NS Documentation Centre of the City of Cologne NS Documentation Centre of the City of Cologne The NS Documentation Centre of the City of Cologne () was founded by a resolution passed by the Cologne city council on December 13, 1979 and has become the largest regional memorial site in all of Germany for the victims of the Nazis. Since 1988, it has been housed in "EL-DE Haus," the EL-DE building, named for the initials of its owner, Catholic businessman Leopold Dahmen. This building was the headquarters of the Cologne Gestapo (secret police) between December 1935 and March 1945. In the final months of the war, several hundred
History of the Jews in Cologne archbishop vacant, but Charles IV was not near enough to take action. On 23–24 August the relative security of Jews in Cologne came to an end. The Jews, who had already faced slaughter in the surrounding territories, were now also killed in Cologne itself. The actual outcome of the pogrom is not well known. In the course of St. Bartholomew's Night in 1349 the Jewish quarter near the town-hall ("Rathaus") was attacked, after which killing, plundering of Jewish properties, and arson followed. Fugitives were pursued and struck down. Though partly contradictory of each other, many sources testify to the calamity.