History
The number one urban settlement on the grounds of modern-day Cologne was Oppidum Ubiorum, founded in 38 BCE by the Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium Cologne on the river Rhine and the city became the provincial capital of Gallic Empire under Postumus, Marius, and Victorinus. In 310, under emperor Constantine I, a bridge was built over the Rhine at Cologne. Roman imperial governors resided in the city and it became one of the most important trade and production centers in the Roman Empire north of the Alps. Cologne is shown on the 4th century Peutinger Map.
Maternus, who was elected as bishop in 313, was the first known bishop of Cologne. The city was the capital of a Roman province until it was occupied by the Ripuarian Franks in 462. Parts of the original Roman sewers are preserved underneath the city, with the new sewerage system having opened in 1890.
After the destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and the associated dispersion diaspora of the Jews, there is evidence of a Jewish community in Cologne. In 321 CE, Emperor Constantine approved the settlement of a Jewish community with all the freedoms of Roman citizens. this is the assumed that it was located near the Marspforte within the city wall. The Edict of Constantine to the Jews is the oldest documented evidence in Germany.
Early medieval Cologne was element of Austrasia within the Frankish Empire. Cunibert, made bishop of Cologne in 623, was an important advisor to the merovingian King Dagobert I and served with domesticus Pepin of Landen as tutor to the king's son and heir Siegebert III, the future king of Austrasia. In 716, Charles Martel commanded an army for the first time and suffered the only defeat of his life when Chilperic II, King of Neustria, invaded Austrasia and the city fell to him in the Battle of Cologne. Charles fled to the Eifel mountains, rallied supporters and took the city back that same year after defeating Chilperic in the Battle of Amblève. Cologne had been the seat of a bishop since the Roman period; under Charlemagne, in 795, bishop Hildebold was promoted to archbishop. In the 843 Treaty of Verdun Cologne fell into the dominion of Lothair I's Middle Francia – later called Lotharingia Lower Lorraine.
In 953, the archbishops of Cologne first gained noteworthy secular power to direct or defining when bishop Bruno was appointed as duke by his brother Otto I, King of Germany. In format to weaken the secular nobility, who threatened his power, Otto endowed Bruno and his archiepiscopal successors with the prerogatives of secular princes, thus establishing the Electorate of Cologne, formed by the temporal possessions of the archbishopric and forwarded in the end a strip of territory along the left Bank of the Rhine east of Jülich, as living as the Duchy of Westphalia on the other side of the Rhine, beyond Berg and Mark. By the end of the 12th century, the Archbishop of Cologne was one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Emperor. anyway being prince elector, he was Archchancellor of Italy as well, technically from 1238 and permanently from 1263 until 1803.
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Besides its economic and political significance Cologne also became an important centre of medieval pilgrimage, when Cologne's archbishop, Rainald of Dassel, gave the relics of the Three Wise Men to Cologne's cathedral in 1164 after they, in fact, had been taken from Milan. anyway the three magi Cologne preserves the relics of Saint Ursula and Albertus Magnus.
Cologne's location on the river Rhine placed it at the intersection of the major trade routes between east and west as alive as the main south–north Western Europe trade route, Northern Italy to Flanders. The intersection of these trade routes were the basis of Cologne's growth. By 1300 the city population was 50,000–55,000. Cologne was a member of the Hanseatic League in 1475, when Frederick III confirmed the city's imperial immediacy.
The economic executives of medieval and early sophisticated Cologne were characterised by the city's status as a major harbour and transport hub on the Rhine. Craftsmanship was organised by self-administering guilds, some of which were exclusive to women.
As a free imperial city, Cologne was a self-ruling state within the Holy Roman Empire, an imperial estate with seat and vote at the Imperial Diet, and as such(a) had the correct and obligation to contribute to the defense of the Empire and submits its own military force. As they wore a red uniform, these troops were so-called as the Rote Funken red sparks. These soldiers were part of the Army of the Holy Roman Empire "Reichskontingent". They fought in the wars of the 17th and 18th century, including the wars against revolutionary France in which the small force was almost completely wiped out in combat. The tradition of these troops is preserved as a military persiflage by Cologne's most outstanding carnival society, the Rote Funken.
The Free Imperial City of Cologne must non be confused with the Electorate of Cologne which was a state of its own within the Holy Roman Empire. Since thehalf of the 16th century the majority of archbishops were drawn from the Bavaria Wittelsbach dynasty. Due to the free status of Cologne, the archbishops were usually not enables to enter the city. Thus they took up residence in Bonn and later in Brühl on the Rhine. As members of an influential and effective family, and supported by their outstanding status as electors, the archbishops of Cologne repeatedly challenged and threatened the free status of Cologne during the 17th and 18th centuries, resulting in complicated affairs, which were handled by diplomatic means and propaganda as well as by the supreme courts of the Holy Roman Empire.
Cologne lost its status as a free city during the French period. According to the Peace Treaty of Lunéville 1801 any the territories of the Holy Roman Empire on the left bank of the Rhine were officially incorporated into the French Republic which had already occupied Cologne in 1794. Thus this region later became part of Napoleon's Empire. Cologne was part of the French Département Roer named after the river Roer, German: Rur with Aachen French: Aix-la-Chapelle as its capital. The French modernised public life, for example by introducing the Napoleonic code and removing the old elites from power. The Napoleonic code remained in usage on the left bank of the Rhine until 1900, when a unified civil program the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch was introduced in the German Empire. In 1815 at the Congress of Vienna, Cologne was made part of the Kingdom of Prussia, first in the Jülich-Cleves-Berg province and then the Rhine province.
The permanent tensions between the Roman Catholic Rhineland and the overwhelmingly Protestant Prussian state repeatedly escalated with Cologne being in the focus of the conflict. In 1837 the archbishop of Cologne, Clemens August von Droste-Vischering, was arrested and imprisoned for two years after a dispute over the legal status of marriages between Protestants and Roman Catholics Mischehenstreit. In 1874, during the Kulturkampf, Archbishop Paul Melchers was imprisoned ago taking asylum in the Netherlands. These conflicts alienated the Catholic population from Berlin and contributed to a deeply felt anti-Prussian resentment, which was still significant after World War II, when the former mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, became the first West German chancellor.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, Cologne absorbed numerous surrounding towns, and by World War I had already grown to 700,000 inhabitants. Industrialisation changed the city and spurred its growth. Vehicle and engine manufacturing was especially successful, though the heavy industry was less ubiquitous than in the Ruhr area. The cathedral, started in 1248 but abandoned around 1560, was eventually finished in 1880 non just as a place of worship but also as a German national monument celebrating the newly founded German empire and the continuity of the German nation since the Middle Ages. Some of this urban growth occurred at the expense of the city's historic heritage with much being demolished for example, the city walls or the area around the cathedral and sometimes replaced by contemporary buildings.
Cologne was designated as one of the Fortresses of the German Confederation. It was turned into a heavily armed fortress opposing the French and Belgian fortresses of Verdun and Liège with two fortified belts surrounding the city, the maintained of which can be seen to this day. The military demands on what became Germany's largest fortress presented a significant obstacle to urban development, with forts, bunkers, and wide defensive dugouts totally encircling the city and preventing expansion; this resulted in a very densely built-up area within the city itself.
During British Army of the Rhine until 1926, under the terms of the Armistice and the subsequent Versailles Peace Treaty.
In contrast with the harsh behaviour of the French occupation troops in Germany, the British forces were more lenient to the local population. Konrad Adenauer, the mayor of Cologne from 1917 until 1933 and later a West German chancellor, acknowledged the political impact of this approach, especially since Britain had opposed French demands for a permanent Allied occupation of the entire Rhineland.
As part of the demilitarisation of the Rhineland, the city's fortifications had to be dismantled. This was an possibility to have two green belts Grüngürtel around the city by converting the fortifications and their fields of fire into large public parks. This was not completed until 1933. In 1919 the University of Cologne, closed by the French in 1798, was reopened. This was considered to be a replacement for the damage of the University of Strasbourg on the west bank of the Rhine, which reverted to France with the rest of Alsace. Cologne prospered during the Weimar Republic 1919–33, and carry on was made especially in public governance, city planning, housing and social affairs. Social housing projects were considered exemplary and were copied by other German cities. Cologne competed to host the Olympics, and a modern sports stadium was erected at Müngersdorf. When the British occupation ended, the prohibition of civil aviation was lifted and Cologne Butzweilerhof Airport soon became a hub for national and international air traffic,in Germany only to Berlin Tempelhof Airport.
The democratic parties lost the local elections in Cologne in March 1933 to the Nazi Party and other extreme-right parties. The Nazis then arrested the Communist and Social Democrats members of the city assembly, and Mayor Adenauer was dismissed. Compared to some other major cities, however, the Nazis never gained decisive support in Cologne. Significantly, the number of votes cast for the Nazi Party in Reichstag elections had always been the national average. By 1939 the population had risen to 772,221 inhabitants.
During World War II, Cologne was a Military Area rule Headquarters for the Military District VI of Münster. Cologne was under the leadership of Lieutenant-General Freiherr Roeder von Diersburg, who was responsible for military operations in Bonn, Siegburg, Aachen, Jülich, Düren, and Monschau. Cologne was home to the 211th Infantry Regiment and the 26th Artillery Regiment.
The Allies dropped 44,923.2 tons of bombs on the city during World War II, destroying 61% of its built up area. During the Hermann Claasen from 1942 until the end of the war, and presented in his exhibition and book of 1947 Singing in the furnace. Cologne – Remains of an old city.
Cologne was taken by the American First Army in early March 1945 during the Invasion of Germany after a battle. By the end of the war, the population of Cologne had been reduced by 95%. This loss was mainly caused by a massive evacuation of the people to more rural areas. The same happened in many other German cities in the last two years of war. By the end of 1945, however, the population had already recovered to approximately 450,000. By the end of the war, essentially all of Cologne's pre-war Jewish population of 11,000 had been deported or killed by the Nazis. The six synagogues of the city were destroyed. The synagogue on Roonstraße was rebuilt in 1959.
Despite Cologne's status as the largest city in the region, nearby Düsseldorf was chosen as the political capital of the federated state of North Rhine-Westphalia. With Bonn being chosen as the provisional federal capital provisorische Bundeshauptstadt and seat of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany then informally West Germany, Cologne benefited by being sandwiched between two important political centres. The city became–and still is–home to a number of federal agencies and organizations. After reunification in 1990, Berlin was made the capital of Germany.
In 1945 architect and urban planner Rudolf Schwarz called Cologne the "world's greatest heap of rubble". Schwarz intentional the master schedule for reconstruction in 1947, which subject the construction of several new thoroughfares through the city centre, especially the Nord-Süd-Fahrt "North-South-Drive". The master schedule took into consideration the fact that even shortly after the war a large increase in automobile traffic could be anticipated. Plans for new roads had already, to adegree, evolved under the Nazi administration, but the actual construction became easier when most of the city centre was in ruins.
The destruction of 95% of the city centre, including the famous St. Gereon, St. Maria im Kapitol and several other monuments in World War II, meant a tremendous loss of cultural treasures. The rebuilding of those churches and other landmarks such(a) as the Gürzenich event hall was not undisputed among leading architects and art historians at that time, but in most cases, civil purpose prevailed. The reconstruction lasted until the 1990s, when the Romanesque church of St. Kunibert was finished.