History of Cologne

Early settlement and medieval growth

After Julius Caesar destroyed the Eburones in 53 bce, the Roman general Agrippa colonized the area with another tribe called the Ubii, who came from the right bank of the Rhine. A fortified settlement was established on the site about 38 bce. This was the birthplace of Julia Agrippina, who was the wife of the emperor Claudius, and it was at her request that the title of Roman colony was conferred upon the town in 50 ce. It was named Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, shortened to Colonia; later it was made the headquarters of the governor of Lower Germany. After 258 ce it was for a time the capital of a splinter empire ruled by Postumus and comprising Gaul, Britain, and Spain. In 310 the emperor Constantine the Great built a castle and a permanent bridge to it across the Rhine. Ceramics and glass were manufactured in Cologne in Roman times. About 456 it was conquered by the Franks, and it soon became the residence of the kings of the Ripuarian part of the Frankish kingdom.

A Christian community existed in Cologne probably as early as the 2nd century, and the town is first mentioned as a bishopric in 313. Charlemagne made it an archbishopric in the late 8th century; by the 10th century the archbishop dominated the city, receiving a wide range of tolls, customs duties, and other payments. The city’s industry and trade grew during the Middle Ages, especially from about the 10th century, and increasingly bitter conflicts developed between the wealthy merchants and the archbishop. The former sought commercial and political freedom, the latter the preservation of his temporal power, which was augmented from the 13th century when the archbishop became one of the electors privileged to choose the German king. It was not until the Battle of Worringen, in 1288, that the archbishop was finally defeated, and the city of Cologne secured full self-government. From that time, Cologne was in fact a free imperial city, although it was only officially recognized as such in 1475.

Until the end of the 14th century, the government of the city was in the hands of the wealthy patricians, but in 1396, after a bloodless revolution, a new municipal constitution was established under which the 22 branches of the guilds became the basis of the government, for they elected a council that had power over all internal and external affairs.

This medieval period was a splendid one for Cologne. It was a prominent member of the mercantile Hanseatic League, and its merchants had probably the most extensive connections and the most varied trade of all the German towns. Crafts included textile manufacturing, bookmaking, leatherworking, enameling, and metalworking, the work of Cologne’s goldsmiths being particularly fine. The arts and religion flourished there also. Three of the greatest Roman Catholic scholars and theologians of medieval Scholasticism—Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus—all taught in Cologne’s schools. After the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), however, the city declined. As late as 1794, when the French occupied Cologne, public Protestant services were still banned, and the city has remained predominantly Roman Catholic. The Jewish community, which had existed from the time of Constantine the Great, was expelled in 1424, and until 1794 Jews were forbidden to remain overnight in the city.

Cologne since the 19th century

Cologne’s history as a free imperial city ended when it was taken by France in 1794, and, when the archbishop elector died in 1801, the see was left vacant and not restored until 1821. In 1815 Cologne passed to Prussia, and from that time a new era of prosperity began. A wide range of industries flourished, and a chamber of commerce was established, the oldest in Germany. When the railways were built, Cologne’s geographic position made the city an ideal railway centre. The population grew from 41,685 in 1801 to 372,529 in 1900. Liberal points of view were represented in the 19th century by the Rheinische Zeitung, edited (1842–43) by Karl Marx and Moses Hess, while the socialist Neue Rheinische Zeitung was edited (1848–49) by Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Ferdinand Freiligrath.

The city’s growth was interrupted by World War I. Under Konrad Adenauer—the future chancellor of West Germany who was oberbürgermeister of Cologne from 1917 until he was deposed by the Nazis in 1933—growth resumed, especially in suburban areas and in the laying out of new industrial parks. By 1939 the population had reached 768,352. In World War II, Cologne sustained 262 air raids. There were 20,000 casualties, and the city was left in ruins, with nearly all the dwellings in the old town damaged and 91 out of 150 churches destroyed. In March 1945, the war’s end for Cologne, the population had sunk to 40,000. By December, however, there were some 450,000 people in the city, and the population continued to rise rapidly while the work of clearance and reconstruction was undertaken. Since the war the process of growth has continued with the development of new industrial areas and satellite towns and the improvement of transportation, and Cologne has regained its place as the economic and cultural centre of northwestern Germany. By the late 20th and early 21st century, the economy shifted away from traditional industry and toward high technology, such as telecommunications.