monument.

A year later in 1872, a committee was formed to arrange a more traditional type of monument, but due to internal differences this was not erected until 1895.

It is reminiscent of the type of monuments built in the UK after the First World War in that it is contains lists of names on each side.  On the top is a sphere with an eagle sitting on it – the eagle is looking towards France.

In total there are 72 names on it.  BUT only 3 of them actually commemorate people who died.  The inscription reads:

“Zum Gedächtnis an den Ruhmvollen Krieg Deutschlands mit Frankreich 1870-71.  Errichtet im Jahre 1895.  Den Tod für’s Vaterland starben von den Söhnen der Stadt Oberursel

Joh. Adrian
Nik.Dinges
Joh.Häusser”

The other 69 names are people from the town who survived and returned, many of them on the aforementioned committee.

“Mitkämpfer waren aus Oberursel…”

Reading those names there are many familiar surnames of the families who still play a large role in the town.

War Memorial for the 1870-71 war against France in the Adenauerallee

Following the First World War the situation was understandably different.  This time Oberursel lost 230 of its citizens, and they are listed on the base of the Ehrenmal – a mosaic-clad column next to the Christuskirche in the Oberhöchstädterstraße.  This was officially unveiled in 1930 and is currently undergoing restoration.

However after the Second World War no new names were added, the Ehrenmal remains a war memorial only for the First World War.

Instead, a memorial was erected in the 1950s in the cemetery on the border between Oberursel and Bommersheim as a place for people to go and remember their friends and relatives who did not return either from one of the battles or in some cases from captivity.

The war memorial in the cemetery

It was not until 1988 that a memorial was installed opposite the Rathaus in the centre of the town, which contains a quote from the then German President Richard von Weizsäcker:

“Wir Gedenken in Trauer aller Opfer des Krieges und der Gewaltherrschaft.  Nur wer die Vergangenheit verleugnet, ist in der schrecklichen Gefahr, sie zu wiederholen.”

The memorial in front of the Rathaus

Apparently this simple stone was overgrown for many years, and only recently has the area around it been made accessible again.

Other more specific monuments or plaques can be found throughout the town, such as the location of the Synagogue in the Weidengasse, one for displaced persons at the Waldfriedhof or at the Jewish Cemetery near the swimming pool.

Behind the cemetery in Bommersheim there is also a plaque for Hans and Sophie Scholl, representing the members of the German resistance who lost their lives.

The Geschwister Scholl memorial in Bommersheim

And now Oberursel has a new memorial – the victims’ memorial (Opferdenkmal) in the grounds of the old hospital in the Strackgasse.  Funded by donations, it is being put together piece by piece, and is for “die Oberurseler Opfer des Nationalsozialismus”.  Those who it commemorates died in concentration camps, as a result of torture in the town itself, or by committing suicide to avoid deportation.

The new victims' memorial

The monument has two sides with a number of figures on each side.  One side represents the victims, whereas the other represents the people of the town looking on.  When it is finished, a sheet of glass will separate them and will be engraved with the victims’ names.

Walking through the town and learning so much about the different memorials it was a strange feeling to realise that they had been there for so long, and yet I had either not noticed them or had not stopped to look at them further.  But have walked or driven past them so often since I have lived here.

I am sure that many people living here are not aware of them.

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Watching the Cenotaph

The city archive in Cologne was the largest archive of its kind in Germany, containing not only important documents such as the building plans of Cologne Cathedral, but also the personal documents of a number of well-known German citizens such as Heinrich Böll and Konrad Adenauer.

Just over 2 weeks ago, the building collapsed burying about 90% of the archived material and tearing away parts of the adjacent residential buildings which lead to the death of two people.  Since then, the media have been reporting almost daily on the progress of the hunt for the bodies, the rescuing of the archive material, and trying to find out who is to blame.

The building was opened in 1971 with modern methods such as controlled air-flow and lightling to protect the documents contained within its think walls.

Almost immediately, the media attention turned to the unterground rail line that we being built under the road in front of the archive, when it was suggested that part of the ground under the archive may have collapsed into the tunnel and caused a whole for the building to fall into.  After much speculation, this week information surfaced that there had indeed been problems with water in the tunnel in September of last year, which in the eyes of many confirms their opinion that this was indeed the cause and, had the problem last year been investigated, may well have avoided the collaspe and the subsequent deaths.

Of course, what do you do when you are building an underground railway and suddenly found out that you cannot go the way you wanted to, because the water table is too high?  Cologne is similar to London, in that it is divided by a large river, in Cologne’s case the Rhine.  Unlike London, there have not, until now, been many attempts to tunnel under the river.  Most tram and rail lines cross the Rhine on bridges, and new tunnel in question was not actually going under the river, but running parallel to it.

Surely the unexpected water in the tunnel last year should have made someone sit up and take a look at the plans, to see if they needed changing.  I’m no architect, but perhaps they should have gone deeper, or maybe the ground is just unsuitable for tunneling?

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Using the U-Bahn at the Hessentag
• Bank holiday and Sunday trains to the Hessentag
• When does the last train leave Oberursel during the Hessentag?

The trouble with short visits of only a few hours is that you have to get from the airport to Frankfurt itself, and then back again in time to check-in for your flight. Although there is a good train connection between the airport and the city centre (a line called the “S8″) you need to allow plenty of time for delays finding your check-in desk and gate. The airport may not be as big as in some European cities (eg. Heathrow or Barajas), but it is complex enough still the same. If you are flying from Terminal 2, you will need to get off the train and onto the monorail to change terminals.

But if you do have a few hours to spare, then you can always buy a one-day rail ticket and travel around Frankfurt by train to see the sights. If you are visiting at the weekend, you might even like to take a ride on the Ebbelwoi Express – a tram that runs around Frankfurt serving traditional local snacks and drinks. The ride takes about an hour and goes through most of the older parts of the city.

Of course, if you have a bit more time to spare then you might like to sample the nightlife of the big city and stay in a hotel for the night. Generally speaking, hotels in Frankfurt should be booked in advance as they tend to fill up quickly if anything is on in the city such as trade fairs or concerts. The best way of finding a good hotel at a reasonable price is often to ask for recommendations. But if you don’t know anyone to ask, then you need a good online resource to give you some alternatives.

I have booked hotels online in the past, only to find out that people I met later with local knowledge had better options for me that were not available in the booking system.

So I was interested to find a site called Hotels Combined, where in Frankfurt alone they have over 300 hotels in their system! I had a look at what was available at short notice for the coming weekend, and found offers starting at around 30EUR per night, which sounds very good value for money.

The fact is, that Hotels Combined are not actually booking your hotel room – they are searching through different booking systems to find you the best offer. Once you have selected a hotel and price, they forward you to the relevant system so that you can book your room. But wait! Before you do that you can read reviews that other users have put in the system after their say. For example, you might be interested to find our where you can free WLAN access, or how far the hotel is from the main train station.

What is also interesting about the site, is that it covers some of the smaller towns outside of Frankfurt. I am a big fan of staying outside of the city centre in places such as Bad Homburg and Königstein, the latter of which I visited myself recently.

I word of warning if you are travelling on budget airlines, though. Frankfurt is not the same as Frankfurt-Hahn – that is over 100km away! But don’t worry, even around Hahn there are lots of things to do and places to see (such as trip on the Rhine). And there are hotels there as well…

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• 10 Things to do in Frankfurt in Winter
• Frankfurt Airport
• Frankfurt-Hahn Airport

Secondly, I often read questions in forums about visiting Frankfurt for only a few hours, eg. between flights, and I wanted to see how much of Frankfurt it was possible to see using the trams and U-Bahn lines.

Listen to the podcast to hear where we went and what we saw:

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Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• 10 Things to do in Frankfurt in Winter
• Science on a ship – the MS Wissenschaft on tour
• The Bommersheim Tram Depot