Kelsterbach: Guide, Hotels, Map & Photos
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EUR 65 - 235 Mercure Hotel Frankfurt Airport
 This 4-star hotel in Kelsterbach offers free wellness facilities, a free airport shuttle, and air-conditioned rooms. Frankfurt Airport is a 10-minute … MoreEUR 69 - 999 NH Frankfurt Airport
 This 4-star hotel offers a free shuttle bus to/from Frankfurt Airport´s Terminal 1. All rooms have a flat-screen TV and guests have free use of … MoreEUR 49 - 260 TOP Hotel Post Frankfurt Airport
 This 3-star TOP Hotel in Sindlingen in Frankfurt offers a free shuttle service to and from Frankfurt Airport. Guests enjoy a spa with sauna and free p… MoreEUR 70 - 130 Lindenhof Kelsterbach
 This 3-star hotel in Kelsterbach offers non-smoking rooms, traditional German food, and free internet access. Frankfurt´s Rhein Main Airport is … MoreEUR 59 - 184 Ibis Hotel Frankfurt Airport
 Only 13 km from central Frankfurt and 4 km from Rhein-Main Airport, this 2-star hotel in Kelsterbach offers a free airport shuttle, quick transport li… MoreEUR 56 - 110 Airport Hotel Tanne
 This 2-star hotel is peacefully located in Kelsterbach, just 3 km north of Frankfurt Airport. It offers soundproofed windows and free parking.
All ro… MoreEUR 48 - 168 Hotel zum Taubengrund
 Offering German and Middle Eastern cuisine, modern rooms with TV, and free parking, this hotel in Kelsterbach is only 2 km from Frankfurt Airport. Air… MoreEUR 39 - 209 Airport Hotel Kelsterbach
 This modern 3-star hotel in Kelsterbach offers free Wi-Fi and 24-hour check-in. Frankfurt´s Rhine Main Airport is a 10-minute drive away.
The q… More | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Kelsterbach: Guide
Kelsterbach is a town in agricultural village was transformed by the great number of large Factory|factories that located here, bringing along with them a great upswing in the town's population. In the decades following the Second World War, many businesses moved to town that were related to Frankfurt International Airport. Today Kelsterbach is home to 15,089 people (as of 30 June 2005). The town is an important centre for logistical service providers and chemical production. In 1952, it was raised to town.
Geography
Location
The town lies on the south side of the Main and west of the Frankfurt City Forest. The original village centre, commonly known as the Lower Village (Unterdorf) borders sharply on the considerably bigger housing developments commonly known as the Upper Village (Oberdorf), which arose only after the railway and industrialization came early in the 20th century over the 17-m-high Kelsterbach Terrace, which stretches 8 km west from the Frankfurt City Forest. The town is part of the Greater Frankfurt Region (Stadtregion Frankfurt) as well as the Frankfurt Rhein-Main Region.
Neighbouring communities
Kelsterbach borders in the west on the Hattersheim am Main constituent community of Okriftel (Main-Taunus-Kreis), in the north on the Frankfurt am Main (district-free city) constituent communities of Sindlingen (Frankfurt am Main)|Sindlingen, Höchst (Frankfurt am Main)|Höchst and Schwanheim (Frankfurt am Main)|Schwanheim, in the east and south on the Frankfurt International Airport|airport lands, and in the southwest on the town of Raunheim.
Constituent communities
Kelsterbach consists of only one constituent community.
History
Stone Age
Until a short time ago, Kelsterbach was deemed to be the place where Europe's earliest anatomically modern humans had been found. A Cro-Magnon skull that became known as the "Lady from Kelsterbach", reputedly dated to 32,000 years ago, vanished without a trace amid the scandal over the anthropologist Reiner Protsch, and was likely a fake. From the Middle Stone Age, in the area of the Kelsterbach Terrace, microliths have been found. Whether this shows that there were people living there is unknown.
Even ceramic finds dated to all epochs of the New Stone Age do not conclusively indicate settlement in the area.
Bronze and Iron Ages
On the other hand, it seems likely that there were people living in what is now Kelsterbach in the archaeological analysis considered as a whole has yielded the assumption that there was a Middle to Late Bronze Age settlement some 10 to 15 m above the Main.
From the early Iron Age (700–450 BC), there are likely various traces of settlement to be found.
The Romans
Earlier finds gave cause to suppose that there had been a Ancient Rome|Roman settlement in the third century in the Kelsterbach Lowland. In 1970, bits of tile and coins found in the northeast part of the municipal area were enough to prompt extensive digs in 2004 and 2005 by the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main|Goethe University's Institute for Archaeological Sciences. Brought to light in these digs was a building with a fountain, along with many incidental finds. It has been called Kleinvilla ("Small Villa"), and it is believed to date from 200 to 220 AD.
Middle Ages
Owing to the town's name, it is believed to have been founded by the Franks as Gelsterbach (gelster = loudly rushing). It hardly seems likely that the scanty trickle of a rill that rises in the Frankfurt City Forest and flows through the town now could be Kelsterbach's namesake, even if in ages gone by its flow was considerably greater.
Kelsterbach's first documentary mention, as Gelsterbach, came, as it did for countless other places in Germany, in the Lorsch codex (about 850). For many centuries, Kelsterbach belonged to the Dreieich royal hunting woods, whose central authority lay at Hayn Castle (now a ruin at Dreieichenhayn, a constituent community of Dreieich). The kingly hunting rights were upheld even through the transfer of power to the County of Katzenelnbogen. In 1479, Kelsterbach along with the whole County of Katzenelnbogen passed to the Landgraviate of Hesse, and through division of inheritance in 1567, to Hesse-Darmstadt, whose history was shared thereafter by this rather insignificant farming village.
Modern times
Landgrave Ludwig VIII took over a previously private faïence factory to make it into a porcelain factory. The Meißen-trained porcelain painter Christian D. Busch was charged with its leadership. The best known porcelain artist working in Kelsterbach was Carl Vogelmann. The factory only lasted a few years.
In the Darmstadt governmental region of Groß-Gerau founded in 1821, which was already institutionalized as Groß-Gerau district by 1832, Kelsterbach was a bailiff's headquarters. From that time, Kelsterbach has had a common history with, and has always found itself under the same administration as, the Groß-Gerau district.
The village took a great step in its development when the the railway carriage works was converted into the Vereinigte Kunstseidenfabrik ("United Rayon Factory"), later Vereinigte Glanzstoff AG. This factory then governed the village's – later town's – development for the better part of the next hundred years. At the time the factory went into operation, Kelsterbach had a population of roughly 3,000. The factory lasted until 2000 when it finally fell victim to globalization. There are great worries now as to what to do with the factory's old lands, a vast area right in the middle of town.
In the second half of the 20th century, the town lost quite a bit of its area to the gradually expanding airport on its southern limit. This development continues, bringing the town's independence ever more into question, as Kelsterbach is being more and more cut of from the rest of Groß-Gerau district.
In 1974, amalgamation with Frankfurt, which had been looming as part of Hesse's district reforms, was staved off for the time being when the town joined the Umlandverband Frankfurt, an intercommunal association.
Kelsterbach was granted town rights in 1952, together with Raunheim.
Politics
Town council
Town council consists of 37 councillors. The municipal elections on 26 March 2006 yielded the following results:
Christian Democratic Union (Germany)|CDU 10 seats
Social Democratic Party of Germany|SPD 20 seats
WIK 5 seats
EUK 2 seats
Note: WIK and EUK are citizens' coalitions, with the former being "green"-oriented, and the latter being an initiative of European Union|EU foreigners.
Mayor
Kelsterbach's fulltime mayor is the former administrative employee Erhard Engisch. He was directly elected on 2 March 1997 as the town's first mayor and took office on 1 September 1997. In the election on 30 March 2003, he was reconfirmed as mayor.
Coat of arms
Kelsterbach's civic coat of arms might heraldically be described thus: In sable an oak tree with four leaves argent and three acorns Or.
The tree stands for the Dreieich royal hunting woods (Dreieich means "Three Oaks" in German language|German). The colours come from the arms borne by the Counts of Isenburg who ruled the village beginning in 1418. The arms were granted in 1925.
Town partnerships
Baugé, département of Maine-et-Loire, France, since 31 August 1979
Economy and infrastructure
Transport
Kelsterbach has an interchange on A66 can be reached quickly. Also running through Kelsterbach is Federal Highway B43. Frankfurt S-Bahn lines S8 and S9 run to Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof|the main railway station in Frankfurt within 15 minutes (four stops), and to the airport in only three minutes (one stop).
Infrastructure
In 1926, in the course of building the North-South Powerline, a great Electrical substation|transformer station was built. This substation today handles voltages of 380, 220 and 110 kV.
Owing to the Frankfurt Airport's expansion, the power lines leading to the substation from the south have had to be relocated several times. Today, the wires are borne on low pylons, with all conductors at the same level, leading by the airport to the west. Owing to plans for building the Northwest Runway, the substation is now being moved and modernized.
Kelsterbach has at its disposal a combination indoor and leisure swimming pool. Remodelling and modernization are planned for 2007. Furthermore, also at hand are one of Groß-Gerau district's biggest and most modern town Library|libraries, an integrated comprehensive school, several primary schools, and a Special education|special school. Kelsterbach is the only municipality in Hesse that belongs to a district and yet has its own school board.
The seven kindergartens under church leadership are coördinated and financially supported by the town. The former stately home houses a youth centre.
At sporting grounds and municipal premises, there is a brisk club life (about 90 clubs and organizations). It is not for nothing that Kelsterbach is also called the "town of clubs". Aside from many cultural events, Kelsterbach is known far beyond its limits for its traditional church fair (Kerb) on the first Sunday in September, and for its Old Town Festival (Altstadtfest) a week later.
Well developed shopping facilities are, besides food markets, hardly available.
Serving as local recreation areas are the well designed Main riverside, the South Park (Südpark), which is heavily frequented in summer, and an extensive town forest. Besides the Main riverside, these areas are being demanded by Fraport AG for the foreseen Frankfurt Airport expansion (as of April 2006).
Established businesses
Kelsterbach profits from, and sometimes suffers by, being near Frankfurt International Airport. The Kelsterbach-Süd commercial area borders directly on the airport. Many logistical service providers have branches here. Among them are the following:
Lufthansa Cargo
Lufthansa Systems
Nippon Express (Deutschland) GmbH
Schenker AG
Kelsterbach is headquarters to Condor Airlines.
The greatest employer is, with roughly 1,100 employees, Ticona AG, a leading company in manufacturing high-technology plastics. Owing to the planned airport expansion, it is likely that this company's current location will have to be given up for safety's sake (as of May 2006).
Personalities
Philipp Helfmann, building entrepreneur (Hochtief AG)
Prof. Dr. Gert G. Wagner, economic and social scientist
Dagmar LAY.D., country singer
Kai Hundertmarck, sport cyclist
Reference
External links
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