Obertshausen () is a town in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk in the state of Hessen, Germany. It has around 24,000 inhabitants.

Geography

thumb|250px|Obertshausen (centre of Hausen), <br/>in the foreground [[Mühlheim am Main|Mühlheim-Lämmerspiel|left]]

Location

Obertshausen is one of 13 towns and municipalities in the Offenbach district. The town lies in the thickly wooded eastern part of the Rhine-Main lowland south of the Main and southeast of Frankfurt am Main and Offenbach am Main at an elevation of 112&nbsp;m above sea level. Southwest of the town is found Darmstadt, the seat of the like-named Regierungsbezirk. To the northeast lies the town of Hanau (Main-Kinzig-Kreis). Obertshausen lies in the southern part of Hesse, not far from the Odenwald and the Spessart.

Municipal area's extent

The municipal area stretches over 13.7&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>, of which 7.8&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup> is woodland, open land and cropland

Neighbouring communities

Obertshausen borders in the northwest on the district-free city of Offenbach am Main with its outlying centres of Bieber and Tempelsee, in the north on the town of Mühlheim (centre of Lämmerspiel), in the northeast on the town of Hanau (Main-Kinzig-Kreis) with its outlying centres of Steinheim and Klein-Auheim, in the east on the community of Hainburg, in the southeast on the town of Rodgau (centre of Weiskirchen) and in the southwest on the town of Heusenstamm.

Constituent communities

Obertshausen's Stadtteile are Obertshausen and Hausen, each of which has roughly the same population.

History

In 865, Obertshausen had its first documentary mention under the name Oberdueshuson in a paper from the Benedictine monastery at Seligenstadt as one of the monastery's landholdings. In 1069, Heinrich IV donated to Saint Jacob's Monastery in Mainz some newly cleared land in the Wildbann Dreieich (a royal hunting forest). The land lay near the village of Hyson in the Maingau. At this time, the Lords of Hagenhausen-Eppstein exercised lordly rights (Hoheitsrechte) in Obertshausen and Hausen. In Obertshausen stood a moated castle shaped like a defensive tower, called the Burgk im Hayn (or Burg im Hayn in modern German spelling). The Lords of Hausen, a sideline of those of Hagenhausen, once had holdings here.

In the Middle Ages, feudal lords changed very often. The Lords of Eppstein, Ullrich von Hanau and Archbishop Conrad III of Mainz were some of the land's owners. In 1425, Hausen and Obertshausen, as part of the Amt of Steinheim, w

sold by the Lords of Eppstein to Electoral Mainz. The Thirty Years' War and the Plague in 1636 took a heavy toll on the population.

left|thumb|3rd U.S. Army soldiers order the mayor of Obertshausen that all arms are to be turned in immediately. 2 April 1945

In 1664, Archbishop Johann Philipp of Mainz sold his brother Philipp Erwin of Schönborn the two villages for 9,000 Gulden. In 1806, the Schönborn Amt of Heusenstamm with Hausen and Obertshausen was mediatized into the Principality of Isenburg, which was in turn mediatised ten years later. Both places then passed with the Isenburg Amt of Offenbach to the Grand Duchy of Hesse, and as of 1945, to the state of Hesse. From the Middle Ages until 1819, Obertshausen and Hausen belonged to the Biebermark, an area held in common with several other villages. In 1819, the Biebermark was divided among the member villages.

In 1896, the Offenbach-Dieburg railway opened with a railway station in Obertshausen.

In the course of municipal reform in Hesse, the two formerly self-administering communities of Obertshausen and Hausen were merged. At first, the new community was named Hausen. On 1 January 1978, however, it was named Obertshausen. The two centres are separated from each other by Bundesstraße 448. On 29 September 1979, the Hesse state government granted Obertshausen town rights.

Population development

In 1576 there were 10 households in Hausen and 27 in Obertshausen. In 1834, Hausen's population had risen to 444 and Obertshausen's to 554. These figures have risen to many times these old levels over the years since then. By 1939, the figures had become 2,034 and 2,444 respectively. On 30 June 2007, the town as a whole had 25,314 inhabitants, of whom 12,668 lived in Hausen and 12,646 in Obertshausen.

Inhabitants <small>(each time as at 31 December)</small>

  • 1998 – 24,522
  • 1999 – 24,577
  • 2000 – 24,658
  • 2001 – 24,676
  • 2002 – 24,521
  • 2003 – 24,484
  • 2004 – 24,532
  • 2005 – 25,434
  • 2006 – 24,210

Politics

thumb|250px|Obertshausen Town Hall

Town council

The municipal election held on 26 March 2006 yielded the following results:

{| class="wikitable"

|--- class="hintergrundfarbe5"

|colspan="2" | Parties and voter communities

|align="center" | %<br />2006

|align="center" | Seats<br />2006

|align="center" | %<br />2001

|align="center" | Seats<br />2001

|----

|CDU

|Christian Democratic Union of Germany

|align="right" |49.9

|align="right" |18

|align="right" |51.8

|align="right" |19

|----

|SPD

|Social Democratic Party of Germany

|align="right" |19.3

|align="right" |7

|align="right" |25.6

|align="right" |10

|----

|GREENS

|Bündnis 90/Die Grünen

|align="right" |10.3

|align="right" |4

|align="right" |9.9

|align="right" |4

|----

|FDP

|Free Democratic Party

|align="right" |10.6

|align="right" |4

|align="right" |6.3

|align="right" |2

|----

|Bürger

|Bürger für Obertshausen

|align="right" |9.9

|align="right" |4

|align="right" |6.3

|align="right" |2

|--- class="hintergrundfarbe5"

|colspan="2" |Total

|align="right" |100.0

|align="right" |37

|align="right" |100.0

|align="right" |37

|--- class="hintergrundfarbe5"

|colspan="2" |Voter turnout in %

|colspan="2" align="right" |42.5

|colspan="2" align="right" |51.0

|----

|}

Mayor

Mayoral elections take place in Obertshausen every six years. The most recent mayors were:

  • Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, France (1971)
  • Laakirchen, Austria (1972)
  • Meiningen, Germany (2007)

Notable people

  • (1923–2000), paedagogue and politician (CDU), Member of the Bundestag
  • Sven Väth (born 1964), DJ and musician, pioneer of the German Techno scene
  • Finn Wiebelhaus (born 2006), racing driver

Honorary citizens

  • Hildegard Bühl
  • Peter Döbert (1907–1994)
  • Robert Flügel (1909–1990)
  • Kurt Formhals (1914–2009)
  • Heide Heß (born 1940)
  • Johann Karl Kämmerer (1870–1957)
  • Valentin Mahr (1908–1972)
  • Karl Mayer (1909–1995)
  • Ulrich Mayer
  • Robert Pappert (1930–2010)
  • Josef Pieroth (1885–1957)
  • Robert Roth (1929–2015)
  • Eric Christian Schreiber, Sr. (1921–2008)
  • Pfarrer Peter Valentin Schwahn (1889–1964)
  • Marie Friederike Vetter (1904–1995)
  • Leonhard Wilhelm (1883–1960)
  • Jakob Wolf (1899–1982)

References