History of Cologne City Archive, which was the largest in Germany. Its building collapsed during the construction of an extension to the underground railway system on 3 March 2009. History of Cologne The German city of Cologne was founded in the 1st century as the Roman Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium. It was taken by the Franks in the 5th century and became an important city of Medieval Germany, the seat of an Archbishop and a Prince-Elector. As the Free Imperial City of Cologne it was one of the centers of the Hanseatic League in the early modern period. Most of the city was
History of the Jews in Cologne area of the Cologne Rathaus in 1953 two fully conserved tombstones were found on the northwest corner of the building in a large bomb crater. They probably came from the Jewish cemetery of Judenbüchel and were used as building material. The inscription of the tombstone of Rachel said: The few Jews who remained in the city, began to re-establish a community in right-Rhenish Deutz, whose rabbi called himself later "Country Rabbi of Cologne" ("Landesrabbiner"). 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