Cologne - Zoo

Cologne is the fourth-largest city in Germany - and one of the oldest. A Germanic tribe, the Ubii, had a settlement here, this was named by the Romans "Oppidum Ubiorum". In 50 AD, the Romans founded "Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium", the city then became the provincial capital of "Germania Inferior".

An "Actiengesellschaft Zoologischer Garten zu Cöln" was founded in 1858 and the zoo was started in 1860, after a large area north of the center was acquired. The zoo flourished end of the 19th century, but suffered severely under the two worldwars. At the end of WWII the zoo was almost completely destroyed. Only 23 animals had survived.

The zoo was reopened in 1947 and new animals could be purchased. One of them was in 1950 the chimpanzee "Petermann". The chimpanzee grew up without other chimpanzees. The monkey was finally trained to perform tricks and imitate human behavior and developed into a mascot for the Cologne zoo.

At the age of 10 Petermann got more and more aggressive. The "human" socialization to the exclusion of other monkeys led to serious behavioral problems. On October 10 1985, the cage door had not been properly locked and Petermann broke out of his cage. He attacked the zoo director Gunther Nogge, bit him into his head and face. Nogge was badly injured before workers were able to separate Petermann from the victim. Petermann continued his escape and was shot dead on the zoo grounds.

Seen here are Persian onagers. An endangered species of wild asses.