Hofheim am Taunus (, ), commonly known as Hofheim, is the administrative centre of the Main-Taunus-Kreis district, in the south of the German state of Hesse. Its population in September 2020 was 39,946.
The town is situated on the south side of the Taunus hills, approximately 17 km west of Frankfurt and 17 km east of both Wiesbaden and Mainz, within the Rhine Main Area, one of the fastest-growing economic regions in Germany. Frankfurt Airport lies 12 km to the southeast.
Human settlement in the area dates back to the Palaeolithic period, and the town was first documented in 1254 under the name Hoveheim. Over the following centuries Hofheim passed through the hands of several noble houses and the Electorate of Mainz before becoming part of the Duchy of Nassau in the early 19th century and subsequently being annexed by Prussia in 1866. On 1 January 1980 Hofheim became the administrative seat of the Main-Taunus-Kreis.
Notable landmarks include the medieval Wasserschloss (water castle), the Kellereigebäude with its historic Hexenturm (Witch Tower), the 15th-century church of St. Peter und Paul, and the European Baháʼí House of Worship, located in the Langenhain district. The town is served by S-Bahn line S2 and has direct motorway access via the A66.
Geography Location The town is located on the south side of the Taunus hills, 17 km west of Frankfurt and 17 km east of both Wiesbaden and Mainz; Frankfurt Airport is 12 km to the southeast.
Hofheim is located in the Rhine Main Area, one of the fastest-growing regions in Germany in terms of population and also in regard to economic productivity. Unemployment is the second lowest in the state of Hesse and one of the lowest in Germany.
It is mainly surrounded by forest and open country. The highest point of Hofheim is the mountain Judenkopf in the Lorsbach district, with a height of 410 metres. As well as being the administrative centre of the Main-Taunus-Kreis, Hofheim is its economic hub.
History Early history
The oldest traces of human life in the area around Hofheim date back to the Palaeolithic period, with the oldest find dating back to around 40,000 B.C. From the Neolithic period from around 5000 B.C. onwards, settlement areas on the banks of the Schwarzbach, on both sides of today's Schmelzweg and on the Kapellenberg have been identified. Especially the Michelsberg culture around 4400 to 3500 B.C. is shown by numerous traces of settlements and finds on the Kapellenberg (Ringwallanlage). Around 30/40 A.D., the area was settled by the Romans, who built the Hofheim fort here as a two-phase complex - first an earth fort and from 75 A.D. under Emperor Vespasian also a stone fort, which existed until 110 A.D. - in order to secure the Wetterau region, to protect the route between Mainz and Nida in today's Frankfurt-Heddernheim, and to protect the Limes triangle, among other things. The fort was built by the Romans as a two-phase complex.Thoma Becker/Detlef Gronenborn/Karl-Josef Sabel/Roswitha Schlecker/Markus Scholz: Jade und Salz – Der Hofheimer Kapellenberg und seine Geschichte. Magistrat der Stadt Hofheim am Taunus und Röm.-Germ. Zentralmuseum Mainz – Stadtmuseum/Stadtarchiv (Hrsg.) Beiträge zur Kultur- und Stadtgeschichte Bd. 18, Hofheim am Taunus 2013, 84 Seiten, ISBN 978-3-933735-44-7.
Middle Ages
The first documented mention was in 1254 under the name Hoveheim, but the suffix -heim indicates a much earlier Frankish foundation.Blei and Guba, Hofheim am Taunus 2002, S. 40–51. Hofheim belonged to Count Philipp VI the Elder of Falkenstein, when Emperor Charles IV granted the town a charter. This document gave the lords of Hofheim the right to build walls, gates and bridges, to erect a gallows, to hold court, to conduct crafts and to hold a market. In the imperial war against Philip the Elder of Falkenstein (Falkenstein Feud), the town was conquered by the Electorate of Mainz in 1366, to which it was subject until 1418.Blei and Guba, Hofheim am Taunus 2002, S. 40–51. This was followed by the rule of the Counts of Eppstein-Königstein until the extinction of the dynasty in 1535.Blei and Guba, Hofheim am Taunus 2002, S. 40–51. During this time, the first Jews were recorded in Hofheim. Within the 16th century, the owners changed only twice. From 1535 to 1574 the dominion of Eppstein-Königstein belonged to Count Ludwig von Stolberg, who introduced the Reformation in Hofheim in 1540, and from 1574 to 1581 to Christoph von Stolberg.Stefan Hauck, Roswitha Schlecker u. a.: Versprochen ist versprochen – Die Geschichte der Hofheimer Bergkapelle. In: Magistrat der Stadt Hofheim am Taunus – Stadtmuseum/Stadtarchiv und Anneliese-und-Hubert-Schulenberg-Stiftung (Hrsg.): Stadtmuseum Hofheim, Beiträge zur Kultur- und Stadtgeschichte. Band 21. Stadtmuseum Hofheim, Hofheim am Taunus 2017, ISBN 978-3-933735-49-2. But already in 1559 Elector and Archbishop Daniel Brendel von Homburg had redeemed an old pledge and thus regained Eppstein and Hofheim. After the death of Christoph von Stolberg, the rest of the county of Königstein also went to the Electorate of Mainz in 1581.
Under the reign of Wolfgang von Dalberg, Archbishop and Elector of Mainz, and his successor Johann Adam von Bicken, the witch trials in the Electorate of Mainz reached their peak in the period from 1588 to 1602 in both the Höchst and Hofheim districts. From the remains of old court records, the Aschaffenburg archive remains, 23 women could be identified who were accused of witchcraft, 15 of them found death at the stake. On 3 November 2010 the town council of Hofheim am Taunus decided to rehabilitate the citizens convicted of witchcraft.
Until the beginning of 1603, Protestantism was still the predominant religion among the inhabitants despite the town's affiliation with the Catholic Electorate of Mainz. It was not until June that year that the Protestant pastor was replaced by a Catholic one.Stefan Hauck, Roswitha Schlecker u. a.: Versprochen ist versprochen – Die Geschichte der Hofheimer Bergkapelle. In: Magistrat der Stadt Hofheim am Taunus – Stadtmuseum/Stadtarchiv und Anneliese-und-Hubert-Schulenberg-Stiftung (Hrsg.): Stadtmuseum Hofheim, Beiträge zur Kultur- und Stadtgeschichte. Band 21. Stadtmuseum Hofheim, Hofheim am Taunus 2017, ISBN 978-3-933735-49-2. During the Thirty Years' War, Spanish, Bavarian, Swedish and French troops occupied, plundered and devastated the town and its present-day districts. Inhabitants were tortured into revealing the hiding places of cattle, horses and household goods. In addition to famine, epidemics broke out again and again, and in 1635 the plague spread through the region. In Hofheim, the number of men (burghers) dropped from 76 and 13 widows to 27 within four years in 1635 (no subdivision into men and widows). Finally, at the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648, there were 40 men and 4 widows. Children, women and bystanders were not recorded in counts as a matter of principle. From 1665 on, the plague raged in Mainz and Frankfurt as well as in the region of today's Main-Taunus district.
The following year Hofheim was still free of the plague, and on 3 July 1666 Pastor Gleidener led the inhabitants in a procession to the "Rabberg" (today's Kapellenberg) to take a vow: If the town was spared from the plague, a chapel should be built on this spot in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The chapel was built in 1667 and replaced by a successor building in 1774.Stefan Hauck, Roswitha Schlecker u. a.: Versprochen ist versprochen – Die Geschichte der Hofheimer Bergkapelle. In: Magistrat der Stadt Hofheim am Taunus – Stadtmuseum/Stadtarchiv und Anneliese-und-Hubert-Schulenberg-Stiftung (Hrsg.): Stadtmuseum Hofheim, Beiträge zur Kultur- und Stadtgeschichte. Band 21. Stadtmuseum Hofheim, Hofheim am Taunus 2017, ISBN 978-3-933735-49-2.
Hofheim is also described in the Topographia Hassiae:
With the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, a 26-year period of peace ended for Hofheim. The population had come to a modest prosperity and had grown to a thousand inhabitants. With the occupation of the city of Mainz by French Revolutionary troops and finally of the city of Frankfurt in 1792, Hofheim residents began years of suffering. Alternating troop marches and quarterings brought looting, famine, and epidemics.Dieter Reuschling, Roswitha Schlecker: Bürgerwille gegen Herrscherwillkür – Hofheim am Taunus – eine Kleinstadt zwischen französischer und deutscher Revolution. In: Magistrat der Stadt Hofheim am Taunus – Stadtmuseum/Stadtarchiv (Hrsg.): Beiträge zur Kultur- und Stadtgeschichte. Band 14. Stadtmuseum Hofheim am Taunus, Hofheim 2007, ISBN 3-933735-33-5, S. 132.
In the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, Hofheim fell to the principality of Nassau-Usingen. In 1806, it was united with the principality of Nassau-Weilburg. Together they formed the Duchy of Nassau. In 1866 this was annexed by Prussia and from then on existed as the province of Hesse-Nassau. After Hofheim had long been sidelined in terms of transportation, the town was connected to the railroad network from 1874 to 1877 with the construction of the Main-Lahn Railway between Frankfurt and Limburg. A renewed economic upswing began. Hofheim had also become interesting for Taunus tourists from Frankfurt thanks to the rail connection.
20th and 21st centuries
The First World War (1914–1918) resulted in 121 men from Hofheim falling in combat. Numerous inhabitants, especially children, died as a result of malnutrition. After the armistice treaty of 11 November 1918, an occupation of Hofheim by French troops followed as soon as 2 December, and lasted until 1929 (officially until 1930) (Allied occupation of the Rhineland). Hofheim was located within the thirty-kilometer radius around Mainz, which had to be cleared of German soldiers - in accordance with the victors' demands. Within these zones were the cities of Cologne and Koblenz, the area on the right bank of the Rhine, and the city of Kehl (the latter with a smaller radius).Roswitha Schlecker: Spuren der Geschichte – Hofheim im Ersten Weltkrieg. In: Magistrat of city Hofheim am Taunus – Stadtmuseum/Stadtarchiv (Hrsg.): Beiträge zur Kultur und Stadtgeschichte. Band 19. Hofheim 2014, ISBN 978-3-933735-47-8, S. 86.
In 1933, the National Socialists took power in Hofheim as well. In the Reichstag election on 5 March, 36.91 percent of the residents in Hofheim voted for the NSDAP. In the municipal elections on 12 March 1933, the NSDAP won 6 of 12 seats. The other seats were held by the SPD (3) and the Center Party (3). On 22 June the SPD was banned, and the Center Party dissolved under massive pressure on 5 July. Thus, the NSDAP was the only remaining party in Hofheim's city parliament and, as of 24 July anyway, by law the only permitted party in the German Reich.Anna Schmidt: Hofheim 1933–1945 – Sieben Gemeinden im Nationalsozialismus. In: Magistrat of city Hofheim am Taunus - Stadtmuseum/Stadtarchiv (Hrsg.): Beiträge zur Kultur- und Stadtgeschichte. Band 12. Stadtmuseum, Hofheim am Taunus 2005, ISBN 3-933735-30-0, S. 132.
By 11 April 1933 the previous mayors in 13 municipalities in the Main-Taunus district had been replaced by NSDAP members. Since 1920, Oskar Meyrer held the office of mayor in Hofheim and was to keep it until his death on 1 August 1942.Dieter Reuschling, Roswitha Schlecker: Oskar Meyrer – eine biografische Skizze. In: Magistrat of city Hofheim am Taunus – Stadtmuseum/Stadtarchiv (Hrsg.): Beiträge zur Kultur- und Stadtgeschichte. Band 22. Stadtmuseum, Hofheim 2017, ISBN 978-3-933735-51-5, S. 48. After that, the position was not filled again, but continued to be held by the local group leader Georg Kaufmann on a deputy basis.