Historical archive of the city of Cologne

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Historical archive of the city of Cologne

Archive building Eifelwall, 2021
Archive building Eifelwall, 2021
Archive type Municipal Archives
location Cologne
Visitor address Eifelwall 5
founding 1857
scope 30 kilometers
ISIL DE-Kn193
carrier city ​​Cologne
Organizational form Office of Department VII of the Cologne City Administration
Website www.stadt-koeln.de/leben-in-koeln/kultur/historisches-archiv

The Historical Archive of the City of Cologne is the city ​​archive of Cologne . It archives archive material from the committees and offices of the Cologne city administration as well as archive material from numerous other bodies such as companies, associations and individuals with a connection to Cologne. Due to the dense tradition since the High Middle Ages with numerous documents, files, manuscripts and bequests, the holdings are considered to be particularly valuable from a historical point of view. With an archive material of around 30 kilometers , it is the largest German municipal archive .

The Cologne City Archives survived the Second World War unscathed. On March 3, 2009, the building complex collapsed in connection with the construction of the north-south light rail of the Cologne transport company, including two neighboring residential buildings. Two people were killed and around 90 percent of the archive material was spilled, a large part of it in the groundwater. Since then, the main task has been salvage, restoration and reorganization. The new archive building about three kilometers to the west, on the Eifelwall, was completed at the end of 2020 and opened on September 3, 2021.

Urban establishment

organization

Organizationally, the archive is divided into archive management and the three specialist departments “Old Reich and French Period”, “Administrative records after 1815” and “Collections and legacies”. In addition, there is the “press and public relations” department, which is also responsible for microfilming, educational work and event management.

The specialist departments are supplemented by interdisciplinary project groups as required. For the major project “Reconstruction of the Historical Archive”, a total of seven project groups were formed to develop concepts, for example for the consolidation of existing structures or the planned new building, and coordinate their implementation.

In addition to management, specialist departments and project management, a provisional archive was set up under its own management.

Legal basis

The legal basis for the work of the North Rhine-Westphalian municipal archives and thus also the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne is the Archives Act of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia of 1989, which, according to Section 10, also applies correspondingly to the municipal archives. For the city of Cologne, archive operation is regulated by the archive statute (last change in 2007). The Federal Archives Act does not apply.

management

Archive manager Life dates Term of office
Johann-Jakob-Peter-Fuchs-Grabmal-Abschnit-Melaten-Köln.jpg Johann Jakob Peter Fuchs 1782-1857 1815-1857
Leonhard Ennen 2.jpg Leonard Ennen 1820-1880 1857-1880
Konstantin Höhlbaum.jpg Konstantin Höhlbaum 1849-1904 1880-1890
Joseph Hansen 1863-1943 1891-1927
Erich Kuphal 1895-1965 1932-1945
Hermann Kownatzki 1899-1991 1945-1946
Erich Kuphal 1895-1965 1946-1960
Arnold Güttsches 1904-1975 1960-1969
Hugo Stehkämper 1929-2010 1969-1994
Everhard Kleinertz * 1939 1994-2004
Bettina Schmidt-Czaia, Historical Archive of the City of Cologne 2012 - 02.jpg Bettina Schmidt-Czaia * 1960 since 2005

History of the institution

Evangelist picture (around 1140) from a manuscript in the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne, current whereabouts unclear

In the town hall tower and in the Spanish vault (15th - 19th centuries)

Cologne town hall tower, autumn 2007

The type of storage of valuable goods or important documents of the merchants practiced in Cologne in vaulted storage rooms, mostly built in backyards, was not only used by the merchants, but also by the city administration. Archives were documents in the form of privileges , contracts, trial files, maps, plans, seals , estates of important city personalities, etc. The growing city, which also traded internationally beyond the German borders, needed a suitable safe place for its "files".

The Council Concordatum decided in 1406 quo supra feria quinta post assumptionis beate Marie (= on the Thursday after the Assumption of Mary, i.e. on August 19th) to build the town hall tower, a building that serves many purposes and tasks. The town hall tower, which was built from 1407 to 1414 and called “raizthorn” around 1440, was also intended by its builders to accommodate and safely store city documents, privileges and letters of money. The responsible builder was the " rent master " Roland von Odendorp (temporarily also mayor of the city of Cologne). The late Gothic building is similar to the Dutch Belfries , has two square upper floors with two additional octagonal floors and reaches a height of 61 meters. Because of this height, the top floor, the "Kure", was the fire guard's guard room. In the tower, the new urban symbol of bourgeois power, there were also:

A "Kelre zo der Stede Weynen" (wine cellar), a council chamber, a chamber "zo der Stede Reyschap" (for war equipment of the brushwood ) and a "Gevolwe zo der Stede Privilegien". The "memorial book of the years" (16th century, now called "Buch Weinsberg") from the estate of Hermann von Weinsberg , who had advanced to become rector of the Cologne Cronenburse at the age of 22 and later councilor , was only given in 1858 by the first director, Leonard Ennen , discovered in the archive.

The oldest document find book , provided with the crown of the city ​​coat of arms , dates from the year 1408/09. The documents of the medieval city were housed in a vaulted room (Gewulffe) of the town hall tower in "shops" (chests or cupboards), which were marked with the letters A to X ("painted"). The Verbundbrief had a “place of honor” as the city's constitutional document, which was stored in a “drawer” with a crown. So it says in a certificate:

This is a register of all Alsulger privileges in letters, as the Stat van Coelne in yrme Gewulffe has decided to store in Alsulgen, as is mirrored with the boichstave; darup dit register clever usswysungen deyt. The verbuntbrieff is in the first in the shop, painted with the crown . "

Leonard Ennen

In 1815 city secretary Johann Jakob Peter Fuchs was commissioned to take an inventory of the Wallraf collection, which had been added to the holdings. Fuchs was in charge of Cologne's city archive from 1815 until his death in 1857 and made sure that it was made accessible to scientific research.

As the first full-time archivist in the service of the city, Leonard Ennen headed the archive after Fuchs. During his term of office, documents from Hermann von Weinsberg's estate , whose importance he recognized, could find their way into the archive. He headed the archive until his death in 1880. The historian Konstantin Höhlbaum , who headed the archive until 1890, was appointed his successor because of his knowledge of the Hanse .

During the tenure of director Joseph Hansen (1891–1927) the move to the new archive building at Gereonskloster took place.

At the Gereonskloster (1897–1971)

Cologne, city archive around 1897, later a private library and from 2014 part of a hotel
Ground floor plan of the “municipal library and archive building” at Gereonskloster
Reading room on the ground floor, as it was in 1902

The city built a representative neo-Gothic building at Gereonskloster 12 according to plans by the city building councilor Friedrich Carl Heimann (1850–1921). Heimann was a student of the architect Julius Carl Raschdorff and became Cologne's first city conservator in 1913 . In addition to Heimann, government architect Brugger and architect Mohr were involved in the construction. The foundation stone was laid on May 16, 1894, and in December 1897 the archive and the city library moved into the new building.

The three-storey building presents itself on the entrance side with a large central gable and on the first floor with large, tracery adorned window fronts, while the other windows are kept rather simple. Sculptures by the chronicler Gottfried Hagen  and the first Cologne book printer Ulrich Zell flank the main portal under ornate canopies. The front corners of the building close at the top with slim "flat towers". The slate roof originally had gilded decorative grilles on the ridge , these are no longer there today, as are two gate entrances flanking the building on the right and left. A rear part of the building was kept architecturally much simpler as a brick-built functional building.

The interior of the library and archive building had both functional and representative elements. In the reading room and stairwell there were star vaults, pillars, gold-decorated wooden ceilings and lavish carvings on doors and consoles. The most splendid room was probably the library reading room on the ground floor, the archive reading room on the upper floor is described as "elegant and in the manner of a monastery refectory ". The “huge” storage rooms were protected by a system of fire-proof ceilings and fire-proof stairs, and they were heated by a low-pressure steam heater .

The new house had sufficient space to cope with the important increases in files that fell during this time due to the incorporation of previously independent cities and municipalities into the city.

The archive building suffered bomb damage until 1945, but no loss of inventory thanks to the timely relocation of archives. The archive manager Erich Kuphal , together with his colleague Arnold Güttsches, had already started in 1939 to gradually move the holdings to remote locations in the Bergisch, Wildenburgerland and Siegerland regions. The last holdings were brought by ship to Ehrenbreitstein Fortress after the thousand-bomber attack on Cologne in 1942 .

The New York Times reported on December 8, 1946 about the retrieval of archival goods with British vans from the French occupation zone

After an interim period from October 1945 to the end of November 1946, during which Hermann Kownatzki temporarily headed the reconstruction of the orphaned archive, the British military government reinstated Erich Kuphal , who had previously been suspended, as a senior employee of the city archive. Here he endeavored to repatriate the archive holdings, which was completed by 1947. Erich Kuphal worked for the city archive until 1960. In July of the same year, when he turned 65, he retired. He did not live to see the move to the new archive building on Severinstrasse in Cologne in 1971. Erich Kuphal died in 1965.

After the long term of office of Erich Kuphal, Arnold Güttsches was appointed as his successor as head of the city archive on November 18, 1960. This was followed by Hugo Stehkämper (1969 to 1994) after Güttsche's retirement in 1969 . During Stehämperer's tenure, the new archive building achieved by his predecessor and the move of the institution to Severinstrasse fell. The building at Gereonskloster 12 belonged to the Gerling insurance complex and served there as a private library; in 2014 it was converted into a hotel.

On Severinstrasse (1971–2009)

Architecture and air conditioning

City archive in Severinstrasse, 2008
Building facade of the city archive

Under the direction of the planning architect Fritz Haferkamp , a seven-storey archive building was built at Severinstrasse 222–228 and opened in 1971. One of the main goals was to protect the archive material from the most varied of weather and climatic influences and to create a room that was as balanced as possible.

Against the contemporary trend of artificially air-conditioning archives (for example at the main state archive in Düsseldorf , the state archive in Berlin and the main state archive in Munich ), a decision was made in favor of a building -related air-conditioning solution that is as self-regulating as possible and requires little additional air-conditioning technology. This so-called Cologne model for air conditioning became the model for almost all subsequent archive buildings.

In order to achieve maximum protection against external weather conditions, a reinforced concrete skeleton was walled up for the magazine with a 49 centimeter thick brick wall made of fired solid bricks. There was also a light facade made of Czech granite at a distance of seven centimeters. Inside, the magazine walls were plastered with lime mortar, with which the humidity from the magazine was bound, diffused through the brick walls to the outside and discharged through the space between the wall and the facade. Only the basement rooms, which lay under a 30-centimeter-thick ceiling, were artificially air-conditioned.

130 centimeter high and 25 centimeter wide light slits on the outer wall only let through indirect light, so that sunlight could not cause temperature fluctuations - there were only larger windows on the ground floor. In addition, the slots were used for direct ventilation: Opposite openings provided a draft that ran exactly parallel to the rows of shelves.

Usage concept and technical equipment

The dominant, 21.4 meter high magazine part of the building extended over a width of 48.8 meters to Severinstrasse and 16 meters into the property. On the ground floor there was an exhibition room and the entrance hall facing the street. Behind the warehouse there were single-storey extensions, which were grouped around four inner courtyards. The reading room, around 20 offices, the restoration workshop and other operating rooms were located in these rear rooms.

The basement, which is connected to both parts of the building, housed the magazine in the front part, the document archive, the service library and, under an atrium, a protective bunker for documents and files encased in 60 centimeters of reinforced concrete. In addition to a CO 2 extinguishing system and heat detectors in some rooms, there was an alarm system to protect against burglary.

The magazine above the ground floor could hold 4221 meters of shelving on each floor on 647 square meters of usable space. The ceiling height of each storey was 2.30 meters, the shelves were 2.25 meters high and designed for a load capacity of 70 kilograms per floor.

After the archive was moved from the old Gereons monastery to the new building (April 26 to June 20, 1971), almost 44 percent of the total volume was occupied.

Detail from a storage room in the Severinstrasse building, September 2008

The storage area was only designed for an estimated useful life of 30 years. The capacity was already reached in 1996. (Source?) In the last few years before the collapse, rather insignificant documents were outsourced, also to increase the pressure for an urgently needed new archive building. Since 2007, there have been initial plans for a new building for the city archive.

Everhard Kleinertz , who had been working in the city archives since 1973 and who managed it from 1994 to 2004 as the successor to Hugo Stehkämper, experienced an era of staff savings and material resource cuts. During his tenure, the archive's workforce was more than halved; In 2004 there was only one internet connection in the entire house.

The historian Bettina Schmidt-Czaia , who has been in charge of the city archive since 2005, was able to consolidate the workforce somewhat and modernize the technical equipment as far as possible. At the same time, the criticism of Schmidt-Czaia's controversial leadership style continues; Critics make this a. responsible for "a high level of wear and tear on personnel and resources".

Construction work and previous damage

Construction site preparation for the north-south light rail in February 2005 (the archive building on the right); from a long-term documentation by the photographer Eusebius Wirdeier
March 3, 2009: The Cologne City Archives immediately after the collapse
March 3, 2009: The collapsed building with the neighboring house

A tunnel for the north-south light rail under construction runs in front of the archive building . Already in 2007 and 2008 there were incidents with a burst water pipe and a leak in the archive's carbon dioxide extinguishing system while the tunnel was being bored. In addition, there were minor cracks that were not classified as relevant by the Cologne transport company . In February 2009, a drop of seven millimeters was found within 24 hours; Overall, the building had set between 17 and 20 millimeters during construction. The subsidence found in 2008 and also reported by the archive did not lead to further investigations, although an expert had recommended looking for the causes of the cracks outside the building.

Collapse of the building in March 2009

At the time of the collapse of the archive, there was a 25-meter-deep, upwardly open excavation immediately in front of the building, in which the “ Waidmarkt track exchange system” for Cologne's north-south light rail system was to be built. It was sealed against the groundwater by diaphragm walls . After-flowing water was pumped out permanently through wells.

On March 3, 2009, shortly before 2 p.m., construction workers noticed a water ingress in the lower area of ​​the construction site; they fled the excavation pit and warned residents of the neighboring houses, the employees and users of the archive as well as road users of the danger. The rear flat archive extension, in which most of the employees stayed, could be cleared; Reading room users left the building towards Severinstraße at the last moment before the building collapsed towards the street. However, the warnings did not reach all residents of the adjacent buildings. Two young men who were believed to be asleep at the time of the accident were found dead after five and nine days respectively. 36 residents of neighboring houses ( Severinstrasse and Georgsplatz), who were damaged in the collapse and had to be demolished, lost their apartments.

Most experts believe that the cause of the collapse was a leak in the diaphragm wall at a depth of 30 meters, through which water continuously flowed into the excavation pit, which in turn was constantly pumped out. Sand and smaller particles are said to have been washed away, so that a cavity was formed below the archive building. Together with the immediate ingress of water through the hole, this would be the immediate cause of the disaster.

In the course of the investigation into the collapse, considerable irregularities emerged in the entire construction of the north-south runway; i.a. Inadequate control of the groundwater pumping came to light (far more groundwater was pumped out than permitted), the construction of 19 illegal wells in the excavation pit for groundwater control, falsified measurement reports, extensive theft of reinforcing iron for the diaphragm walls and apparently inadequate building supervision by the client KVB .

Up to the beginning of 2011, a total of four investigative proceedings were opened that deal with negligent homicide , fraud, building risk and forgery of documents, theft of building materials and falsification of measurement logs. At the beginning of April 2012, police divers carried out underwater investigations in the salvage structure on behalf of the public prosecutor's office.

Salvage of the archival goods / salvage structure

March 15, 2009: Recovery of shrine book 505 from the rubble field of the former Cologne city archive
April 9, 2009: First aid center of the Cologne City Archives

The main holdings, including the codices of the Wallraf Collection, i.e. the medieval manuscript department, were stored in the collapsed building . Around 90 percent of the archive material was spilled. In the following months, a large part of the spilled inventory was salvaged jointly by the fire brigade, technical relief organization, archive employees and volunteers. Dry or only moist material was brought to a first aid center (EVZ) and collected there, roughly cleaned; A large amount of wet or moldy archive material was wrapped in foil and freeze-dried in cold stores to prevent further moisture damage. The packaged archive material was temporarily distributed from the EVZ to up to 20 “ asylum archives ” throughout Germany, which had temporarily offered storage space. All in all, a “hard to put into words” solidarity in the form of concrete help and support from numerous individuals as well as specialist and aid organizations from home and abroad was recorded.

By the time the salvage work was temporarily suspended on July 21, 2009, around 90% of the archive holdings, which comprised around 30 kilometers of shelves, had been salvaged. In September, a particularly low water level enabled further material to be salvaged from a depth of 13 meters. After the construction of a salvage structure in November 2010, further archive material could be lifted until the salvage work was officially declared over on August 9, 2011. About 95% of the archive material was recovered. This rate had been described as the most optimistic case so far.

The salvage structure was backfilled from mid-May 2012 in order to subsequently excavate the inspection structure for further preservation of evidence.

Sightseeing structure

In October 2012, the construction site was formally handed over to the Cologne public transport company so that they could erect the inspection structure commissioned by the court. The structure with dimensions of 5.10 meters by 12.30 meters and a total depth of up to 38.7 meters below street level will enable the appraisers commissioned by the public prosecutor to examine the eastern diaphragm wall of the track change structure. The cost of the viewing structure is estimated at 17 million euros; it should be finished in summer 2014. Upon completion, the expert examinations at the suspected damage site can begin.

According to the city of Cologne, the preservation of evidence should originally be completed by January 2018. The total costs of the construction and evidence preservation proceedings are estimated at 124.9 million euros. In December 2017 it became known that the end of the preservation of evidence will be postponed until 2019, as the expert Hans-Georg Kempfert commissioned by the Cologne Regional Court has requested deeper excavations; in March 2020, summer 2020 was assumed. Due to the comparison made in June 2020, the preservation of evidence became obsolete.

Spherical panorama with neighboring Roman excavations, April 2018
Show as spherical panorama

Post-collapse developments

Legal processing

Civil law claims for damages, independent evidence proceedings

After the end of the salvage work, the taking of evidence began to bring those responsible for the collapse to account. The city council of Cologne decided unanimously on December 18, 2012 to extend the two evidence proceedings that had already been initiated against the consortium commissioned by the KVB to include numerous other possible causes of damage. According to the city council, the shareholders of the consortium (ARGE) would have to be personally responsible for mistakes. Those involved in planning, monitoring and implementation were also targeted again with the decision. According to an initial report in 2012, the judicially relevant amount of damage was around 400 million euros. In order to secure claims under civil law, the City of Cologne applied for independent evidence proceedings at the Cologne Regional Court . The expert opinion obtained as a result has been available since May 2018. According to this report, a hole in a botched construction site wall should be the cause of the collapse of the city archive and two neighboring houses. According to information from February 2019, the total damage should amount to around 1.33 billion euros. The highest share of the costs is associated with the securing and restoration of the archive materials of the city of Cologne damaged by the collapse, which is estimated at more than 700 million euros. Around 24 million euros were incurred for the salvage pit at the time and around 70 million euros so far for the inspection pit.

Several lenders have also asserted claims against the city of Cologne for the damage or loss of stored archive material. The OLG Cologne has suspended these proceedings until the results of the reports and criminal proceedings are available.

Criminal charges

In January 2014, the Cologne public prosecutor, which until then only against persons unknown launched determined had trial of about 90 people, which were involved in the construction of the underground mine Waidmarkt to the impending statute of limitations on the fifth anniversary of the collapse, the third March 2014, to interrupt. For example, employees of the KVB, employees of the construction groups Bilfinger Berger , Züblin and Wayss & Freitag as well as the employees of some subcontractors, against whom there was a concrete initial suspicion, were affected. At the end of the investigation, there were charges against seven people accused of negligent homicide and building risk. After a defendant had died in the meantime and the proceedings against the main defendant had been suspended due to a serious illness, the trial against the five other defendants began on January 17, 2018 in the 10th criminal chamber of the Cologne Regional Court . In the meantime, the trial against another defendant has been severed due to his inability to stand trial. Surprisingly, the presiding judge ended the taking of evidence on September 22, 2018 after 44 days of hearing, so that the judgment was announced on October 12, 2018. Three of the four defendants were acquitted. One defendant was sentenced to eight months probation for negligent homicide. The public prosecutor's office appealed against it.

Because of testimony in this process was a polishing nachangeklagt. Since the summer of 2018, the criminal process against this has been running separately before another criminal chamber of the Cologne Regional Court. On February 7, 2019, the court sentenced the senior construction manager to one year probation for negligent homicide.

Thus, first instance criminal judgments were issued in both proceedings by March 3, 2019, so that the criminal charges do not expire (§§ 78 Paragraph 1 No. 4, 78a, 78c Paragraph 3 StGB).

Mediation process and settlement

The collapse site will be sealed (May 2021)
View as a spherical panorama

In June 2020, after around six months of out-of-court negotiations between the construction companies and the city of Cologne, a settlement was negotiated and submitted to the city council for a decision. Moderated by the business mediator Renate Dendorfer-Ditges and the former judge at the Federal Court of Justice, Stefan Leupertz , the parties negotiated a payment of 600 million euros from the companies involved to the city. In addition, they undertake to renovate the site of the accident and to complete the construction of the track changing structure for the north-south light rail. The negotiated sum of 600 million euros is calculated from 80% of the two items "real costs incurred" (150 million euros) and "50% of the remaining amount required" (463.5 million euros) plus flat-rate interest. This reflects the two quotas “sharing of liability according to the merits” (80:20 in favor of the city) and “amount of damage” (50:50), the latter taking into account the risk on the part of the city that the value of the archive material in a process could also have been rated lower. At a special meeting on June 29, 2020, the City Council of Cologne approved the proposal with a large majority.

Infrastructure

In June 2009, a temporary reading room was temporarily set up in the Deutz town hall, in which documents on microfilms could be used. From April 2010, rooms in the Chamber of Crafts on Heumarkt were moved into, which housed a digital reading room and an exhibition room. Before moving to the new building, another move was due because the lease expired. Since the end of 2019, the archive has been housed in a building on Brabanter Strasse in the Belgian Quarter as another temporary facility.

Restoration and digitization center

Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen (General Secretary of the Kulturstiftung der Länder), Bettina Schmidt-Czaia (Head of the Historical Archive) and Georg Quander ( Head of Culture of the City of Cologne) will present the freeze-drying system on September 14, 2011. Bettina Schmidt-Czaia is holding a freeze-dried file from the “863 rubble office” in her hands.

In 2011, a restoration and digitization center (RDZ) was set up in a former furniture warehouse in Cologne-Porz-Lind . In September 2011, a freeze-drying system purchased by the City of Cologne worth 100,000 euros was put into operation there. The cultural foundation of the federal states supported the acquisition with 50,000 euros.

The archive material, which is shock-frozen after being salvaged, is freeze-dried, cleaned and restored in the center.

Since January 2, 2012, a reading room has also been available to the public in the RDZ. In addition to the digital copies, originals are also available: parts of the library and photo collection, new acquisitions since the collapse and the first restored medieval documents and manuscripts can be used.

Asylum Archives

At times in up to 20 asylum archives, the rescued, but soiled and damaged archival material is examined by archivists from the historical archive. For this purpose, each individual item is provided with a barcode and documented in a recording software specially programmed for this purpose: recognizable signatures, inventory affiliation, degree of soiling / damage, etc. If the object cannot (no longer) be assigned to an inventory, a digital photo is made.

In September 2014, space in eight asylum archives will still be occupied. From 2015, a reduction to an asylum archive, the former building of the main state archive in Düsseldorf on Mauerstraße in Düsseldorf - Golzheim , was planned and implemented.

Development

Microfilms

In the Barbarastollen , in which the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Aid stores the security-filmed German cultural assets, there are over 6000 films with around ten million recordings, mainly from the old department . Almost all archival material before 1815, including the documents, is documented with it. From 1815 only a few holdings of central institutions and school files are documented. There are also almost 30 older bequests. In 2007 the last film from Cologne was put into storage. The last batch that has not yet reached the Barbarastollen consists of 10 films with 20,500 recordings of files from the mayor's office. A complete, undamaged set of the microfilms is in Cologne as a working copy.

In order to protect the microfilm holdings from wear and tear due to the increased demand for the collapse of the archive, they were completely digitized with funds from the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the DFG and provided with metadata, which should enable the establishment of a “digital reading room”.

digitalization

Individual holdings were digitized as part of projects. For example, there is a collection of 284 document reproductions from the city archive in the photo archive of older original documents at the University of Marburg , which are digitized as part of a DFG project.

restoration

Fragment scanner from the Berlin company Musterfabrik in use, July 2017

A calculation has shown that 200 restorers would have to work continuously for around 30 years to repair the damage; the costs are estimated at 370 million euros. The City Memory Foundation, founded in July 2010, was supposed to help raise part of the financial resources, but was unable to keep this promise; After the operating costs provided had been used up, the foundation was converted into a so-called consumption foundation at the turn of the year 2017/2018, the assets of which will flow directly into the restoration until 2042. Individuals and companies are also called upon to take on “restoration sponsorships” for individual objects. The focus of the restoration work should not be on exact restoration, but on stabilization and usability, so that the holdings are available to the public again as soon as possible. The several million larger and smaller fragments of destroyed archive material, the latter also known as Cologne flakes , are made accessible with the help of scanners and recognition software.

As of January 1, 2019, a total of 9051 pieces (including 1048 manuscripts) could be completely restored. 58% of the recovered units could be assigned to a stock again. The archive assumes a total of around 1.6 million so-called rescue units. Of these, around 15% (239,251 recovered units ) went through the first preservation stage ( including dry cleaning). 55% of this can be used again directly in the original and a further 44 percent can be made available as digital copies in the medium term.

Special exhibitions

On the first anniversary of the collapse, a cross-section of the holdings with different restoration and conservation statuses was presented in Berlin.

The Cologne exhibition in Berlin showed around 100 exhibits from March 6 to April 11, 2010 in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. To see the desire of many Cologne nachkommend, the exhibition in her home town of the Historical Archive, organized in cooperation with the City Museum and the Museum Service, the exhibition titled Cologne 13:00 58. Salvaged Treasures from the Historical Archives of 3 October to November 21, 2010 in the “Neue Wache” of the city museum.

At the opening in Cologne, Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen , General Secretary of the Kulturstiftung der Länder, criticized the delays in the process that she saw. The city of Cologne has not yet called up the funds for a freeze dryer that have been available from the Kulturstiftung for over a year. The city of Cologne then explained in a press release that a suitable property for the restoration and digitization center first had to be found before the tender for the restoration complex - which also includes the facility - could be issued.

During the entire duration of the exhibition there were regular events, guided tours and lectures by employees and scientists around the archive, and the City Memory Foundation also presented itself in the exhibition rooms.

In the interim quarter in Cologne's old town (Heumarkt 14), special exhibitions and lectures were held regularly until the end of 2019:

  • 2016/17: Dom sweet home. The surroundings of Cologne Cathedral from 1817 until today
  • 2017: Hilliges Cologne 2.0 - On the way to religious tolerance? (Exhibition on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation)
  • 2017/18: Man Wallraf ! Cologne and its ore citizens
  • 2018: influential. Cologne and its ports
  • 2018/19: Oskar, the friendly policeman
  • 2019: ParallelUNIversum ?! Cologne and its university since 1919

The opening of the first exhibition in the second interim quarter in the Belgian Quarter under the title Show me! Imagines Coloniae could take place shortly before the Corona restrictions at the beginning of March 2020.

  • 2020: show me! Imagines Coloniae

New building

Red: Planning area for the new building of the historical archive.
Green: Extension of the inner green belt on the Eifelwall
June 21, 2011: Competition winner Felix Waechter explains his design.
Felix Waechter's new building shortly before completion in January 2021, as seen from Luxemburger Strasse.

In 2009 the decision was made in favor of a new archive building in the Neustadt-Süd district on the corner of Luxemburger Strasse and Eifelwall, which would also house the art and museum library and the Rheinische Bildarchiv . From a Europe-wide competition with 40 submitted designs, the designs for - according to the city - "most modern and safest municipal archive in Europe" were presented in June 2011. The winning designs come from the Darmstadt architects Waechter + Waechter , which is planning a seven-storey warehouse building in the center, surrounded by workshops and administrative rooms of the library, the four floors of which are to be oriented towards the eaves heights of the building opposite. Of the roughly 30,400 square meters of gross floor area, 20,000 square meters should be used by the historical archive and around 10,400 square meters by the art and museum library.

In a decision in July 2013, the City Council of Cologne decided that the art and museum library would not find a place in the new building.

Laying of the foundation stone on March 17, 2017: Lord Mayor Henriette Reker ,
Head of Cultural Affairs Susanne Laugwitz-Aulbach , Archive Manager Bettina Schmidt-Czaia and Image Archive Manager Johanna Gummlich
Start of the new building, 2017
New building, aerial photo November 2017

Construction of the now reduced archive building started in mid-2016, the laying of the foundation stone took place on March 17, 2017 .; The topping-out ceremony was celebrated on March 2, 2018. The building was completed in December 2020, the rooms were occupied in 2021 and the opening on September 3, 2021. Around 50 kilometers of shelves and 460 plan cabinets are available for the historical archive on an area of ​​22,584 square meters. The Rheinische Bildarchiv has a further 2.2 shelf kilometers of storage space. 45 places in the reading room are available for working with archive material. The total costs for the new building amount to approx. 75.9 million euros.

reception

Elfriede Jelinek used the topic of the collapse of the archive as the basis for her piece “Das Werk / Im Bus / Ein Sturz”, staged by the Cologne Theater and others. 2011 presented at the Berlin Theatertreffen .

The Cologne group can also do otherwise takes a critical look at the collapse issue, organizes protests, makes inquiries and organizes a commemorative ceremony on the anniversary of the collapse.

Stocks

The archive serves as a research center for the science of history, but basically also provides a wealth of information for every citizen. The specialty of the Cologne City Archives is the size of its holdings, especially the size of the old holdings from the period before 1814.

The archive had

  • 65,000 documents from the year 922,
  • 26 shelf kilometers of files,
  • 104,000 maps and plans and 50,000 posters, as well
  • 818 estates and collections.

Inventory history

Shrine Creatures and Shrine Books

A mediaeval form of archiving was the shrine system with which the citizens of Cologne put down and documented their legal transactions in writing. In the High Middle Ages, the parish administrations referred to chests in which documents were kept as shrines . In such chests, here in particular in those of the parish of St. Laurentius near the Cologne town hall , documents were kept until the early modern era. They concerned real estate transactions and were kept in the form of parchment sheets or books, so that the term shrine books became common.

In addition to the shrine books documented in Cologne since 1130, records of this type from the end of the 12th century are also known from Metz and Andernach .

As early as the 14th century, a city archive in Cologne took over, kept and opened up documents. A cista civitatis Coloniensis is mentioned for the first time in a statement of the council from the year 1322 about a mortgage note from Mr. von Falkenburg , which was kept in the house of the Cologne patrician Werner Overstolz in the Rheingasse. The oldest document in the holdings is a certificate from the year 922.

These documents from the old Cologne shrine districts came into the city's archives at the end of the 19th century.

Protocol archive of the Hanseatic League (1594)

The file archive, including the copies of the Hanseatic Trials of the Hanseatic Office in Bruges , was moved from Antwerp to Cologne as the closest Hanseatic city in 1594 and has since been in the archive of the City of Cologne. This makes the Cologne archive the most important archive for the Hanseatic League and the Low German-speaking area, alongside the archive of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck .

Establishment of a council library (1602)

On February 27, 1602, the City Council of Cologne issued the following resolution recorded in the record book "on behalf of a library":

Uff the guidestags rentcammer is to be proclaimed, eyn anzall geldts all Franckfurther miss zo geltung quite a few boicher in jure zo laissen those who are concerned with van den hern syndici, stuck zo behoiff eyner neuwen library inzogelden. Shape the same insistently to the behoiff of the rhaidt at the archivo on the rhaidthuiss may remain "

These were works from the fields of law and political science that were acquired at the Frankfurt Fair (mentioned for the first time in 1160). This documented process shows the interest of the early "city fathers" in a modern, legally secure administration. The old administrative archive with its library was under the supervision of the "Gewulvemeister" from 1414 until the end of the old imperial city in the French era and later under that of a committee of municipal legal scholars, the Syndici. In the drafts of the city building councilor Julius Raschdorff (around 1858) for the construction work on the town hall complex, the medieval archival vault is shown in the architectural drawing of the council tower. Since this space was probably no longer sufficient, a "vault" was probably also provided as an archive room in the Spanish building . The city archive and the city library were housed there from 1862 to 1885. It was one of the few Cologne libraries that hardly suffered any losses during the French period.

Collection Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (1824)

Ferdinand Franz Wallraf, collector and patron, 1792

During his lifetime, the Cologne collector and scholar Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (1748–1824) brought together a large collection of books, manuscripts, works of art and other exhibits that he bequeathed to the city of Cologne in his will. The collection formed the basis of today's Wallraf-Richartz Museum , other Cologne museums and the university and city libraries.

The extensive collection of manuscripts created by Wallraf is particularly important for the city's archives . After Wallraf's death in March 1824, his friend and confidante Johann Jakob Peter Fuchs acted as one of the executors. For two years he worked with a municipal commission to organize and inventory the Wallraf estate. This collection, which was then made accessible for the first time by Fuchs, became the core of the important manuscript department of the city archive. This collection included an autograph by Albertus Magnus from 1258/60 and a gospel book from St. Pantaleon from the 10th century.

Unlike in other cities or institutions, the manuscripts remained with the archive when the holdings of the city archive and the city library were separated in the 1880s. All handwritten material was given to the archive and all printed matter to the library. The Cologne University and City Library was structurally connected to the archive until 1934 .

Flag collection (1900)

With the main holdings of the Anton Fahne genealogical collection , rescued archive holdings on the history of the Duchy of Berg and Colonensia, including shrine books, were transferred to the city archive in 1900.

Incorporation (1927-2004)

The archive of the city of Porz was transferred to the Porz branch as the archive of the Cologne-Porz district in 1975 . This has been closed since December 2003. The holdings are closed and have been transferred to the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne in unchanged order.

Monastery and Abbey Archives (1949)

Example of furnishing an office room around 1890. Exhibition "150 Years of the Archive of the City of Cologne"

After the secularization , the archives of the numerous monasteries and monasteries in Cologne were also transferred to the state archives according to French specifications, so those relating to the Rhineland were transferred to the Düsseldorf state archive . Efforts to obtain a return only come after the Second World War. It was not until 1949 that Cologne's Lord Mayor Hermann Pünder managed to get around 19,000 documents as well as numerous files and official books to return to Cologne.

Civil status register (2008)

Until 2009, the civil status registers were regarded as records of the registry office regardless of the time when they were created . According to the Civil Status Reform Act in the version of March 13, 2008, the birth registers until 1898, the marriage registers until 1928 and death registers until 1978 were transferred to the archive.

Old Department (until 1815)

Main document archive

The careful handling and safe storage of the privileges granted by the city's rulers, popes and princes were at the beginning of the history of the Cologne City Archives. This care was also demonstrated by the relocation of important stocks during the last world war. The documents formerly stored in the council tower were recorded in the first finding aid (Old Repertories 6). This core inventory with the most important evidence of Cologne's past, the city's “main document archive”, was given the inventory number “1”.

Estates and collections

Among the more than 700 private estates were those of cathedral builders Ernst Friedrich Zwirner , Ferdinand Franz Wallraf , Heinrich Böll , Jakob Ignaz Hittorff , Irmgard Keun , Sulpiz Boisserée , Vilma Sturm , Paul Schallück , Hans Mayer , Hans Bender and René König . The archives and bequests of musicians and artists included materials by Jacques Offenbach , Max Bruch , Ferdinand Hiller Günter Wand , Werner Haentjes , Vilém Flusser and the American baritone William Pearson . Plans and drawings by architects such as Hans Schilling , Oswald Mathias Ungers , Wilhelm Riphahn , Karl Band and Gottfried and Dominikus Böhm were also kept in the building. In addition, it had parts of the archive of the publishing house Kiepenheuer & Witsch (KiWi), the archive of the Pahl-Rugenstein publishing and Ephemeral Paper and Documents of Anne Dorn , Dieter Weller Hoff and Günter Wallraff .

Stock takeover after the collapse (from 2009)

Since the collapse in 2009, 80 new holdings have been taken over. In August 2009, the archive received its second takeover from the estate of photographer Charles E. Fraser . This was followed, among other things, by the bequests and bequests of Mayor Norbert Burger (2014), cartoonist Otto Schwalge (2017), moderator Dieter Thoma and talk show host Alfred Biolek (2018).

Institutions

Support association

On August 16, 2006, the Friends of the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne e. V. , which now has around 350 members (as of March 2010). The external reason for founding the association was the 600th anniversary of the construction of the town hall tower. The statutes provide for the archive to be promoted in any way with donations in kind or in cash. The association has set up a donation account for the upcoming restoration work.

The digital historical archive Cologne

A few days after the collapse of the archive, the digital historical archive Cologne (DHAK) was put online, which enabled former visitors to register their copies, photos, microfilms , etc. in a database and make them freely accessible. In 2017, a revised version of the tectonics was put online, presenting the digital copies of the backup films.

Advisory Board

In September 2009, an external advisory board consisting of representatives from German and foreign archives and archive associations, historians and restorers was set up to accompany the reconstruction process.

City Memory Foundation

Following a city council resolution in September 2009, the City Memory Foundation was established in July 2010 . The founding donors are the City of Cologne, the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Archdiocese of Cologne and the Protestant Church in the Rhineland . The foundation's capital is 4.2 million euros.

The foundation's patron was initially the then Federal President Christian Wulff and, from 2012, his successor Joachim Gauck . The literary scholar Stefan Lafaire was appointed full-time chairman from October 1, 2011 .

The foundation is to raise 350 to 500 million euros over the next 50 years in order to restore, digitize, research and consolidate the archive material damaged in the collapse of the historical archive of the city of Cologne.

In 2012, the foundation collected around 95,000 euros in monetary and material donations; the expenditures in the same period amounted to around 600,000 euros, including around 220,000 euros in personnel costs. At the end of the year the deficit was around 370,000 euros.

Stefan Lafaire resigned as CEO on December 31, 2014; The retired notary Konrad Adenauer was appointed as his successor in March 2015 with effect from April 1, 2015, as chairman of the board and managing director. The foundation office was terminated at the end of 2017. The foundation capital of a little more than four million euros is invested entirely in securities and, given the current interest rate situation, simply does not generate enough income , says Konrad Adenauer.

Personalities

Further media offers

Publications of the archive

  • Messages from the city archive of Cologne (published since 1882) (older volumes digitized by Google Book Search were made accessible on Wikimedia Commons)
  • The citizen's treasure house filled with life - 150 years of tradition formation in the historical archive of the city of Cologne . Contributions to the symposium on the occasion of the 150th anniversary on October 19, 2007. In: Bettina Schmidt-Czaia (Ed.): Messages from the Cologne City Archives . tape 98 . Historical archive of the city of Cologne, 2011, ISBN 978-3-928907-20-0 .
  • Historical Archive of the City of Cologne (ed.): " The Cologne Wednesday Talks 1950–1956: Free Entry Free Questions Free Answers" , Cologne 1991
  • Historical archive of the city of Cologne (ed.): The Atelier Mary Bauermeister in Cologne 1960–62: intermedial, controversial, experimental, Emons, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-924491-43-7 .
  • Exhibition brochure of the city archive for its 150th anniversary , 2007, 44 pages, PDF file, with numerous images from the archive holdings (5.09 MB)
  • Historical archive of the city of Cologne - Office for press and public relations: recovery, order, restoration. The reconstruction of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne , Cologne 2012.
  • Bettina Schmidt-Czaia (Ed.): Am Strom. Cologne and its ports from antiquity to the present day (communications from the Cologne city archive, volume 106). Cologne 2021, ISBN 978-3-928907-45-3 .

literature

  • Historical archive of the city of Cologne (ed.): Music. Theatre. Dance. Literature. Museums - Art and Culture in Cologne after 1945 , Wienand Verlag, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-87909-455-1 .
  • Joachim Deeters: The holdings of the Cologne city archive to 1814. An overview , Böhlau , Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-412-04294-3 .
  • Günter Otten: The collapse. How the historical archive of the city of Cologne disappeared. Emons Verlag , Cologne 2010, 160 pages, ISBN 978-3-89705-721-0 .
  • Hanns Peter Neuheuser: The collapse of the Cologne city archive. A first look at the situation from an archiving perspective. In: Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie 56 (2009), 3–4, pp. 149–158.
  • Bettina Schmidt-Czaia and Ulrich S. Soénius (eds.): Gedächtnisort. The Historical Archive of the City of Cologne , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-412-20490-7 . table of contents
  • Hugo Stehkämper: The historical archive and its new house, in: Cologne, the Reich and Europe , Neubner, Cologne 1971, pp. XI – XLII.
  • Hugo Stehkämper: The Historical Archive of the City of Cologne 1945–1978, in: Horst Keller (Ed.): Art, Culture, Cologne , Volume 1, Notes on Thirty Years, Greven, Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-7743-0170-0 , Pp. 34-47.
  • Ulrich S. Soénius (Hrsg.), Jürgen Wilhelm (Hrsg.): Kölner Personen-Lexikon. Greven, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-7743-0400-0 .

Film documentaries

Web links

General

Commons : Stadtarchiv Köln  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Inventory overviews and individual digital copies

Wikisource: Cologne City Archive  - Sources and full texts

Reporting on the collapse

Individual evidence

  1. New Cologne City Archives are ready. December 21, 2020, accessed January 3, 2021 .
  2. New city archive opened in Cologne. In: zeit.de. Die Zeit , September 3, 2021, accessed on September 5, 2021 .
  3. Bettina Schmidt-Czaja, Ulrich S. Soénius (Ed.): Gedächtnisort. The historical archive of the city of Cologne. P. 10.
  4. ↑ Tabular data : Historical Archive of the City of Cologne - The Chronicle of Cologne - German National Library.
  5. ^ Adam Wrede : New Cologne vocabulary . 3 volumes A - Z, Greven Verlag, 9th edition, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7743-0155-7 , Volume II, p. 369.
  6. Die Chronik Kölns , Chronik Verlag, Dortmund 1991, ISBN 3-611-00193-7 , p. 132.
  7. Historical Archive of the City of Cologne, Best. 8900, No. 6, fol. 1r.
  8. Die Chronik Kölns , Chronik Verlag, Dortmund 1991, ISBN 3-611-00193-7 , p. 252.
  9. 50 ° 56 '36.1 "  N , 6 ° 56'40.3"  E
  10. ^ Ulrich S. Soénius, Jürgen Wilhelm: Kölner Personen-Lexikon. , P. 226.
  11. a b Baugewerks-Zeitung No. 32, April 19, 1902, p. 2.
  12. Die Chronik Kölns , Chronik Verlag, Dortmund 1991, ISBN 3-611-00193-7 , p. 289.
  13. a b Bettina Schmidt-Czaja, Ulrich S. Soénius (Ed.): Gedächtnisort. The historical archive of the city of Cologne. Böhlau, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-412-20490-7 , pp. 18-19.
  14. Baugewerks-Zeitung No. 32, April 19, 1902, p. 1.
  15. Exhibition brochure of the city archive for its 150th anniversary (PDF; 3.2 MB), p. 61.
  16. Ulrich S. Soenius, Jürgen Wilhelm, p. 311.
  17. Ulrich S. Soenius, Jürgen Wilhelm, p. 203.
  18. Peter Berger: Gerling-Quartier: Historical archive becomes a hotel. March 12, 2014, accessed March 2, 2019 .
  19. ^ A b Maria Rita Sagstetter: Air conditioning concepts in younger archive buildings in Germany ( Memento from March 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), in: Archivalische Zeitschrift 86 (2004), pp. 323–355.
  20. Wolfgang Hans Stein: Questions about the application of the Cologne model in archive construction. In: Der Archivar 45 (1992) column 416.
  21. Source for the entire paragraph "Usage concept / technical equipment": Hugo Stehkämper: New building of the historical archive of the city of Cologne.
  22. ^ A b Andreas Rossmann : Kölner Stadtarchiv. The price of the subway. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 5, 2009, p. 31.
  23. ^ Christian Hümmeler: Dealing with the archive. Much praise, but little action. In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , March 11, 2009, accessed November 27, 2017.
  24. Everything in tatters. Chronicle of a Disaster , Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 19, 2018, accessed on February 2, 2019.
  25. Kölner Stadtarchiv - Ein Bild der Stadt , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 3, 2017, accessed on February 2, 2019.
  26. Tim Stinauer: “Large-scale operation after a leak in the gas tank” , Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, January 31, 2007.
  27. Manfred Reinharth: "Gas alarm: Again the KVB?" Kölnische Rundschau , February 1, 2007.
  28. Christian Deppe, Ralph Kohkemper and Jens Meifert: "KVB should be withdrawn from building supervision" , March 23, 2009.
  29. a b c d e Ulrich Fischer: Collapse - Salvage - Perspectives. Views and insights in: Schmidt-Czaja, Soénius (Ed.): Gedächtnisort. The Historical Archive of the City of Cologne , pp. 39–65.
  30. ^ City of Cologne - Office for Press and Public Relations from March 12, 2009.
  31. Inge Schürmann: From salvage to research into causes and preservation of evidence. Completed dismantling of the salvage pit signals the starting shot for the inspection structure. City of Cologne - Office for Press and Public Relations, October 23, 2012, accessed on May 10, 2013 .
  32. Detlef Schmalenberg, Andreas Damm: sloppy, faked. Root cause research. Damage of more than 700 million euros special supplement in the Kölner Stadtanzeiger on March 3, 2010, p. 3.
  33. The Log of a Failure. Kölner Stadtanzeiger, February 23, 2010, accessed on November 22, 2017 .
  34. Press release of the Office for Press + Public Relations Cologne dated April 2, 2012
  35. Video about the main holdings .
  36. Jürgen Schön: Rescue work officially ended. Restoration of the archival material costs 400 million euros , press release by the city of Cologne, August 10, 2011
  37. Detlef Schmalenberg: Further drilling in the city archive. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , June 22, 2012, accessed on June 23, 2012 .
  38. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger of January 13, 2014, p. 23: The problem of the statute of limitations
  39. Inge Schürmann: Higher costs on the Waidmarkt. Preservation of evidence should be completed in January 2018. In: www.stadt-koeln.de. City of Cologne - Office for Press and Public Relations, June 10, 2015, accessed on June 10, 2015 .
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  41. Jörg Isringhaus, Maximilian Plück: Expert opinion probably not until 2020 - the process for the Cologne city archive is on the brink . In: General-Anzeiger Bonn . October 17, 2017 ( online [accessed April 25, 2018]).
  42. ^ Inge Schürmann: Eleven years of collapse of the historical archive. City of Cologne - Office for Press and Public Relations, March 3, 2020, accessed on March 4, 2020 .
  43. ^ Report of the WDR : The crater of Cologne
  44. Press release No. 1674 of the Lord Mayor of Cologne from December 21, 2012
  45. Report from the newspaper Kölnische Rundschau from May 23, 2018: City archive, tram can be renovated - expert wants to leave Waidmarkt
  46. a b c d e Inge Schürmann: Ten years after the collapse of the historical archive. City of Cologne - Office for Press and Public Relations, February 22, 2019, accessed on March 2, 2019 .
  47. ^ Detlef Schmalenberg: Proceedings against 90 people. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , January 18, 2014, accessed on January 18, 2014 .
  48. Axel Spilcker: Defects covered up - main defendant possibly incapable of litigation. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , August 18, 2017, accessed on January 9, 2018 .
  49. Defendant escapes trial due to illness. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , January 9, 2018, accessed on January 9, 2018 .
  50. ↑ The process begins nine years after the collapse. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , January 17, 2018, accessed on January 17, 2018 .
  51. Report from the newspaper Kölner Stadtanzeiger from March 2, 2018: City archive process in Cologne: Workers stole iron, there was no surveillance
  52. Manfred Reinnarth: Procedure split again: archiving process is accelerated - foreman is sick . In: Kölnische Rundschau . ( Online [accessed August 15, 2018]).
  53. Report from the newspaper Kölnische Rundschau from September 22, 2018: Judgment in sight, refurbishment not - criminal process for the collapse of the archive ends in October .
  54. Report from the newspaper Kölnische Rundschau from September 27, 2018: Cologne City Archives Trial: Public Prosecutor calls for suspended sentences for three defendants .
  55. ^ Nine years after the collapse: Three acquittals in the process of the collapse of the Cologne archives . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( Online [accessed October 12, 2018]).
  56. ^ Archive collapse: three acquittals and a suspended sentence
  57. ^ Public prosecutor's office appeals
  58. ^ Archive collapse: suspended sentence for chief construction manager. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, February 7, 2019, accessed on February 10, 2019 .
  59. Ingo Schmitz: Demanding renovation; micropiles and hydraulic blasting: the work on the archive collapse site is a challenge . In: Kölnische Rundschau . Cologne June 24, 2020, p. 22 .
  60. Tim Attenberger: Details on the comparison for archive collapse; city publishes negotiated arbitration proposal for 600 million euros . In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger . Cologne June 24, 2020, p. 21 .
  61. Meeting June 29, 2020 Council. Retrieved June 25, 2020 .
  62. Cologne City Archives: City Council approves settlement. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. June 29, 2020, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  63. Markus Schmitz: Comparison after the collapse of the city archive: companies pay 600 million euros. In: wdr.de. June 29, 2020, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  64. ^ Archive collapse: Council approves settlement proposal. In: stadt-koeln.de. June 30, 2020, accessed June 30, 2020 .
  65. Historical archive closed due to relocation - Friends of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne eV Accessed on June 30, 2020 .
  66. City archive dries documents itself. In future, the employees of the Cologne city archive will be able to dry documents damaged when the archive collapses on their own. welt.de, September 12, 2011. Retrieved November 29, 2013
  67. On the trail of old secrets ( Memento from February 11, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  68. Stefan Palm: First archival material in the original accessible. Parts of the library and photo collection can be viewed by prior arrangement. City of Cologne - Office for Press and Public Relations, December 28, 2011, accessed on December 29, 2011 .
  69.  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.freunde-des-historischen-archivs.de
  70. Inge Schürmann: The historical archive can use 3,000 square meters in the former state archive. City of Cologne - Office for Press and Public Relations, September 4, 2014, accessed on September 5, 2014 .
  71. “Many Cologne files were filmed”, taz online, April 2, 2009 . Press release by the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance, April 8, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.taz.de
  72. Dietmar Bartz: “Mold alarm!” Taz , April 16, 2009.
  73. Andreas Berger: Digitization - The future of the archive? in: Schmidt-Czaja, Soénius (Ed.): Gedächtnisort. The Historical Archive of the City of Cologne , pp. 84–95.
  74. "284 documents from the collapsed Cologne city archive saved!" University of Marburg , March 4, 2009.
  75. DFG project "Marburg Photo Archive online"
  76. Updated statutes of the City Memory Foundation. In: stiftung-stadtgedaechtnis.de. Retrieved June 30, 2020 .
  77. Become a godmother! Friends of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne eV, accessed on April 9, 2021 .
  78. Dietmar Bartz: The largest puzzle in the world. In: the daily newspaper , March 2, 2010
  79. Bergen, Ordnen, Restieren - The reconstruction of the historical archive of the city of Cologne. (PDF) City of Cologne - Historical Archive, Office for Press and Public Relations, p. 42 , accessed on November 15, 2017 .
  80. Flyer for the exhibition: Cologne 1:58 p.m. Salvaged Treasures from the Historical Archive ( Memento from November 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Cologne City Museum , October 3 to November 21, 2010, ( PDF file; 405 kB).
  81. Cologne 1:58 pm. Recovered treasures from the historical archive. Catalog for the exhibition in the Cologne City Museum. Ed. Association of Friends of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne e. V., Cologne 2010
  82. Christian Hümmeler: Damper for the party mood. Kölner Stadtanzeiger, October 3, 2010, archived from the original on August 18, 2013 ; accessed on October 18, 2018 .
  83. Press release of the City of Cologne: Funds for freeze-drying system not available prior to lease , October 4, 2010
  84. Show me! Imagines Coloniae. In: stadt-koeln.de. Retrieved June 30, 2020 .
  85. Press release of the City of Cologne: Competition for the new building of the historical archive has been decided , Sunday, June 19, 2011
  86. Eifelwall, new building Hist. Archive and art and museum library with Rhenish image archive. Council information system of the City of Cologne, July 2013, accessed on March 19, 2017 .
  87. ^ Stefan Palm: City plans archive without art and museum library. City of Cologne - Office for Press and Public Relations, July 19, 2013, accessed on March 19, 2017 .
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  91. With compressed air drill: Theatertreffen opens. May 7, 2010, Retrieved May 7, 2010 .
  92. ^ Website of the protest organization Cologne can also be different
  93. Wolfgang Herborn: Shrine being, book, map . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA) . tape 7 . LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-7608-8907-7 , Sp. 1557-1559 .
  94. Carl Dietmar: A box for the city's treasure , Kölner Stadtanzeiger, March 3, 2010, special on the anniversary of the collapse of the archive, p. 9.
  95. ^ Joachim Deeters: Hansische Rezesse. A source study based on the tradition in the historical archive of the city of Cologne. in: Hammel-Kiesow (ed.): Das Gedächtnis der Hansestadt Lübeck , Lübeck, Schmidt-Römhild 2005, pp. 427–446 (429ff) - with inventory signatures in the appendix ISBN 3-7950-5555-5 .
  96. On the collapse of the Cologne City Archives: Loss of cultural property of European importance also for Hanseatic history. Press release of the Bremen State Archives from March 5, 2009
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  98. Historical Archives of the City of Cologne, Best. 7104, No. 59.
  99. Maria Heer: “An art museum is the city's conscience”. From the Wallrafianum to the building by Oswald Mathias Ungers. The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne has its own home. In: Neues Rheinland , Volume 44, 2001, 1, pp. 10-11.
  100. Inventory history of the library in the manual of the historical book inventory .
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  102. ( page no longer available , search in web archives: the holdings of Cologne monasteries and monasteries in the digital historical archive of Cologne )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.historischesarchivkoeln.de
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Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 5 ″  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 44 ″  E