Cologne - Herz Jesu

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".

During WWII Cologne was bombed in 262 separate air raids. In April 1945, when the American armee reached Cologne, the city was completely ruined. About 90% of all houses in the inner city were - gone. In 1939 Cologne had had a population of more than 700.00. In spring 1945 there were only about 40.000, living in the ruins. So most of the buildings in Cologne are pretty "young".

The Herz-Jesu church, erected in the center of the "Zülpicher Platz" from 1893 on, got severely damaged during the air raids. So after WWII only the neo-Gothic tower and a part of the choir could got restored between 1953 and 1957. The nave, seen here, got rebuilt in a modern style.