CIRJE-F-12. Baba, Satoshi, "Construction of the Streetcar and Annexation: A Case of the Transport Connection between Frankfurt and Hoechst"(in German), July 1998.

The annexation of the surrounding communities to a big city is a typical modern phenomenon of German urban history. However, in order to integrate the annexed communities completely, it is indispensable to construct the transportation network. On the one hand, the population living in the suburbs wished to reach faster and easier to the city's center, while on the other, it was necessary for a big city to decentralize the population and the houses. This paper investigates the relation between the construction of the streetcar and the annexation of Hoechst am Main to Frankfurt am Main. At the end of the nineteenth century, Hoechst was an independent middle-scale city with flourishing chemical industry, but at the same time the city situated near Frankfurt which was one of the biggest cities in Germany. From the beginning of the twentieth century Hoechst tried to construct the electric streetcar to Frankfurt, but this endeavour ended in failure. The project was not fulfilled until Hoechst was annexed to Frankfurt in 1928. Hoechst obtained the streetcar in exchange for its independence.