Historical Archive of the City of Cologne included copies of the protocols of the diets of the Hanseatic League. With the 1594 transfer, the Cologne archive became the most important repository of historical material concerning the Hanseatic League and thus concerning the history of Northern Germany in general, only matched by the municipal archives of Lübeck. On 27 February 1602, the city council ordered that books on jurisdiction and administration were to be systematically bought at the regularly held Frankfurt Book Fair. These were subsequently stored in the municipal archive and became the basis of the Cologne municipal library. The "Ratsbibliothek" was one of the few Cologne
Transport in Cologne German limited access highway ("autobahn") was opened in 1932 between Cologne and Bonn. Today, this is A 555. In 1965 Cologne became the first German city to be fully encircled by a beltway. Shortly after the Second World War reconstruction plans by, among others, Rudolf Schwarz called for a downtown bypass freeway (the ) as a centerpiece of rebuilding the city. These schemes were only partially executed though, due to opposition by environmental groups. The completed section became "Bundesstraße (Federal Road) B 55a" which begins at the "Zoobrücke (Zoo Bridge)" and meets with A 4 and A 3 autobahns at