In recent days.... lot of hype in British press over Frankfurt (related to the English team coming to play a game here)....and how Frankfurt's Bahnhof 'quarter' is a 'ghetto'. Course, this got into the German press...trying condemn the accusation.
Well....I'll just say it...for the past hundred years, you went to the Bahnhof 'quarter' for sex, sex shows, boozing it up, and drugs. In the 1980s....the drug business exploded. Over the past 20 years? I'd say around 2,000 to 3,000 addicts live in and around the Bahnhof 'quarter'. If you follow the crime business...probably once or twice a week....someone passing through (guest of the city or a resident) gets assaulted or threatened in some way.
Locals and shop-keepers? For the past decade, they've put a tremendous amount of pressure on the mayor and city council, and the best you can say is that once a month....the cops walk through....detaining two or three dozen folks, and show some image of 'clean-up'.
It's comical enough that one of the commercial networks run a reality show....featuring fifteen-odd addicts and their typical day. Occasionally, one will overdose and die....but nothing really remarkable other than a form of entertainment.
Its not a tourist magnet. My advice, if you were traveling through the station and needing to walk from there.....walk directly out of the district. Don't stand there and linger, or become a target.
What I suspect will eventually happen? In a decade or so....some city election will come up and the AfD Party locally will suggest a massive strong-arm policy of clean-up....shocking the SPD/Greens with a massive number of locals getting their wish. The junkies and addicts? They will get picked up and hauled off to remote part of the city with a security fence and told to get cleaned-up or forced to remain there for the remainder of their lives.
A crappy reputation? I've been around thirty-odd major cities of Germany (to include Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, and Stuttgart)....if you measured for a index....the most junkie-open area? Frankfurt wins easily, with Hamburg coming up second.
Same thing in the US? Go to Philly, SF, or Portland.....you find the same accepted behavior there.
Brits aren't wrong.....but it just bothers Germans that it's so obvious.
One final note. The rest of Frankfurt? Great town....I can think of four dozen places where you can roam without any fear of assault.
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