Cologne Fortress Museum

The Cologne Fortress Museum is a voluntary, partly still under construction museum that aims to document and present the entire Prussian fortifications in Cologne . The museum has existed since 2004 in Zwischenwerk VIII b in the former outer fortress ring in Cologne in the Marienburg district of Cologne .

Entrance portal of the Kehlkaserne

location

Typical floor plan of a Biehler intermediate plant - largely corresponds to the intermediate plant VIII b

The museum is located on the Militärringstrasse , not far from the Heinrich-Lübke-Ufer in the Marienburg district of Cologne. The fortress museum is part of the Rodenkirchen cultural path and is integrated into the Cologne circular hiking trail, the Cologne path , which both connect many natural and cultural attractions.

guides

The 1.5-hour guided tours, which take place regularly two days a month, first show the outdoor area with parks and moats, the sculpture park and the former rose garden. A demonstration of the last bascule bridge preserved in Germany will then take place. The tour continues inside the plant, where the individual rooms from the guard to the powder chamber are explained.

history

The intermediate plant VIII b, located on the banks of the Marienburg Rhine, forms the southern end of the outer fortification belt on the left bank of the Rhine, which extended along the military ring road and was intended to protect the city of Cologne from enemy attacks between 1873 and 1918. The facility was armed with a long 15 cm ring cannon and three 9 cm cannons C / 73, around 150 soldiers were stationed in the intermediate plant during the war .

The intermediate plant was built in 1876 as a Biehler schema fort to defend the Rhine; after the explosive grenade crisis , the throat barracks were reinforced with sand cushions and rammed concrete overlay in 1887–1891 . After the First World War , the plant was partially demolished in accordance with the 1926 Treaty of Versailles as the last fort in Cologne . However, elements like the surrounding ditch with almost completely preserved (except for one breach ) countercarp , the throat caponier and the bascule bridge have been preserved in contrast to other Cologne fortresses, so that this work occupies a special position.

Zwischenwerk VIII b, information board
portal
Surrounding moat
View from the caponier
Crew room with attached caponier
Detail of the fastening bolt of the former obstacle grid on the countercarp

Sculpture Park (sculpture at the fort)

On the “roof” and in the moat of the intermediate plant, a sculpture park was created in 1985 by the art space Fuhrwerkswaage . For the original eight sculptures, the main materials used were steel, concrete and earth. Today seven of the sculptures by the following artists are still on display in the outdoor area:

Ansgar Nierhoff , Alfred Karner, Edgar Gutbub , Heinz-Günter Prager , Werner Rückemann, Lutz Fritsch and Jochen Heufelder.

Branch offices

The sponsor of the museum, the Institute for Fortress Architecture, has operated three branch offices since 2006, 2007 and 2009:

Fort VI "Deckstein" in Cologne-Lindenthal (tours only on request)
Winkelturm in Cologne-Niehl (guided tours on request on the third Saturday of the month at 2 p.m.)
Tubular bunker Higher Regional Court Cologne (guided tours every first Sunday of the month 2–4 p.m.)