OPPENHEIM, a town of Germany, in the grand duchy of Hesse, picturesquely situated on the slope of vine-clad hills, on the left bank of the Rhine, 20 m. S. of Mainz, on the railway to Worms. Pop. (1905) 3696. The only relic of its former importance is the Evangelical church of St Catherine, one of the most beautiful Gothic edifices of the 13th and 14th centuries in Germany, and recently restored at the public expense. The town has a Roman Cathohc church, several schools and a memorial of the War of 1870–71. Its industries and commerce are principally concerned with the manufacture and export of wine. Above the town are the ruins of the fortress of Landskron, built in the 11th century and destroyed in 1689.
Oppenheim, which occupies the site of the Roman Bauconica, was formerly much larger than at present. In 1226 it appears as a free town of the Empire and later as one of the most important members of the Rhenish League. It lost its independence in 1375, when it was given in pledge to the elector palatine of the Rhine. During the Thirty Years’ War it was alternately occupied by the Swedes and the Imperialists, and in 1689 it was entirely destroyed by the French.
See W. Franck, Geschichte der ehemaligen Reichsstadt Oppenheim (Darmstadt, 1859).