Cologne’s Municipal Museum

About

The Kölnische Stadtmuseum is the municipal history museum of Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is housed in the former Franz Sauer fashion house since March 2024, which has been completely remodelled for the museum. The site is centrally located between the Minorite Church, Museum Kolumba and Breite Straße. Its collection includes around 350,000 objects from the Middle Ages to the immediate present. The holdings range from the city seal from 1268 to paintings and graphics, militaria, coins, textiles, furniture and everyday objects to material evidence of current Cologne events. Social, economic and cultural history of the last 1200 years can thus be explored both on the individual object and in thematic depth. With the 2024 concept, only a small part of the collection can be made accessible to the public, but it will be placed in the context of cross-epochal emotions that form a central part of the permanent exhibition and deal with social and historical themes in a different way than usual. In its more than 130-year history, the Stadtmuseum has resided under different names and in different buildings in the city area. The current location is also only temporary after the...

At the end of the 19th century, only the Wallraf–Richartz Museum, founded in 1827 and based on the collection of Ferdinand Franz Wallraf, existed as a universal museum – this is considered Cologne's oldest museum. Even before its foundation, weapons and armour that had been taken out of service as well as all kinds of "antiquities" were presented in the armoury. These objects also found their way into the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum via the Wallraf Collection.

Many smaller cities founded historical museums at the end of the 19th century as a result of growing civic commitment – including the Märkisches Museum in Berlin, München and, as early as 1974, the Stadtmuseum in Düsseldorf. It was in times of growing bourgeois historical consciousness the memory of the "old" Cologne, which grew into a modern metropolis during the Industrialization in Germany, and the documentation or preservation of historical buildings and objects. Parallel to the efforts for the historical museum, a Museum of Decorative Arts was also created, which opened only a few weeks before the new history museum.

When the Hahnentorburg [ de ], part of the medieval city fortifications, was renovated in 1888 as part of the city expansion to form Kölner Neustadt [ de ], the question of the building's use came up. One proposal concerned the storage of the model collection of the Cologne Cathedral ; however, the plan of the archive director Konstantin Höhlbaum [ de ] to set up the long-overdue historical museum in the Torburg was successful. In addition, the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum wanted to specialise more in paintings and parts of its collection needed a new location – both decorative arts and those more suitable for the history museum, such as a coin collection. So on 13 July, the Stadtverordnetenversammlung decided to found a historical museum, which then opened on 14 August 1888.

Arthur Pabst, the director of the new Kunsthistorisches Museum, took over the management – on a part-time or honorary basis – until his early retirement in 1894. However, the institution was clearly shaped by his successor Joseph Hansen, who also worked in a dual function as director of the archive and was thus able to systematically process the collection holdings and their inner connections: documents and manuscripts in the archive, "pictorial and figurative illustrative material" into the museum. His museum concept is considered by the current director Mario Kramp [ de ] to be thoroughly modern, as he went beyond the local consideration of Cologne; he considered research, publication and mediation to be equally the task of his institution. Hansen was director until 1924 and managed, for example, to gain the Eigelsteintorburg as a second location in 1902. Although this was not considered optimal, it allowed for a somewhat larger permanent exhibition. Since there was no depot, the substructures of the showcases were used as cabinets for coins and parts of the graphic collection.

Two major special exhibitions ("Old and New Cologne") were held in 1913 and 1914 in the halls of the Sonderbund exhibition. The historical city model was also created at this time and remains one of the most important exhibits in the permanent exhibition to this day. A proposal by Hansen in 1912 to house the holdings in a larger context in the Zeughaus as a central museum building could not be realised in the following years due to the World War, among other things. By the First World War, however, the History Museum had established itself in such a way that it could consistently record around 20,000 visits annually.

At the beginning of 1925, the historical museum was given a full-time director for the first time in the person of Wilhelm Ewald [ de ]. In the same year, the monumental Jahrtausendausstellung der Rheinlande in the Deutz exhibition halls attracted 1.3 million visitors. This gave rise to the plan for a Rhine History or Rhenish Museum under Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer. This was also to be set up on the right bank of the river in the former barracks of the Deutz cuirassiers and take over the holdings of the millennium exhibition.

The official decision to found the new museum was taken by the Cologne City Council on 1 April 1926. In the same year, Wilhelm Ewald – who was appointed director – presented an "extremely ambitious and progressive museum concept for its time". In addition to a display collection for the "uprooted [...] masses", the concept emphasised the museum's task as a scientific and educational institution. In terms of time, Ewald spanned from prehistory to the present, and spatially beyond the borders of the Rhine Province, taking into account the diverse relationships with neighbouring regions. Thematically, eight sections were to cover a comprehensive spectrum including fauna and flora, geology and geography in addition to historical representations. The concept also included the Rheinisches Bildarchiv [ de ] for a graphic and photographic collection as well as a Rhenish Library. Konrad Adenauer appealed to the provincial administration for financial subsidies for the new museum, but without forfeiting his own influence.

Initially, however, the intended premises were used in 1928 for the PRESSA exhibition, which was mainly located on the neighbouring exhibition grounds. For this purpose, the architect Adolf Abel redesigned the building with two neoclassical wing buildings connected to each other. It offered 10,000 m 2 of exhibition space and 4,000 m 2 of storage space.

At the same time, the historical museum on the left bank of the Rhine also developed new exhibition concepts for which the space available in the two Torburgen was no longer sufficient. By 1930, the collection areas had been expanded to include the ecclesiastical and economic development of the city as well as public life and administration. Although Ewald was director of both institutions, he pleaded – unlike others – for their independence, since the History Museum was considerably more focused on Cologne than could be possible in a regional museum. It was therefore considered, for example, to move the historical museum into the rooms of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum when the latter was to receive a new building. A concept demanded by Adenauer for the reorganisation of all collections, taking into account the Rhenish Museum, dragged on – apparently also due to wrangling over competences between the directors. Finally, the funds earmarked for the expansion of the two museums had to be saved due to the Great Depression.

In the meantime, a considerable part of the historical museum's collection had been transferred to the Deutz rooms due to the lack of space, as had large parts of the staff. It was soon only a small step before the two museums were united; only the small independent department "Cologne as a Prussian garrison and fortress" remained in the Eigelsteintorburg. Incidentally, the Rhenish Museum, which also took over holdings from other municipal buildings, was never officially opened. The actual History Museum, initially still with its own budget and staff, was eventually "absorbed" by the Rhenish Museum (depending on how it was read) or "sunk" in it.

House of the Rhenish Homeland, under the Nazi regime

Despite taking over diverse collection holdings, the rooms of the Rhenish Museum had never been completely furnished. From 1933, however, parts of the exhibition as well as several special exhibitions could be opened to the public. The museum, now united in Deutz, retained its director Ewald after the seizure of power by the National Socialists. Shortly before its opening, it was given the new name "Haus der Rheinischen Heimat" (House of the Rhenish Homeland) and was inaugurated on 21 May 1936 in the presence of Gauleiter Josef Grohé and Joseph Goebbels (at the same time as the Reichsautobahn section Cologne-Düsseldorf) was inaugurated.

On 6000 square metres, developments since the year 800 in the Rhineland were illuminated in five large departments and around 150 rooms. Prehistory and early history, natural history and, in the ecclesiastical section, the presentation of Judaism with its "extraordinary" collection of Judaica had to be abandoned.

Ewald's basic museum concept fitted into the National Socialist, völkisch propaganda strategy, as a result of which it finally received unexpected support from the new rulers after years of pressure from Lord Mayor Adenauer – after the latter had already been dismissed from office in March 1933. The Political Department planned by Ewald in 1933 could not be realised until the opening; he initially limited himself to the Representation of the National Socialist Movement in the Rhineland, which corresponded to the National Socialist minimum requirement for a museum of local history. However, this too was not complete by the time of the opening. In the following years, the exhibition became increasingly political and the museum policy more opportunistic, which was reflected in propaganda exhibitions such as "Das wehrhafte Deutschland" (1936), "Volksgemeinschaft – Wehrgemeinschaft" (1937). However, these special exhibitions were only partly curated by the museum itself; for the most part, the museum merely provided the rooms for exhibition organisers from various organisations.

Beatrix Alexander from the Stadtmuseum pointed out in 1992 that even in the permanent exhibition the presentation of recent history from 1848 to the remilitarization of the Rhineland followed the National Socialist historical perspective. Apparently, in the years that followed, both visitor numbers and the planned publication activity after the opening of the museum fell far short of the goals and expectations.

With the beginning of the Second World War, individual, particularly valuable pieces were gradually removed from storage without significantly affecting the overall exhibition. From 1942 onwards, the municipal museums closed their permanent exhibitions; the "Haus der Rheinischen Heimat" was the last to remain open. One of the last special exhibitions before the closure due to the war showed works by the sculptor Arno Breker in 1943. At that time, the building had already suffered damage from Allied air raids.

A remarkable detail from this chapter of the museum are the unrealised plans for the construction of the monumental National Socialist Gauforum [ de ] on an area of 300,000 square metres, for which most of Cologne-Deutz would have had to give way. The "Haus der Rheinischen Heimat" and the neighbouring Museum Schnütgen were not (or no longer) included in these plans. In addition, in the context of continuing discussions on the restructuring of Cologne's museum landscape, there were also thoughts of dissolving the museum or dividing it up among other institutions, which Ewald naturally opposed.

Post-war period: Rheinisches und Historisches Museum

In the immediate post-war years, the first task was to bring the outsourced holdings back to Cologne – partly with the support of the US Kunstschutz. Wilhelm Ewald was in Gaibach at the end of the war and negotiated with the occupation authorities himself. Since most of the museum buildings had been destroyed, interim depots were later set up in the city and the surrounding area.