History of the Jews in Cologne
Encyclopedia
History of Cologne
The History of Cologne, Germany's oldest major city, can be broken into several periods.- Roman period :In 39 BC, the tribe of the Ubii entered into an agreement with the Roman forces and settled on the left bank of the Rhine. Their headquarters was Oppidum Ubiorum — the settlement of the Ubii, and...
. Because of this historical continuity, today’s Jewish synagogue community calls itself the "oldest Jewish congregation North of the Alps".
The Roman Age
Demographics of Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city and the largest city in the Rhineland. As of 30 June 2010, there were officially 1,000,660 residents. The city is center of the Cologne/Bonn Region with around 3 million inhabitants .- Population by district :- Population by migration background :1...
than was to be found in the Middle Ages, for he estimates it at between thirty and forty thousand. It is reasonable to assume that the spread of Christianity in any Roman province was preceded and accompanied by the existence there of Jews. The presence of Christians in Cologne in the second century would therefor argue for the settlement of Jews in the city at that early date.
Archaeological funds indicate a immigration of Orientals at about that period, and among them there were Syrians, as is proved by an Aramaic inscription dug up in 1930. For all these reasons it is not surprising that the Theodosian Code indicates the existence of a firmly established Jewish community in Cologne in the years 321 and 331. For the appointment to a town office a person was required to own land and to have a certain reputation. However Jews were refused the access to public offices.
Their religion was recognized as a religio licita
Religio licita
Religio licita is a phrase used in the Apologeticum of Tertullian to describe the special status of Judaism under Roman Imperial rule...
(permitted religion), and they were for this reason free from the offering to the Emperor
Imperial cult (ancient Rome)
The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State...
and to the offerings to the Roman state gods
Religion in ancient Rome
Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...
. These were however the basic requirements for the access to a public office. In Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
, the Roman upper class increasingly refused to participate to these expensive offices. The Roman administration went into crisis and the emperor had to look around for alternatives. So it was necessary for the Cologne Council to use a decree of Emperor Constantine the Great of year 321 AD, which permitted Jews to be appointed in the curia
Curia
A curia in early Roman times was a subdivision of the people, i.e. more or less a tribe, and with a metonymy it came to mean also the meeting place where the tribe discussed its affairs...
, and this is the first evidence of the existence of a Jewish community in the town of Cologne. The emperor’s decree has been passed down in the Codex Theodosianus
Codex Theodosianus
The Codex Theodosianus was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Theodosius II in 429 and the compilation was published in the eastern half of the Roman Empire in 438...
and here is its translation:
- "We allow all town councils to appoint through general law Jewish people in the Curia. To give them a certain compensation for the previous rules, we let that always two or three of them enjoy the privilege not to be taken to any office."
In another document, from 341 AD, it is recorded that the synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
was provided with the emperor’s privilege. These decrees of Constantine remain for some centuries the only accounts of the existence of a Jewish community in Cologne.
Under the Frankish, Saxon and Salian Kings
The first documentary reference to the Jews after 331 occurs during the time of Archbishop Heribert of CologneHeribert of Cologne
Saint Heribert was Archbishop of Cologne and Chancellor of Emperor Otto III, and was canonized c. 1074.-Life:He was born in Worms, the son of Hugo, count of Worms. He was educated in the school of Worms Cathedral and at the Benedictine Gorze Abbey in Lorraine...
(999-1021), the wise friend of Holy Roman Emperor Otto III. Winheim and Gelenius, basing themselves on the Annual Chronicles of Cologne during the fourteenth and fifteenth century, report that in 1426 the synagogue was turned into a church. They then remark that this synagogue had been in existence 414 years. That would place its origin in the time of Heribert. The Jewish Quarter
Jewish Quarter
The Jewish Quarter is one of the four traditional quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem. The 116,000 square meter area lies in the southeastern sector of the walled city, and stretches from the Zion Gate in the south, along the Armenian Quarter on the west, up to the Street of the Chain in the...
close to Hohe Straße
Hohe Straße
Hohe Straße is a shopping street in the old town of Cologne, Germany, and one of the city's both oldest and busiest streets. Together with many of its adjacent side streets, Hohe Straße is part of a designated pedestrian zone and spans about 680 meters from Cologne Cathedral on its Northern end to...
is mentioned for the first time during the episcopate of Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne
Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne
Saint Anno II was Archbishop of Cologne from 1056 to 1075.He was born around 1010, belonging to the Swabian family of the von Steusslingen, and was educated at Bamberg. He became confessor to the Emperor Henry III, who appointed him archbishop of Cologne in 1056...
, named Anno the Great (1056–1075) and a report has come down about the Jews joining in lament over the archbishop’s death.
The number of Jews in the community during the last quarter of the eleventh century was not less than six hundred. The markets of Cologne had attracted many Jewish visits who had partly stayed. Italian Jews are mentioned in the stories about the Crusaders in Cologne. The fact that the Jewish community was important is proved further by the statement in these Hebrew reports that out of Cologne there went forth "our brethren scattered over the earth support for their life and correct words of judgment". It means that the community was the center of Jewish life for all the communities of the area.
The Crusades
During the Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, the Jewish community settled in a quarter near the Rathaus
Rathaus
Rathaus is a German word literally translating as “council house”, meaning “city hall” or “town hall”. Many specific buildings are referred to as Rathaus even when spoken about in English.Some important Rathäuser are:* Rathaus Schöneberg...
. Still now the name “Judengasse” testifies its existence. In the 12th and 13th century the anti-Semite attitude of the town citizens became stronger. They were held responsible for the pestilence. In the night of Saint Bartholemy (between the 23rd and the 24th of August) in 1349 a pogrom took place that was called the “Slaughter of the Jews” in the history of the town. In that night an enraged mob entered the quarter and killed most of the inhabitants.
In 1424 the Jews were banned from the town “for eternity”. This interdiction for settling in Cologne was abolished at the end of the 18th century. A new Jewish community came into existence under the French administration. At the beginning of the Modern Age the area of the Jewish quarter was rebuilt and the previous inhabitants forgotten.
After the destructions of the Second World War, the Medieval foundations were discovered, among them a synagogue and the monumental Cologne mikveh (ritual bath). The archeological survey was conducted after the war by Otto Doppelfeld from 1953 to 1956. On the basis of the awareness of history the area has not been reconstructed after the war and has remained as a square in front of the historical Rathaus. Today, the Jewish quarter is part of the “archeological zone of Cologne”.
The Medieval Pogroms in Cologne
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
of August 1349 the atmosphere in the Cologne area towards the Jewish population was not friendly at all. During the First Crusade
First Crusade
The First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...
in 1096 there were several pogroms. Although the Crusade started from France, assaults happened through the Holy Roman Empire. In May 27, 1096 hundreds of Jews were killed in Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
in the Persecution of Jews in the First Crusade. The palace of local archbishop Ruthard
Ruthard of Mainz
Ruthard was archbishop of Mainz from 1089 to 1109.In 1096 he opposed violence against the Jews arising from the First Crusade, trying to turn Emicho away from Mainz. After a two-day stand-off, Emicho broke into the city, and caused a massacre....
, where the Jews had found refuge, was stormed by the Crusaders after little resistance. A similar thing happened in July of the same year in Cologne. The Jews were baptized by force. The permission of Kaiser Henry IV
Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Henry IV was King of the Romans from 1056 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1084 until his forced abdication in 1105. He was the third emperor of the Salian dynasty and one of the most powerful and important figures of the 11th century...
to let the Jews who had been forcibly baptized to go back to their faith was not ratified by Antipope Clement III
Antipope Clement III
Guibert or Wibert of Ravenna was a cleric made antipope in 1080 due to perceived abuses of Pope Gregory VII during the Investiture Controversy, a title that lasted to his death....
. From those times, small and large assaults were repeated not only in the Rhineland.
In year 1146 other Jewish people were killed near Königswinter
Königswinter
Königswinter is a town and summer resort in the Rhein-Sieg district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Rhine, opposite to Bonn, at the foot of the Siebengebirge.- Main sights :...
by a mob of furious Christians, just after the beginning of the Second Crusade
Second Crusade
The Second Crusade was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa the previous year to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crusade by Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098...
.
Also in Andernach
Andernach
Andernach is a town in the district of Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, of currently about 30,000 inhabitants. It is situated towards the end of the Neuwied basin on the left bank of the Rhine between the former tiny fishing village of Fornich in the north and the mouth of the...
, Altenahr
Altenahr
Altenahr is a municipality in the district of Ahrweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Ahr, in the Eifel mountains, approx. 10 km west of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler....
, Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
and Lechenich Jewish people were killed and their houses plundered. These events are presumably to be associated with a wave of prosecution in 1287/88. Violent assaults to Jews of Cologne are not reported in this period of time, so it doesn’t seem there was a discrimination.
Following the Fourth Council of the Lateran
Fourth Council of the Lateran
The Fourth Council of the Lateran was convoked by Pope Innocent III with the papal bull of April 19, 1213, and the Council gathered at Rome's Lateran Palace beginning November 11, 1215. Due to the great length of time between the Council's convocation and meeting, many bishops had the opportunity...
in 1215, all Jews were obliged to display on their clothing a clear sign they were not Christians.
In 1320, some inhabitants of Cologne tried to elude the obligation to pay their debts to Jews appealing to the legislation of the church. Pope John XXII had started in 1317 a rigorous campaign against the Jews and had publicly declared that usurious interest should not be paid to Jews. The Cologne council thought it was necessary to come first towards this refusal to repay debts sanctioned by the Church and took action in 1321 against interest due under penalty. In 1327 the council reiterated this ordinance and appealed directly against a pope decree that was directed specifically against Salomon of Basel.
The same council referred in 1334 to the same letter of the pope and appealed archbishop Walram von Jülich for protection as a Jewish banker named Meyer of Siegburg demanded payment of money from it. The action finished with the withdrawal of all city debts and the condemnation of Meyer to death. The council men were in debt with Meyer and Walfram kept the confiscated property of the condemned person. Besides the archbishop had also debts with Meyer and could cancel them in the same course.
Altogether the Jews of Cologne between 1096 and 1349 appeared indeed to have been relatively safe regarding life and physical condition as „fellow citizens (Mitbürger)". However, there are enough references that offences have been taken against them. So it is famous the so called Jewish sow
Judensau
Judensau is an image of Jews in obscene contact with a large sow , which in Judaism is an unclean animal, that appeared during the 13th century in Germany and some other European countries; its popularity lasted for over 600 years.-Background and images:The Jewish prohibition of pork comes from...
on a wooden seat of the Cologne Cathedral
Cologne Cathedral
Cologne Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Cologne, Germany. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and the administration of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture and is a World Heritage Site...
choir, that was made presumably around 1320.
In the decades before the Cologne pogrom the condition of local Jews became worse. In 1300 a piece of wall was built around the Jewish Quarter. Presumably this project was carried out by the Jewish Community itself. Council decisions document the worsening of the climate between Christians and Jews. Decisions between 1252 and 1320 address legal status, protection and taxation of the Cologne Jews. The pogrom wave affected also other towns of the Empire. There is a letter of the Cologne Council
Cologne City Hall
The City Hall is a historical building in Cologne, western Germany, located off Hohe Straße in the district of Innenstadt, set between the two squares of Rathausplatz and Alter Markt. It houses part of the city government, including the city council and offices of the Lord Mayor. It is...
to the council of Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
where the Cologne Council expresses concern about an incident in Strasbourg and warns insistently about an escalation. The Jews and their possessions were protected by letters of protection or consolation, this had to be considered. In addition there was the accusation that the Jews had poisoned the springs and so caused the pestilence, unproved in any single case. In the same letter the Cologne Council make clear that they will decidedly protect Cologne Jews. In the years towards 1320 we know by sure of hostility of the Cologne clergy against the Jews for religious reasons, that gets particularly excited by the privileges of the Cologne Jews. The reason for this can be seen in the change of the Schutzjude
Schutzjude
Schutzjude was a status for German Jews granted by the imperial, princely or royal courts.Within the Holy Roman Empire, except of some eastern territories gained to the Empire in the 11th and 12th c. , Jews usually had the status as Servi camerae regis...
. The Cologne clergy took no more profit for itself from the loan transactions of the Jews. Increasingly the town council participated in the business, and this provoked additional frictions between the Archbishop and the Council.
The latter played an important role in the persecution of the Cologne Jews in 1349. From 1266 the Cologne Jews had the exclusive privilege to lend money. The Archbishop Engelbert II von Falkenburg had the "Judenprivileg" carved in stone on the outside of the Dom treasury room. In the struggle for power, the Cologne Jews could also be used to a certain extent as pressure medium. The protectors of the Cologne Jews, the Archbishop and the King, could sell the Schutzjude
Schutzjude
Schutzjude was a status for German Jews granted by the imperial, princely or royal courts.Within the Holy Roman Empire, except of some eastern territories gained to the Empire in the 11th and 12th c. , Jews usually had the status as Servi camerae regis...
. There was a legal fight between the clergy, the king and the Cologne Council, so the council could take from the others a profitable source of revenue if he got rid of the Jews. Additionally some debts could be cancelled.
In 1340 a terrible pestilence arrived in Europe. The Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
had not reached Cologne before December 1349, also the first month after the hard August pogrom. However news about its devastating impact arrived on the Rhine from the south considerably earlier. Possibly the news were made worse from the population and provoked an eschatological agitation. In this overall situation fell the devastating pogrom of 23/24 August of 1349 in Cologne.
Preparation of the pogrom
The Jews' persecution at the time of the Black Pestilence belongs to the fiercest in the whole Middle Ages and had its origin in South West Europe. Echoes can be found certainly in the German Empire.The pogrom wave hit many towns even before the pestilence reached them. Very common were the accusations upraised for poisoning of springs. The pogroms spread like snowballs. It is unlikely that they were spontaneous and they originated from low population. Rather they show signs of a certain plan, that in its imprint shows the involvement of the leading social levels, or at least part of them. So the already mentioned events in Strassbourg, that the Cologne Council watched closely, suggest a clear plan. They previously formed an alliance with all that could have an advantage from the killing or expulsion of the Jews, to be able to make a point towards their protectors. Especially King Charles IV
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles IV , born Wenceslaus , was the second king of Bohemia from the House of Luxembourg, and the first king of Bohemia to also become Holy Roman Emperor....
and the Habsburgher reeves and settled Jews in their domains. The council of Straßburg invoked the public peace and called on all the citizens to kill the Jews in their territory. So this pogrom was finally aimed against the Habsburgs and exploited the hysteria of the population simply to reach its goals of political power.
The archbishop of Cologne Walram von Jülich, who had left the city at the end of June 1349 to go to France, died in Paris after a short time. King Charles IV
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles IV , born Wenceslaus , was the second king of Bohemia from the House of Luxembourg, and the first king of Bohemia to also become Holy Roman Emperor....
had stayed in Cologne until June 19 and had left with his entourage. He had succeeded to take Cologne to his side giving benefits in crown disputes. Probably the negotiations were not successful for all groups of interests. The extermination of the Jewish community could have the aim to weaken Charles IV and the clergy. Already before the transition of the archbishop had led to persecution. This happened after the Battle of Worringen
Battle of Worringen
The Battle of Worringen was fought on June 5, 1288, near the town of Worringen , which is now the northernmost borough of Cologne...
on 8 June 1288 when the defeated Cologne archbishop was imprisoned. For days afterwards a persecution of Jews happened in the surroundings of Cologne. In August 1349 not only the seat of the Cologne archbishop was vacant but also Charles IV was not nearby to take action. So came the excesses that peaked on 24 August with the so called "Cologne night of Bartholomew". On 23–24 August the somewhat secure for Jewish Cologne came to death. After violent assaults in the surroundings the Jews were killed also in Cologne.
The night of Bartholomew and its consequences
The actual outcome of the pogrom is not well known. In the course of the night of Bartholomew in 1349 the Jewish quarter near the Rathaus was attacked, whereat killing, plundering of Jewish properties and fire followed. Fugitives were followed and killed. The Council didn’t intervene. Many sources report about the fire even if they are partly contradictory. Some report that the Jews themselves put fire to their houses not to fall into the hands of the looters. Another version is that the Jews burned themselves in their Synagogue, which is rather improbable. Archeological excavations in the area of the medieval Jewish quarter have suggested that the Synagogue itself was standing without damages after the night, but that it was plundered later. In the escape a family buried its belongings and merchandise. The treasury of coins was discovered in 1954 excavations and is exhibited in the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum.The account of the chronicler Gilles Li Muisis
Gilles Li Muisis
Gilles Li Muisis was a French chronicler and poet. Li Muisis was probably born at Tournai, and in 1289 entered the Benedictine abbey of St Martin in his native city, becoming prior of this house in 1327, and abbot four years later...
, in which he tells of a regular battle against more than 25.000 Jews and credits the victory of the Cologne people to a stratagem of a butcher is considered not reliable. The account of Gilles Li Muisis coined the term "Judenschlacht" (battle of the Jews) for the event of that night. Equally obscure is the involvement of Flagellant
Flagellant
Flagellants are practitioners of an extreme form of mortification of their own flesh by whipping it with various instruments.- History :Flagellantism was a 13th and 14th centuries movement, consisting of radicals in the Catholic Church. It began as a militant pilgrimage and was later condemned by...
who, in accordance to sources, should have been in Cologne in 1349. The Council of Cologne and the new archbishop Wilhelm von Gennep condemned the pogrom with all their acrimony. The names of the real wire pullers and of the violent invaders of the Jewish quarter remained unknown. It can only be declared that it was then tried to leave the culprits unknown. A communication of the Cologne Council says that it was an out-of-town mob followed by a few have-not from Cologne. A few expelled survivors from the town looked for refuge across the Rhine. Around ten years after the 1349 pogrom wave Jewish settlements are documented in Andernach and Siegburg.
They came back in a documented way only in 1369, although already Archbishop Boemund II von Saarbrücken during his charge from 1354 to 1361 tried to force the return of the Jews. But first under Engelbert III von der Mark and particularly under his coadjutor Kuno von Falkenstein the strained relation between the Archbishop and the Municipality improved so much that the protection of Jews looked again reasonably assured. In 1372 a small Jewish community in Cologne is again proven.
Under the request of Archbishop Friedrich they were admitted to the town and they obtained a temporary protection privilege for 10 years. To this the Council attached however some conditions. For the moving-in there was a tax between 50 and 500 Gulden
Gulden
Gulden is the historical German term for gold coin Gulden is the historical German term for gold coin Gulden is the historical German term for gold coin (from Middle High German guldin [pfenni(n)c] "golden penny", equivalent to the Dutch term guilder...
and a new sum specifiable every year to be paid as a general contribution. After other extensions of the right of residence the Council proclaimed in 1404 a tightened Judenordnung. It was ordered to the Jews to be recognized through a pointed Jewish hat and they were banned from any kind of luxury. In 1423 the Cologne Council decided not to extend the temporary right of residence for the Jews which expired on October 1424. However it is notable that one could immediately re-establish a full community and not first, as it was done by many other large towns, only a few Jews at a time.
Emigration
Following the medieval pogroms and the irrevocable expulsion of 1424 many Jews of Cologne decided to emigrate to East European countries like PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, in which as a consequence Yiddish emerged as a colloquial language between the Jewish, Germans and Slavs . The offspring of these emigrants returned to Cologne at the beginning of the nineteenth century and lived mainly in the area of Thieboldsgasse on the southeast side of Neumarkt.
Only a few Jews remained near Cologne and settled predominantly on the eastern bank of the Rhine (Deutz, Mühlheim, Zündorf). Later new communities developed, that got larger with the years. The first community in Deutz lived in the area of nowadays „Mindener Straße“. There the Jews felt themselves safe under the protection of archbishop Dietrich von Moers (1414–1463).
Cultural life in Middle Ages
In Cologne there was one of the largest Jewish library of Middle Ages. After the massacre of the Jews in York, England in 1190, a number of Hebrew books from there were brought to and sold in Cologne. There are a number of remarkable manuscripts and illuminations prepared by and for Jews of Cologne during the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries and now kept in various libraries and museums throughout the world.Distinguished Cologne Jews
Accordig to the Jewish Encyclopedia Cologne was a center of Jewish learning, and the "wise of Cologne" are frequently mentioned in rabbinical literature. A characteristic of the Talmudical authorities of that city was their liberality. Many liturgical poems still in the Ashkenazic ritual were composed by poets of Cologne.Here are the names of many rabbis and scholars of the eleventh and twelfth century: the legendary Amram, traditional founder of the Talmudic school in the tenth century; R. Jacob ben Yaḳḳar, disciple of Gerson Meor ha-Golah (1050); the liturgist Eliakim ben Joseph; Eliezer ben Nathan (1070–1152), the chronicler of the First Crusade; the poet Eliezer ben Simson, who, together with the last named, took part in the famous assembly of French and German rabbis about the middle of the twelfth century; the Tosafist Samuel ben Natronai and his son Mordecai; the liturgist Joel ben Isaac ha-Levi (d. 1200); Uri ben Eliakim (middle of the twelfth century); R. Eliakim ben Judah; Ephraim ben Jacob of Bonn (b. 1132), the chronicler of the Second Crusade. The last lost at Cologne, in 1171, his son Eliakim, a promising youth, who was murdered in the street. His tombstone is still to be seen in the cemetery of Cologne.
Among the rabbis and scholars of the thirteenth century were: Eliezer ben Joel ha-Levi; Uri ben Joel ha-Levi; Jehiel ben Uri, father of R. Asher; Isaac ben Simson (martyred in 1266); Isaac ben Abraham, brother of the Tosafist Simson ben Abraham of Sens (martyred in 1266 at Sinzig); R. Isaiah ben Nehemiah (also martyred in 1266 at Sinzig); the liturgist Eliezer ben Ḥayyim; Ḥayyim ben Jehiel (d. 1314) and Asher ben Jehiel (b. c. 1250; d. 1327); Yaḳḳar ben Samuel ha-Levi; Reuben ben Hezekiah of Boppard; Abraham ben Samuel; Judah ben Meïr; Samuel ben Joseph; Ḥayyim ben Shaltiel; Nathan ben Joel ha-Levi; Jacob Azriel ben Asher ha-Levi; Meïr ben Moses; Eliezer ben Judah ha-Kohen, most of whom are known as commentators on the Bible.
The rabbis and scholars of the fourteenth century include: Samuel ben Menahem, Talmudist and liturgist; Jedidiah ben Israel, disciple of Meïr of Rothenburg; and Mordecai ben Samuel. These three are called in the municipal sources "Gottschalk," "Moyter," and "Süsskind." The rabbi who officiated at the time of the banishment was Jekuthiel ben Moses Möln ha-Levi.
In Middle Ages there were in Cologne the following buildings, synagogues, mikvehs, schools, hospices and cemeteries:
Judenbüchel
In 1174 a document of Saint Engelbert, at the time provost of the monastery of Saint Severin in Cologne, mentions that from 38 years Knight Ortliv had given back five jugerumJugerum
', jugera or ' was a Roman unit of measurement of area, 240 ft or 73 m in length and 120 ft or 37 m in breadth, containing therefore 28,800 square feet...
of land that he had received from the monastery as a fief near the Jews cemetery, and the land had been let to the Jews against a yearly payment of four denarii and Ortliv couldn’t have any claim on it.
In 1266 Archbishop Engelbert II von Falkenburg assured the lawful management and undisturbed usage of their cemetery on Bonner Strasse. It was located outside the walls of Cologne towards the south near Severinstores, called Judenbüchel or Toten Juden. This name remained to the area also after the removal of the cemetery until the construction of the supermarket in this place.
The cemetery measured 29.000 square meters. In 1096 Salomon ben Simeon mentions the tombstones of the Jews buried there. In 1146 Rabbi Simeon of Treves was buried in the cemetery by the leaders of the Cologne Jewish community. The earliest tombstone still in existence dates from the year 1152. After 1349 the tombstones were considered ownerless, some of them were torn out of their places and used by Archbishop William de Gunnep for the construction of the fortress of Lechenig or in Huelchrath. After 1372 the Jews of Cologne again were granted the use of the cemetery and it was used until 1693 mainly by the Jews of Deutz.
Tombstones of 1323
By excavations of the area of the Cologne Rathaus in 1953 two fully conserved tombstones were found on the north-west corner of the building in a large bombcrater. They probably came from the Jewish cemetery of Judenbüchel and were used as building material. The inscription of the tombstone of Rachel said:- „Rachel, daughter of R. Schneior, died on Tuesday, the 16 Elul of the year 83 of the sixth millennium. Her soul be tied in the union of eternal life. Amen. Sela”
After the expulsion
The few Jews who remained in the city, began to re-establish a community in right-Rhenish Deutz, whose's rabbiRabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
called himself later „Country Rabbi of Cologne“. Rabbi Vives was known by this title during the mid-15th century.
In 1634, there were 17 Jews in Deutz, in 1659 there were 24 houses inhabited by Jews and in 1764 the community was made of 19 people. Towards the end of the 18th century the municipality remained at a number of 19 people.
The community was located in a small Jewish „quarter“ in the area of Mindener and Hallenstraße. There was also a synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
, first mentioned in 1426, which was damaged by the immense ice drift of the Rhine in 1784. The mikveh associated to the synagogue is probably still now existing under the embankment of the Brückenrampe (Deutzer Bridge). This first synagogue was then replaced by a new small building on the west end of „Freiheit“, the today’s street „Deutzer Freiheit“ (1786–1914).
In those times, the Jews of the Deutz community lived like all the others of the Electorate of Cologne under the legal and society conditions, that were provided by the state from the end of the 16th century through a so called „Judenordnung“. The last issue of this laws for the Jews was the Order of 1700 by Kurfürst Joseph Clemens. They were kept until new legislation came also in Deutz, with the adoption of the Napoleonic code
Napoleonic code
The Napoleonic Code — or Code Napoléon — is the French civil code, established under Napoléon I in 1804. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified...
.
Due to the construction of the Deutzer Hängebrücke
Deutzer Hängebrücke
The Deutz Suspension Bridge was a self-anchored suspension bridge using eyebar chains, across the Rhine at Deutz in Cologne, Germany. It was built from 1913 to 1915. In 1935, it was named Hindenburg Bridge after the second President of Germany deceased the previous year. It collapsed on 28...
in 1913/14, which was named after German President Paul von Hindenburg
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....
, the synagogue was abandoned and demolished. In December 1913, thanks to works to remove the „Schiffsbrückenstraßenbahnlinie“ in Deutz on the „Freiheitsstraße“, a mikveh was found under the old synagogue of the Jewish community. The bath had a link to the water of the Rhine.
Deutz Cemetery
In contrast to the building evidence in InnenstadtInnenstadt, Cologne
Innenstadt is the central city district of the City of Cologne in Germany.The district was established with the last communal land reform in 1975, and comprises Cologne's historic old town , the Gründerzeit era new town plus the right-Rhenish district of Deutz...
, the history of the Jewish communities outside the city center is revealed above all through the remains of the Jewish cemeteries. There are right-Rhenish Jewish cemetery in Mülheim, „Am Springborn“, in Zündorf
Zündorf
Zündorf is a suburb of Cologne, Germany and part of the district of Porz. Zündorf lies on the right bank of the river Rhine, between Langel and Porz. Zündorf has 12.229 inhabitants and covers an area of 8,12 km²....
between „Hasenkaul“ and the „Gartenweg“, and one in Deutz im „Judenkirchhofsweg“. The latter was given to the Jews of Deutz by Archbishop Joseph Clemens of Bavaria
Joseph Clemens of Bavaria
Joseph Clemens of Bavaria was a member of the Wittelsbach dynasty of Bavaria and Archbishop-Elector of Cologne from 1688 to 1723.-Biography:...
in 1695 as a rented land. The first burials took place in 1699. When in 1798 the Jews were again permitted to settle within the old city walls of Cologne, the cemetery was also used by this community until 1918.
Comeback
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, no Jew was permitted to settle in Cologne. The Napoleonic Code
Napoleonic code
The Napoleonic Code — or Code Napoléon — is the French civil code, established under Napoléon I in 1804. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified...
included equality before the law, rights of individual freedom and the separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
. The Government Commissioner Rudler, in his proclamation of June 21, 1798 to the inhabitants of the conquered territory announced:
- “Whatever smacks of slavery is abolished. Only before God will you have to give an accounting of your religious beliefs. Your civic rights will no longer depend upon your creeds. Whatever these are, they will be tolerated without distinctions and enjoy equal protection.”
A few months earlier, Joseph Isaac of Mühlheim on the Rhine had sought civic rights from the Magistracy of Cologne. Since he presented favorable evidence of his previous conduct and also proved that he would not become a burden to the city because of poverty, permission was granted to him on March 16, 1798 to settle in Cologne. The rest of his requests for civic rights were refused because French regulations had not yet come into force. He was followed by Samuel Benjamin Cohen of Bonn, son of the Chief Rabbi Simha Brunem. At the same time, the 17-years old Salomon Oppenheim
Salomon Oppenheim
Salomon Oppenheim, Jr. was a German Jewish banker, the founder of the Sal. Oppenheim company.He was born in Bonn, the scion of an illustrious family of "Court Jews" who had served as advisers and moneylenders to the Prince-Archbishops of Cologne in the Rhineland area for several generations...
moved his businesses from Bonn to Cologne. He belonged to the families who built the first Cologne community of Modern Times. Oppenheim traded with cotton, linen, oil, wine and tobacco but his main activity was banking. Already in 1810 his bank was the second largest in Cologne after „Abraham Schaffhausen“. Within the new Cologne Jewish community, Oppenheim took an outstanding position in the social and political life. He was in charge of the community school but he was also the deputy of the Cologne community, who sent him to the congress of Jewish Notables in Paris in 1806-1807.
A modest hall of prayer was built inside the court of the former Monastery of St. Clarissa in Glockengasse. The land was bought by Benjamin Samuel Cohen, one of the Jewish communal leaders in the early 1800s, taking advantage of a property sale by the French tax-office. Even if in those times a row of Jewish business people experienced an economic and social rise – Oppenheim jr. was elected unanimously to be a member of the Chamber of Commerce and had for the first time as a Jew a public office – their legal status was unsecure.
The Prussian Jews Edict of March 11, 1912 didn’t apply everywhere. It lasted until the Prussian Jewish Law of 1847 and finally until 1848, with the adoption of the constitutional charter for the Prussian State
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
, the special status of the Jews was definitely abolished and a complete equality of rights with all other citizens was attained. During the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states
Revolutions of 1848 in the German states
The Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, also called the March Revolution – part of the Revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many countries of Europe – were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the German Confederation, including the Austrian Empire...
in 1848/49 there were strong anti-Jewish excesses in Eastern and South-eastern German regions and towns like Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Prag and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
- but also Cologne.
Due to the growth of the community and the disrepair of the prayer hall in the former Monastery of St. Clarissa, the Oppenheim family
Oppenheim family
The Oppenheim Family is a German-Jewish financial dynasty, which has been a prominent family in banking and finance in the European markets since at least the 18th century. According to Forbes Magazine's Family Dynasties, the Oppenheim Family divides control of their multi-billion dollar fortune...
donated a new synagogue building at Glockengasse 7. The number of the members of the community was now about of 1,000 adults. While in Medieval times the „quarter“ had been built close to the synagogue in Cologne „Judengasse“, by now the Jews lived in a decentralized area among the rest of the population. Many lived in the new periphery quarters near the city walls.
Due to further growth of the Jewish population, more new constructions followed the one in Glockengasse. The orthodox synagogue in St. Apern Straße was dedicated on January 16, 1884; the liberal synagogue in Roonstraße
Roonstrasse Synagogue
Roonstrasse Synagogue, located in Cologne, Germany, is one of the five pre-Nazi synagogues of the locality, which was destroyed on November 9, 1938 during nation-wide attacks on Jewish interests when Germany was under Nazi rule. The synagogue was subsequently rebuilt during the 1950s...
was dedicated on March 22, 1899.
In the face of historical experiences in Europe, the Jews started initiatives to create their own state. The head office of the Zionist Organization for Germany was based in Richmodstraße near Neumarkt square, Cologne, and was founded by lawyer Max Bodenheimer
Max Bodenheimer
----Max Isidor Bodenheimer was a lawyer and one of the main figures in German Zionism.In 1914, he was one of co-founders of German Committee for Freeing of Russian Jews, and seems to be an author of conception of establishment League of East European States-German client state with autonomous...
together with merchant David Wolffsohn
David Wolffsohn
David Wolffsohn was a Jewish businessman, prominent early Zionist and second president of the Zionist Organization .Wolffsohn was born in Darbėnai, Lithuania, to religious parents, Isaac and Feiga. He received an observant religious education from his parents and in 1872 was sent to Germany to...
. Bodeheimer was president until 1910 and worked for Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
with Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl , born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl was an Ashkenazi Jew Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the State of Israel.-Early life:...
. The „Kölner Thesen“ developed under Bodenheimer for Zionism were - with few adjustments - adopted as the „Basel Program “ by the first Zionist Congress
World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization , or WZO, was founded as the Zionist Organization , or ZO, in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress, held from August 29 to August 31 in Basel, Switzerland...
. The goal of the organization was to obtain the foundation of a distinct state of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
for all the Jews of the world.
The conservative synagogue in Glockengasse
After the constant growth of the community the hall of prayer at Glockengasse was overloaded. A donation of the Cologne banker Abraham OppenheimOppenheim family
The Oppenheim Family is a German-Jewish financial dynasty, which has been a prominent family in banking and finance in the European markets since at least the 18th century. According to Forbes Magazine's Family Dynasties, the Oppenheim Family divides control of their multi-billion dollar fortune...
of around 600,000 thaler
Thaler
The Thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in various currencies as the dollar or tolar. Etymologically, "Thaler" is an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", a coin type from the city of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, where some of the first such...
s allowed the construction of a new synagogue. The project was won by Ernst Friedrich Zwirner
Ernst Friedrich Zwirner
Ernst Friedrich Zwirner was an architect born at Jakobswalde in Silesia in 1802, he died at Cologne in 1861. He studied in Breslau and Berlin, and worked at the latter place under Karl Friedrich Schinkel....
, leading architect of the Cathedral of Cologne, who designed a building in Moorish style. The new synagoge was inaugurated after four years of construction in August 1861. The inner and outside design was to remind the bloom of Jewish culture during 11th-century Moorish
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. The new synagogue had a façade of light sandstone with red horizontal stripes as well as oriental minaret
Minaret
A minaret مناره , sometimes مئذنه) is a distinctive architectural feature of Islamic mosques, generally a tall spire with an onion-shaped or conical crown, usually either free standing or taller than any associated support structure. The basic form of a minaret includes a base, shaft, and gallery....
and a cupola covered with copper plates. The ornaments in the inside were inspired by the Alhambra
Alhambra
The Alhambra , the complete form of which was Calat Alhambra , is a palace and fortress complex located in the Granada, Andalusia, Spain...
of Granada
Granada
Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
. The new synagogue, which was valued positively by Cologne people, had seats for 226 men and 140 women.
While set on fire in November 1938, the rolls of the Torah of 1902 could be saved, thanks to the Cologne priest Gustav Meinertz. After the war they were placed in a glass cabinet in Roonstrasse Synagogue. After a restoration, carried out in Jerusalem in 2007, they are now used again in the liturgies in Roonstrasse Synagogue
Roonstrasse Synagogue
Roonstrasse Synagogue, located in Cologne, Germany, is one of the five pre-Nazi synagogues of the locality, which was destroyed on November 9, 1938 during nation-wide attacks on Jewish interests when Germany was under Nazi rule. The synagogue was subsequently rebuilt during the 1950s...
, rebuilt after the war.
The orthodox synagogue in St. Apern-Straße
The St. Aper Straße Synagogue already existed during the middle of 18th century. It was located in a mixed-use area, appreciated by affluent citizens. There were many exquisite antique shops, in which mostly Jewish owners sold expensive furniture and jewels. In 1884, these inhabitants built a synagogue of the orthodox community „Adass Jeschurun“. The last rabbi was Isidor Caro who died in Theresienstadt concentration campTheresienstadt concentration camp
Theresienstadt concentration camp was a Nazi German ghetto during World War II. It was established by the Gestapo in the fortress and garrison city of Terezín , located in what is now the Czech Republic.-History:The fortress of Terezín was constructed between the years 1780 and 1790 by the orders...
.
In the associated Jawne
Jawne
The Jawne was a Jewish Reformrealgymnasium in Cologne.- Name :The school took its name from the town Yavne near Tel Aviv, where the Jewish Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, after the destruction of Jerusalem in year 70 D.C., tried to maintain the Jewish traditions with a school of Jewish law.- History...
School, a Jewish school, there were courses from 1919 to 1941. It was the first and only Jewish gymnasium in the Rhineland.
The liberal synagogue in Roonstraße
By the end of 1899, the Jewish community in Cologne had grown to 9,745 members. Already in 1893, the community had bought a piece of land on Roonstraße - opposite the Königsplatz. In 1894, the Representative Assembly of the city voted for a grant of 40,000 marks from the city treasury. It was estimated that the cost of the new building would be about 550,000 marks. To cover this sum a substantial loan was made with the ‘’Prussian Zentralbodenkredit Aktiengesellshaft’’. The synagogue was finished in 1899 and had place for 763 men and 587 women in the gallery. A historical photo was considered worth to be put in the photo archive of the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem. The structure has been seriously damaged during the war but it was decided to rebuild it. The reopened synagogue was dedicated on September 20, 1959.The synagogue in Reischplatz in Deutz
The synagogue in Mülheim
The first synagogue of the community of Köln-Mülheim was damaged by a Rhine flood in 1784 - as was the one in Deutz. A new synagogue was dedicated in the same place a few years later, designed by the master-builder Wilhelm Hellwig in 1788/1789.The disposition of the construction began on the street with a school, on which a synagogue was attached with a hip roof on four sides. The building survived the 1938 pogrom but was damaged during the war and demolished in 1956.
Jewish community in Zündorf
The synagogue in NiederzündorfZündorf
Zündorf is a suburb of Cologne, Germany and part of the district of Porz. Zündorf lies on the right bank of the river Rhine, between Langel and Porz. Zündorf has 12.229 inhabitants and covers an area of 8,12 km²....
was at the beginning a prayer room, that had not enough space after the strong growth of the community in the 19th century. In 1882 a new building was completed, and the „Zündorfer Pfarrchronik“ wrote:
- „The Jewish synagogue has been finished after much effort, the ceremony took place with the participation of many foreign Jews.“
The land (today Hauptstr. 159) was sold and partly donated to the community by two Jewish business people from there, „Lazarus Meyer“ und „Simon Salomon“.
The Pfarrchronik also wrote:
- „The Jews built a synagogue, that is a room, a chamber that served as a synagogue. The offering from the Jews of the Rhine province has supposedly reached a meager result.“
Other buildings and meeting houses
- Jewish asylum for ill and old people in Silvanstraße (Severinsviertel), later Ottostraße, EhrenfeldEhrenfeldEhrenfeld is "field of honor" in German.Ehrenfeld may refer to:* Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania* Ehrenfeld, Cologne, borough of the city of Cologne, Germany* Ehrenfeld Group, an anti-Nazi resistance group centered in CologneEhrenfeld is the surname of:...
. - Community and meeting houses located in InnenstadtInnenstadt, CologneInnenstadt is the central city district of the City of Cologne in Germany.The district was established with the last communal land reform in 1975, and comprises Cologne's historic old town , the Gründerzeit era new town plus the right-Rhenish district of Deutz...
, south of the Neumarkt, in Bayardgasse, in Thieboldsgasse, Agrippastraße and Quirinstraße behind the Church of St. PantaleonChurch of St. PantaleonThe Church of St. Pantaleon is an early Romanesque church in Cologne, Germany. The church dates back to the 10th Century and is the oldest of the twelve Romanesque churches of Cologne. The former monastery church is consecrated to Saint Pantaleon and the Saints Cosmas and Damian. The empress...
. These houses were also meeting points for Jews who came to Cologne from East European countries.
Jewish cemetery at Melaten
It is not clear in which year a Jewish cemetery was created as part of the large cemetery of Melaten. Until 1829, only Catholics could be buried there, while Protestants were buried in the old Geusen cemetery in Weyertal. The Jewish community buried its dead people until 1918 in Deutz and then in Bocklemünd. However, in 1899 also a section of Melaten cemetery was reserved to the Jews. In 1899 there was the first burial. A part of the piece of land bordering a high wall can still be seen from the Melatengürtel street. In 1928, the cemetery was violated for the first time, in 1938 the mortuary chapel was destroyed.Deckstein cemetery
Located in Köln-Lindenthal, behind the area of the old Deckstein cemetery, this cemetery was created in 1910 from the community „Adass Jeschurun“. The Adass Jeschurun oppose to any concession to Christian rituals. So there is no burial in a coffin or urn. Also flower decorations or wreath are not common. The tombstones of the cemetery are very sober and predominantly engraved with Hebrew letters. Entry is not open to the public. (A permit must be asked to the Synagogengemeinde Köln)Integration and business community
The Jewish business community was optimistic for the future. In 1891, the merchant Leonhard TietzLeonhard Tietz
Leonhard Tietz was born March 3, 1849 in Birnbaum an der Warthe, Province of Posen, Prussia and died November 14, 1914)...
opened a department store on Hohe Straße
Hohe Straße
Hohe Straße is a shopping street in the old town of Cologne, Germany, and one of the city's both oldest and busiest streets. Together with many of its adjacent side streets, Hohe Straße is part of a designated pedestrian zone and spans about 680 meters from Cologne Cathedral on its Northern end to...
. The banks of Seligmann und Oppenheim flourished. The store of the textile whole sale company „Gebrüder Bing und Söhne“ opened on the Neumarkt. Exquisite shops of Jewish merchants were situated around the cathedral on Hohe Straße and Schildergasse
Schildergasse
The Schildergasse is a shopping street in central Cologne, Germany, and with 13,000 people passing through every hour, it is the busiest shopping street in Europe...
.
By the middle of the 19th century, Cologne developed into a scientific, economic and cultural centre, and the Jewish population had a strong part in this development. After Jewish citizens had taken their place in the financial and commercial world, and while being respected and recognized most places, they also tried to contribute in the forming of the political opinion.
Examples of this are Moses Hess
Moses Hess
Moses Hess was a Jewish philosopher and socialist, and one of the founders of Labor Zionism.-Life:Hess was born in Bonn, which was under French rule at the time. In his French-language birth certificate, his name is given as "Moises"; he was named after his maternal grandfather...
und Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, who in 1842 wrote in the newly established "Rheinische Zeitung
Rheinische Zeitung
The Rheinische Zeitung was a 19th-century German newspaper, edited most famously by Karl Marx.The paper was founded on January 1, 1842 with a reformist pro-democracy editorial slant, providing an outlet for the Rhine region's middle-class and intellectuals, who were increasingly opposed to...
". In this newspaper, dedicated to „politics, business and trade“, they were among the leading contributors. In 1863, Hess - in his article „Rome and Jerusalem“ - tried to present a possibility of a resettlement of Jews in Palestine. His work found however little approval; the Jews in Germany
History of the Jews in Germany
The presence of Jews in Germany has been established since the early 4th century. The community prospered under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades...
, especially in large cities like Cologne, considered Germany as their country of origin and home.
First World War and Weimar Republic
Just at the beginning of the First World War, the Jewish associations called their members to stand up for Germany. However the existing ressentimentRessentiment
Ressentiment , in philosophy and psychology, is a particular form of resentment or hostility. It is the French word for "resentment" . Ressentiment is a sense of hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, that is, an assignment of blame for one's frustration...
against Jews participating to the war was so strong, especially among officers, that the Ministry of War was compelled as a mediation to arrange a so called Jewish census. At the end of the war in 1918, Adolf Kober
Adolf Kober
Adolf Kober was a rabbi and a historian.- Life :Kober studied History, Philosophy and Oriental Languages at the University of Wrocław and received a PhD there in 1903 with a thesis on the medieval history of the Jews in Cologne...
took the place of rabbi of the Cologne community, which was one of the largest in Germany. Kober was one of the co-sponsors of the exhibition of the Jewish history in the „Millennium-Exhibition of the Rhineland“, that took place at the Cologne trade fair
Cologne Trade Fair
Koelnmesse is the name of the international trade fair and exhibition center located in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany...
grounds in 1925. By 1918 the Jewish cemetery of Bocklemünd was opened, which is still in use today.
National Socialism and Second World War
With the takeover of the political power by the NazisNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
repression against the Jewish citizens of Cologne started again. In spring 1933 15,000 inhabitants declared to the population census they were Jewish. Until then there were 6 Synagogues and other Community and meeting places in Cologne. They were all violated in the Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
on November 9, 1938 and were completely destroyed after the war, until the reconstruction of the synagogue in Roonstraße.
Antisemitism in Cologne
Also in Cologne there were nazi and anti-Semitic attitudes in population and society. In fact Cologne politicians like Konrad AdenauerKonrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...
or writers like Heinrich Böll
Heinrich Böll
Heinrich Theodor Böll was one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers. Böll was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.- Biography :...
demonstrated a spirit of defiance and sovereignty that „no tyrant, no dictator can feel well in Cologne“
Finally few Cologne people made an open opposition against Nazism or hid Jews (a known example of this is the Ehrenfeld Group
Ehrenfeld Group
The Ehrenfeld Group , was an anti-Nazi resistance group, active in the summer and autumn of 1944....
). The agitation against Judaism and Cologne Jews found no contrast, so in the anti-Semitic pieces of the Hänneschen-Theater or also in Cologne Carnival
Cologne carnival
The Cologne Carnival is a carnival that takes place every year in Cologne, Germany. Traditionally, the "fifth season" is declared open at 11 minutes past 11 on the 11th of November. The Carnival spirit is then temporarily suspended during the Advent and Christmas period, and picks up again in...
, in which no clear criticism against National Socialism was exhibited, instead . Carnival carriages in the Rosenmontag parade showed anti-Semitic themes and a carnival song mocked „Metz dä Jüdde es jetz Schluß, Se wandere langsam uss. (...) Mir laachen uns für Freud noch halv kapott. Der Itzig und die Sahra trecke fott“.
Aryanization
The so called AryanizationAryanization
Aryanization is a term coined during Nazism referring to the forced expulsion of so-called "non-Aryans", mainly Jews, from business life in Nazi Germany and the territories it controlled....
proceeded in two phases. The first between January 1933 and November 1938 was the „voluntary“ Aryanization. In the official version it was stated as a voluntary change of property between a Jewish and a non Jewish contract partner. This willingness was achieved selling „voluntarily“ a shop, a practice, a bar, a pharmacy or a company, through a business transaction described in the following. Increasingly business people decorated their shops or their advertising with opportunistic slogans.. One saw printed or handwritten writings with a number of words, for example: „German shop“, „German goods“ or also „Christian shop“. Painted David stars or defamation slogans on the walls or windows of the Jews followed. Announcements were made by the local NSDAP, in which lists of specified companies with the names of the Jewish owners were supplied.
On April 1, 1933, in the day of the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses
Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses
The Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany took place on 1 April 1933, soon after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor on 30 January 1933...
, members of NS-organizations placed themselves in front of Jewish shops also in Cologne and forbid the entrance to customers. The Jewish merchant Richard Stern, who had fought in the first world war, distributed a leaflet against the boycott and placed himself with ostentation with his Iron Cross
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....
near the SA-poster in front of his shop.
The repression against Jewish businessmen took such an effect that the population avoided buying in these shops and the owners lost their means of existence. Jewish merchants tried to hold out against such a pressure to have a compensation for their property. The newspapers were in succession stacked with announces about failures and acquisitions of Jewish companies.
The second phase of Aryanization started after November 1938, but the Party acted more openly.
Jewish property on companies or buildings were with state laws „arianized by force“. They were forced to sell their property under the market value. It stroke by example the company „Deka-Schuh, Leopold Dreyfuß“ in Ehrenfeld, the neckties whole sale „Herbert Fröhlich“ in the Streitzeuggasse, the butcher and snack bar „Katz-Rosenthal“, the fashion boutique „Michel“ (later Jacobi) and the clothing house „Bamberger“ (later Hansen). Particularly hard were struck the numerous Jewish shops on the Hohe Straße and Schildergasse, there one over three shops were aryanized.
Together with the shops and their names trusted from the Cologne people also their owners were blown away. These measures ended up with persecution and deportation
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
of Cologne Jews.
The day of boycott was also directed against Jewish lawyers and doctors. On March 31 there were violent attacks of SA and SS to Jewish lawyers in the Justice building on Reichensperger Platz: judges and lawyers were arrested, partly mistreated, then loaded on garbage trucks and taken around the city.
As in October 1935 Jews were excluded from the benefits of the "Winterhelp of the German People", a "Jewish Winterhelp" was organized as an autonomous organization. It collected money,food, clothing, furniture and fuel. In winter 1937/38 there were 2.300 indigent supported by this organisation. It was a fifth of the community members.
Ehrenfeld
Although already in 1925 Cologne was the capital of the NSDAP-Gau of Cologne-Aachen, many didn’t realize the growing radicalness of this party. Still in 1927 the Synagogue in Körnerstraße was built as the last construction of the Jewish community of Cologne by the architect Robert Stern. It was dedicated to „the glory of God, the truth of faith and the peace of mankind“.The synagogue in Körnerstraße had a small vestibule surrounded with arches. With the observation of the division by sex, the prayer room had 200 seats for men and 100 for women. The latter were located in a women gallery, as in many other places. The Jewish population in Ehrenfeld reached 2000 people. The synagogue had also a ritual bath, that was discovered through excavations in Körnerstraße.
A plaque in Körnerstraße remembers the destroyed synagogue and its attached religion school:
"In this place there was the Synagogue of Ehrenfelder, connected to a Religion school for girls and boys, built in 1927 according to the plan of Architect Robert Stern, destroyed in the day after the pogrom of Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938"
At the place of the Synagogue there is now an air-raid shelter
Air-raid shelter
Air-raid shelters, also known as bomb shelters, are structures for the protection of the civil population as well as military personnel against enemy attacks from the air...
, built in the years 1942-43, which is protected as a historical monument since 1995.
Müngersdorf concentration camp
After the organized and controlled destruction of lives, properties and establishments in the whole country, the anti-Semitic politics intensified also in Cologne. Jewish children could not attend any German school. Before January 1, 1939 all the Jews were excluded from the economic life and constrained to forced labor. They were expropriated, renters were deprived of rent control.In total, more than 40% of the Jewish population emigrated before September 1939. In May 1939 the Jewish population was 8,406 with another 2,360 Mischlinge, persons of mixed Jewish ancestry. When war came in September 1939, the remainder of Cologne Jewry became subject to an all-night curfew, their special food rations were far below that of the general population, they were officially forbidden to use public transport and, when allied bombing began, to use public air raid shelters.
In May 1941 the Cologne Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
started to concentrate all Jewish from Cologne in so called Jewish houses. From there they were transferred to the barracks in Fort V in Müngersdorf. The ghettoisation was the preparation for the deportation to exterminations camps. In September 1941 the "Police order about the identification of Jews" obliged all Jewish people in the German Reich more than six years old to wear a yellow badge
Yellow badge
The yellow badge , also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments in order to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism...
sewed to the left side of the garment.
Deportation from Deutz
In October 21, 1941 the first transport left Cologne for Lodz, the last one was sent to Theresienstadt on October 1, 1944. Immediately before the transport the fair hall in Cologne-Deutz was used as a detention camp. The transports left from the underground part of the Köln Messe/Deutz Station. For the deported people Lodz, Theresienstadt, Riga, Lublin and other Ghettos and camps in the east were only a transit station: from here followed the deportation to extermination camps, to almost sure death.Of special note was the deportation to Minsk on July 20, 1942, of Jewish children and some of their teachers, among them Erich Klibansky
Erich Klibansky
Erich Klibansky was headmaster and teacher of Jawne, the first Jewish Gymnasium of Rhineland in Cologne.-Life:...
. The last to be deported in 1943 were Jewish communal workers. After that deportation the only Jews remaining were those in mixed marriages and their children, many of whom were deported in the fall of 1944.
Out of Müngersdorf and Deutz were situated also prisoners and concentration camps on a factory site in Porz Hochkreuz and also in the nearby place of Brauweiler
Brauweiler
Brauweiler is a part of Pulheim, west of Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.The former Benedictine abbey, Brauweiler Abbey, founded 1024, is used today by the Rhein Department for the Care of Historic Monuments....
.
When the Us troops occupied Cologne in March 6, 1945 they could free only between 30 and 40 Jewish men, who had survived in hiding.
Post war
Of the 19,500 Jewish citizens of Cologne in 1930, about 11,000 were killed during the nazi regime.Some of them were also killed after they left Germany to avoid nazi persecution. Among others, the Cologne lawyer Siegmund Klein and his son Walter Klein were killed in Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, after being deported respectively from Holland and France in 1943 and 1942.
The survivors of the Cologne community re-gathered in the ruins of the Ehrenfeld asylum, whose main building had been preserved to a large extent, for a new beginning.
In Ottostraße a synagogue was also momentarily arranged, until the community could rebuild the Neo-Romanesque Lord’s house at Roonstraße in 1959.
At the first post war Christmas Eve celebrations in 1959, the synagogue and the Cologne memorial for the Victims of the Nazi regime were damaged by two members of the extreme rightist Deutsche Reichspartei
Deutsche Reichspartei
For the party that existed in Imperial Germany, see Free Conservative Party.The Deutsche Reichspartei was a nationalist political party in West Germany...
, who were later arrested. The synagogue was dirtied with black, white and red color, at which Swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
and the slogan „Juden raus“ was added.
Rabbis active in Cologne in the postwar period were Zvi Asaria and E. Schereschewski. The Monumenta Judaica exhibition, reflecting 2,000 years of Jewish history and culture in the Rhineland, was shown in 1963–64.
Besides a youth center the community maintained a Jewish home for the aged. The Jewish community numbered 1,358 in 1989 and 4,650 in 2003.
Jewish cemetery in Bocklemünd
The Jewish cemetery of Bocklemünd has been used as a burial place since 1918 and is still used today. The LapidariumLapidarium
A lapidarium is a place where stone monuments and fragments of archaeological interest are exhibited - stone epigraphs, statues, architectural details like columns, cornices and acroterions, as well as tombstones and sarcophagi....
of the cemetery hosts 58 fragments of stones between the 12th and the 15th century, that came from the Jewish cemetery of Judenbüchel in Köln-Raderberg, which was closed in 1695 with the opening of a new cemetery in Deutz and excavated in 1936. People who were buried there were moved to another grave in Bocklemünd.
Jewish centre in Nußbaumerstraße
The today Jewish Ehrenfeld Centre on the Nußbaumerstraße / Ottostraße ist the successor of the „Jewish Hospital of Ehrenfeld“. The hospital survived the nazi times but was damaged by the bomb attacks. In the building gathered the Jewish survivors of the Cologne community.The facilities that exists in the same place, today with the name of „Jüdisches Wohlfahrtszentrum“, have their origin, as the partly conserved building of the old hospital of 1908, in one of the 18th century charitable constructions in „Silvanstraße“, the Israelitische Asyl für Kranke und Altersschwache.
Jewish community in Köln-Riehl
The Union of progressive Jews in Germany (UpJ), founded in Munich in June 1997, is a religious association, who has a small Jewish liberal community in Köln-Riehl. It has about 50 members and calls itself „Jüdische Liberale Gemeinde Köln Gescher LaMassoret e.V.“. The community offers besides regular religious instruction for small children, young and adults.Distinguished Cologne Jews in Modern Times
Since 1861, the following persons have headed the executive board of the Jewish community of Cologne: the physician Doctor Bendix, S.M. Frank (until 1879), Jacob de Longe, Louis Elliel (until 1919), Emil Blumenau (until 1931), the lawyer Doctor H. Frank (until 1933) and consul Albert Bendix until 1939.Until 1857, the community was managed by the Bonn Consistory and its rabbi. The first Cologne rabbi was
- Israel Schwarz (1828–1875), followed by
- Abraham Frank (1839–1917) from 1875,
- Ludwig Rosenthal (1870–1938) from 1897 and from 1906 in charge only of Glockengasse SynagogueGlockengasse synagogueThe Synagogue in Glockengasse was a synagogue in Cologne, that was built according to the plans of the architect of Cologne Dome Ernst Friedrich Zwirner . It was built in the area of the previous Monastery of St...
, - Adolf KoberAdolf KoberAdolf Kober was a rabbi and a historian.- Life :Kober studied History, Philosophy and Oriental Languages at the University of Wrocław and received a PhD there in 1903 with a thesis on the medieval history of the Jews in Cologne...
(1879–1958) from 1918 to 1939, - Isidor Caro (1877–1943) from 1939 to 1942.
The synagogues of the community had the following cantors:
- Isaac Offenbach till 1850,
- Rosenberg since 1851,
- F. Blumenthal from 1876 to 1924,
- E. Kohn till 1936,
- F. Fleishmann, Max Baum and Schallamach after 1930.
All of them contributed to the enrichment of synagogue music.
The rectors of the community school were
- Bernhard Coblenz form 1901 to 1926, and
- Emil Kahn from 1926 to 1938.
Cologne Jews, involved in the larger Jewish community were
- Salomon OppenheimSalomon OppenheimSalomon Oppenheim, Jr. was a German Jewish banker, the founder of the Sal. Oppenheim company.He was born in Bonn, the scion of an illustrious family of "Court Jews" who had served as advisers and moneylenders to the Prince-Archbishops of Cologne in the Rhineland area for several generations...
’s sons Abraham and Simon, and - the founders of ZionismZionismZionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
:- Max BodenheimerMax Bodenheimer----Max Isidor Bodenheimer was a lawyer and one of the main figures in German Zionism.In 1914, he was one of co-founders of German Committee for Freeing of Russian Jews, and seems to be an author of conception of establishment League of East European States-German client state with autonomous...
, - David WolffsohnDavid WolffsohnDavid Wolffsohn was a Jewish businessman, prominent early Zionist and second president of the Zionist Organization .Wolffsohn was born in Darbėnai, Lithuania, to religious parents, Isaac and Feiga. He received an observant religious education from his parents and in 1872 was sent to Germany to...
and - Nahum SokolowNahum SokolowNahum Sokolow was a Zionist leader, author, translator, and a pioneer of Hebrew journalism....
.
- Max Bodenheimer
The most important Jewish names in the economic life of the city during the nineteenth century were
- the bothers Abraham Oppenheim (1804-1878) and
- Simon Oppenheim (1803-1880), active in banking and railroads;
- the brothers Jacob, Loeb and Louis Eltzbacher active in banking; and
- Adolf Silverberg and his son involved in peat-coal.
Jews involved in politics were
- Moses HessMoses HessMoses Hess was a Jewish philosopher and socialist, and one of the founders of Labor Zionism.-Life:Hess was born in Bonn, which was under French rule at the time. In his French-language birth certificate, his name is given as "Moises"; he was named after his maternal grandfather...
(as mentioned above); - the physician Andreas Gottschalk, founder of the Workers’ Club in Cologne; and
- Bernhard Falck, member of the National Assembly from 1919.
Jews involved in the arts were
- the lithographer and painter David Levi Elkan (1808–1865),
- the cantor Isaac Judah Offenbach and his son, the composer Jacques OffenbachJacques OffenbachJacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
, born in Cologne in 1819, - the conductor Ferdinand HillerFerdinand HillerFerdinand Hiller was a German composer, conductor, writer and music-director.-Biography:Ferdinand Hiller was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, where his father Justus was a merchant in English textiles – a business eventually continued by Ferdinand’s brother Joseph...
(1811–1885), kappelmeister in Cologne from 1849 to 1884, - the composer Friedrich Gersheim who taught at the Cologne Conservatory from 1865 to 1874.
During the 1930s Cologne had many Jewish lawyers (125 at number) and doctors.
Memorial sites
- In the church of St. Maria vom Frieden of the Cologne Carmeliten a small archive in the monastery attached to the church keeps the memory of the fellow nun who was killed the 9 August 1942 in Auschwitz concentration campAuschwitz concentration campConcentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, the Jewish Edith SteinEdith SteinSaint Teresia Benedicta of the Cross, sometimes also known as Saint Edith Stein , was a German Roman Catholic philosopher and nun, regarded as a martyr and saint of the Roman Catholic Church...
who converted to the catholic religion.
Image:Köln-Löwenbrunnen-Klibanskplatz-037.JPG|Löwenbrunnen in Klibanskiplatz
Image:Köln Gedenktafel-der-Synagoge-Glockengasse-027.JPG|Memorial plaque for the synagogue in Glockengasse
Image:Köln Gedenktafel-des-alten-Polizeigebäudes-Schildergasse-030.JPG|Police building in Schildergasse, seat of Gestapo 1933/35
Image:Köln-Deutz-Reischplatz-.JPG| Memorial plaque in Reischplatz 6
Image:Kleinstolpersteine.jpg|Stolpersteine in front of Blumenthalstrasse 23 in remembrance of Siegmund, Helene und Walter Klein
- In the Jewish cemetery in Köln-Bocklemünd two memorials remember the Jewish victims. One memorial keeps the memory of the members of the Cologne synagogue community who died in Theresienstadt with the acting rabbi until 1942 Isidor Caro (born in Znin-Poland 16.10.1877-deported to Theresienstadt 16.6.1942-deported to Auschwitz 28.8.1943). A street has been named after rabbi Caro in Köln-Stammheim. A second memorial plaque keeps the memory of all the victims of the Synagogue community of Cologne.
- The memorial "Die Gefangenen", 1943, created by Ossip ZadkineOssip ZadkineOssip Zadkine was a Belarusian-born artist who lived in France. He is primarily known as a sculptor, but also produced paintings and lithographs.-Early years and career:...
, stays on the honor monument of the Westfriedhof, Köln-Bocklemünd - Memorial plaque in Ehrenfeld, Körnerstraße
- A bronze plaque remembers the Synagogue in GlockengasseGlockengasse synagogueThe Synagogue in Glockengasse was a synagogue in Cologne, that was built according to the plans of the architect of Cologne Dome Ernst Friedrich Zwirner . It was built in the area of the previous Monastery of St...
near today's Opera HouseCologne OperaThe Cologne Opera refers both to the main opera house in Cologne, Germany and to its resident opera company.-History of the company:... - A memorial plaque in St. Apern-Straße/ corner with Helenenstraße (on the side of the hotel) is dedicated to the Synagogue of St. Apern-Straße. In front of the hotel building on the small Erich Klibansky PlatzErich Klibansky PlatzThe Erich Klibansky Platz in Cologne quarter Altstadt-Nord, located on Helenenstraße, takes the name of Erich Klibansky, the one-time and last headmaster of the Reformrealgymnasium Jawne. It took his name in 1990.- Location :...
you can see the Löwenbrunnen (1997) - Memorial plaque for the victims of Gestapo in Krebsgasse
- Memorial plaque in Reischplatz 6 in Deutz for the last of the three Deutz synagogues (Haus der Polizeistation)
- Memorial plaque on Messeturm KölnMesseturm KölnThe Messeturm Köln is a highrise building 80 meters high in Cologne, Germany. Its top floor features a tower restaurant.-External links:*http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b7347...
, Kennedy-Ufer - Memorial plaque at Stadtpark, Walter-Binder-Weg
- StolpersteineStolpersteineStolperstein is the German word for "stumbling block", "obstacle", or "something in the way". The artist Gunter Demnig has given this word a new meaning, that of a small, cobblestone-sized memorial for a single victim of Nazism...
of the artist Gunter DemnigGunter DemnigGunter Demnig is a German artist. He is best known for his "Stolperstein" memorials to the victims of Nazi persecution and oppression in Nazi Germany.- Biography :...
in front of the houses where victims of the nazis lived assures the remembrance of these Jews.
The Judengasse, near the Rathaus, reminds of the former Jewish quarter. During French annexion of Cologne, the Judengasse was given the name „Rue des Juifs“, but renamed to its old name shortly after. Today, this area has no residential buildings.
Cologne Jewish Museum
The municipality of Cologne, in the frame of the Regionale 2010, plans to build an „archeological area“ as an archaeological-historical museum. In this context a Jewish museum should arise between the historical Rathaus and the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum over the basement of the first Cologne synagogues and ritual bath.The construction has been decided in the Council but is opposed by politics and the people, because the town looses a free square in front of the historical Rathaus. At present there are excavations on the designated site for the first time since 1950, in which part of the synagogue of the Jewish quarter should be uncovered.
See also
- History of the Jews in GermanyHistory of the Jews in GermanyThe presence of Jews in Germany has been established since the early 4th century. The community prospered under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades...
- History of CologneHistory of CologneThe History of Cologne, Germany's oldest major city, can be broken into several periods.- Roman period :In 39 BC, the tribe of the Ubii entered into an agreement with the Roman forces and settled on the left bank of the Rhine. Their headquarters was Oppidum Ubiorum — the settlement of the Ubii, and...
- Yiddish languageYiddish languageYiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
Sources
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- Zvi Avneri: Germania Judaica. Bd. 2: Von 1238 bis zur Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts, Tübingen 1968.
- Barbara Becker-Jákli: Das jüdische Krankenhaus in Köln; die Geschichte des Israelitischen Asyls für Kranke und Altersschwache 1869–1945, 2004. ISBN 3-89705-350-0 (mit Ergänzungen zum Nachbau)
- Johannes Ralf Beines: Die alte Synagoge in Deutz in Rechtsrheinisches Köln, Jahrbuch für Geschichte und Landeskunde. Geschichts- und Heimatverein Rechtsrheinisches Köln e. V. Band 14.
- Michael Berger: Eisernes Kreuz und Davidstern. Die Geschichte Jüdischer Soldaten in Deutschen Armeen, trafo Verlag, 2006. ISBN 3-89626-476-1
- Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken: Privilegien Karls IV. für die Stadt Köln. in: Blatter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 114. 1978, p. 243 - 264.
- Michael Brocke/Christiane Müller: „Haus des Lebens. Jüdische Friedhöfe in Deutschland“. Verlag Reclam, Leipzig 2001. ISBN 978-3-379-00777-1
- Isaac Broydé: Cologne in Jewish Encyclopedia, 1902
- Alexander Carlebach, Cologne in Encyclopaedia Judaica, TThe Gale Group, 2008
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- Werner Eck: Köln in römischer Zeit. Geschichte einer Stadt im Rahmen des Imperium Romanum. H. Stehkämper (Hrsg.), Geschichte der Stadt Köln in 13 Bänden, Bd. 1. Köln 2004,S. 325ff. ISBN 3-7743-0357-6.
- Liesel Franzheim: Juden in Köln von der Römerzeit bis ins 20. Jahrhundert. Köln 1984.
- Marianne Gechter, Sven Schütte: Ursprung und Voraussetzungen des mittelalterlichen Rathauses und seiner Umgebung, in: Walter Geis und Ulrich Krings (Hrsg.): Köln: Das gotische Rathaus und seine historische Umgebung. Köln 2000 (Stadtspuren - Denkmäler in Köln; 26), p. 69-196.
- Frantisek Graus: Pest-Geißler-Judenmorde. Das 14. Jahrhundert als Krisenzeit. Göttingen 1988.
- Monika Grübel: Seit 321 Juden in Köln, Kurzführer, Köln 2005. extract
- Monika Grübel und Georg Mölich: "Jüdisches Leben im Rheinland. Vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart". ISBN 3-412-11205-4.
- Alfred Haverkamp: Zur Geschichte der Juden im Deutschland des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit. Stuttgart 1981.
- Alfred Haverkamp: Die Judenverfolgungen zur Zeit des Schwarzen Todes im Gesellschaftsgefüge deutscher Städte. in: Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 24. 1981, p. 27-93.
- Wilhelm Janssen: Die Regesten der Erzbischöfe von Köln im Mittelalter, Bonn/Köln 1973.
- Adolf KoberAdolf KoberAdolf Kober was a rabbi and a historian.- Life :Kober studied History, Philosophy and Oriental Languages at the University of Wrocław and received a PhD there in 1903 with a thesis on the medieval history of the Jews in Cologne...
: Cologne, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia 1940 (available online). - Shulamit S. Magnus: Jewish Emancipation in a German City: Cologne, 1798-1871 ,Stanford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0804726442
- Ulrike Mast-Kirschning: Zwischen Dom und Davidstern. Jüdisches Leben in Köln. Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln. ISBN 3-462-03508-8
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- Alexander Patschovsky: Feindbilder der Kirche: Juden und Ketzer im Vergleich (11. - 13. Jahrhundert). in: Alfred Haverkamp (Hrsg.): Juden und Christen zur Zeit der Kreuzzüge. Sigmaringen 1999, p. 327 - 357.
- Elfi Pracht-Jörns: Jüdisches Kulturerbe in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Teil 1: Regierungsbezirk Köln, Köln 1997
- Robert Wilhelm Rosellen: Geschichte der Pfarreien des Dekanates Brühl. J. P. Bachem, Köln 1887
- Matthias Schmandt: Judei, cives et incole: Studien zur jüdischen Geschichte Kölns im Mittelalter. Forschungen zur Geschichte der Juden Bd. 11. Hanover 2002. ISBN 3-7752-5620-2
- Kurt Schubert: Jüdische Geschichte. München 2007.
- Sven Schütte: Der Almemor der Kölner Synagoge um 1270/80 - Gotische Kleinarchitektur aus der Kölner Dombauhütte. Befunde Rekonstruktion und Umfeld. in: Colonia Romanica. Jahrbuch des Fördervereins Romanische Kirchen in Köln XIII. 1998, p. 188-215.
- Arnold Stelzmann: „Illustrierte Geschichte der Stadt Köln.“ Verlag Bachem, Köln 1958. Verlagsnummer 234758
- M. Toch: Siedlungsstruktur der Juden Mitteleuropas im Wandel vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit. in: A. Haverkamp u. Ziwes, (Hrsg.): Juden in der christlichen Umwelt während des späten Mittelalters. Berlin 1992, p. 29 - 39.
- Markus J. Wenniger: Zum Verhältnis der Kölner Juden zu ihrer Umwelt im Mittelalter. In: Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz, Paul Eckert Willehad, u.a. (Hrsg.): Köln und das rheinische Judentum. Festschrift Germania Judaica 1959 - 1984, Köln 1984 p. 17 - 34.
- Adam Wrede: Neuer Kölnischer Sprachschatz. 3 Bände A – Z, Greven Verlag, Köln, 9. Auflage 1984. ISBN 3-7743-0155-7
- Franz-Josef Ziwes: Studien zur Geschichte der Juden im mittleren Rheingebiet während des hohen und späten Mittelalters. Hannover 1995. ISBN 3-7752-5610-5
External links
- Cologne in Jewish Encyclopedia, 1902
- Adolf Kober, Cologne, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1940
- Alexander Carlebach, Cologne, Encyclopaedia Judaica, TThe Gale Group, 2008
- Geschichte der Jüdischen Liberalen Gemeinde Köln
- Die Geschichte der Kölner Gemeinde by Alexander Tyurin on the Website of the Synagogen-Gemeinde of Cologne