Offenbach was branded the capital of  international leather culture by the city’s mayor, Gerhard Grandke, during an event celebrating the 175 years of the German Leather Museum that took place in the city on 19 September 2004.

Offenbach’s rise to prominence was inextricably linked with that of the leather goods industry. Although the days of leather production in Offenbach are over, the city continues to be associated with leather goods, as proven by international leather goods shows.

The museum is an internationally recognised centre that has recorded the evolution of leather. Its building, which also host the German Shoe museum, exhibit the uses of leather, raw hide and vellum in arts, crafts and the everyday life of peoples. The museum owns a unique collection of European craftwork. Among the most unusual items are leather “love chests” from the Middle Ages, leather wallpaper, book covers, cases and

briefcases, travel chests and bags of kings and chaplains.

Simple things can be found in the collections as well: harnesses, saddles,

luggage boxes, small leather goods, costumes, furniture and much more. In the 1980s leather clothes were added to the collection.

The German Leather Museum was founded in 1917 and is the only one of its kind in the world. Its founder and director of many years, Professor Hugo Eberhardt, was an architect and the principal of the technical college now known as Offenbach's University College of Design.

Eberhardt's ambition was not only to form a model collection of high-quality leatherwork but to create an institution that showed the use of leather throughout the world, regardless of time, place or nation.

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