The plan was to make the second post of 2015 a fitness course. That will now follow next week. Because as so often it comes firstly differently, secondly than one thinks and so the death of the French press colleagues of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has inspired me to this post about Frankfurt and its free spirit: because Frankfurt is not only Bankfurt.
A trade and fair city with traces to the Middle Ages. Sure. With close ties to Amsterdam. With a self-confident bourgeoisie whose members can still be found everywhere today - Bethmann Park, the Holzhausen quarter, Villa Emma Metzler or Rothschildallee and Bolongaro Palace, to name just a selection. Longer than in any other German city, Jews have lived on the Main for 900 years, often as businessmen and bankers or scholars and patrons.
To find out more about where I really live, in the early years I always liked to go to <link http: www.juedischesmuseum.de _blank>Jüdisches Museum or to the <link http: www.stadtgeschichte-ffm.de _blank>Institut für Stadtgeschichte in the - also architecturally impressive - Carmelite monastery with its cloisters. Currently, it is also worth going to the <link http: www.historisches-museum.frankfurt.de _blank>History Museum. The permanent exhibition there shows why the "Staufer period" was particularly important for the city 800 years ago: the burgher community was formed, the city was walled and received the great trade fair privilege. The Staufers established Frankfurt's tradition as a place of election for German kings and Roman emperors.
Today, money is earned here, above all, fortunately, but beyond that, people also live: and they do so in a diverse and peaceful manner. Today, more than 700,000 people live in this small city, Muslims, Jews, Christians, homosexuals and heterosexuals, short, tall, fat and thin - from over 100 nations. A glance at the Bahnhofsviertel or a visit on any weekday to the <link http: vhs.frankfurt.de _blank>Volkshochschule in Sonnemannstraße is enough. Frankfurt is also liberal and tolerant - the spirit of the <link http: www.frankfurt.de sixcms _blank>Paulskirche sends its regards! It was here that the National Assembly created the first democratic constitution for all of Germany in 1848. In this tradition, Frankfurt is also a media location - the Frankfurter Allgemeine is located in the middle of the Gallus quarter together with "Rundschau" and "FNP"; meanwhile, the satirical magazine "Titanic" mocks and caricatures in the former university district of Bockenheim, whose history goes back to Roman times.
Sabina Brauner on Twitter: @Wentomanderly
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