"The capital of our dear Fatherland" was how Goethe styled MAINZ . However, this is a position this 2000-year-old city, situated by the confluence of the Rhine and Main, has never officially held, though its influential role throughout German history certainly gave it a far stronger claim for nomination as the postwar seat of government of the Federal Republic than Bonn. Mainz's importance developed in the mid-eighth century, thanks to the Englishman St Boniface, who ... [More]