the unassuming building

We went to the remaining site of the Nazi Gestapo oppressions and tortures in Koln which is now a museum and which once housed Jews, Communists and Gypsy’s. It was here that they were tortured and held in the basement awaiting their horrendous and degrading future by these Nazi sadists and this was in the years before World War 2 even started.

The walls in these tiny cells, covered with scrawls from its victims, often confused why they were there and unable to offer any information that would save them from the Nazi peril.

Deep in the basement down a narrow staircase lies the bomb proof bunker where, in a dark and dank corner is a room barely big enough for 2 people, raw bricks and a solid iron door, to keep the screams from being heard by the prisoners kept just metres away.

This takes nothing away from the quite superb Koln Cathedral which escaped bombing during the war as it was used by the allied forces as a co-ordinate to aim from to decimate the city and its inhabitants.

bottled originals of this famed brand

No surprises that Koln was once a key city in the Holy Roman Empire and got its name as a ‘colony’ and hence Cologne for us foreigners.

Bomb proof Cathedral

If you look very carefully at the statue carved into the church below, the one on the second left, second row up and you will see Konrad Von Hochstaden, an archbishop who introduced the wonderfully ridiculous scheme of taxing beer drinkers. This did not go down well as you can imagine and although he has his statue, you will see someone pulling their pants down and showing their backside towards him just under the statue, I guess he upset many beer drinkers!