Rodenkirchen district, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Rodenkirchen is the second of nine districts in Cologne. The district is located on the west bank of the Rhine in the so-called Rheinbogen. It is the southernmost of the Cologne boroughs on the left bank of the Rhine. Rodenkirchen borders in the north on the first district of the city center, in the east on the seventh district of Porz, in the south on the city of Wesseling, in the south-west on the city of Brühl, in the west on the city of Hürth and in the north-west on the third district of Lindenthal.

The Rodenkirchen district is the southernmost district in Cologne on the left bank of the Rhine. Its center and namesake is the former community of Rodenkirchen, which was incorporated into Cologne in 1975. Its historical town center, picturesquely situated on the Rhine, with the Maternus Chapel, is a popular destination not only for Cologne residents.

The urban development features of the city district in the Rheinbogen that characterize this area are villa quarters from the Wilhelminian era, spacious gardens and avenues with historic trees and expanding contemporary residential areas of high quality. Companies and public institutions as well as clinics and care facilities are housed in many historical villas, as they are especially typical for Marienburg.

The banks of the Rhine in Rodenkirchen and Sürth are also largely characterized by representative villa architecture. Also typical of the south of Cologne are the spacious parks and forest areas, which extend from the southern section of the Cologne green belt along the military ring road via the Marienburg golf course, the forest botanical garden, the Rodenkirchen local recreation area Friedenswald to the forest areas in the Weißer Rheinbogen, which have been reforested since 1960.

In contrast, there are the north-western districts of Raderberg, Raderthal and Zollstock, some of which functioned as industrial locations until the 1980s and have densely built-up working-class quarters.

The south-western part of the city district is characterized by a village and, in terms of settlement geography, belongs to the Cologne area. Between the settlement centers of the individual villages there are still undeveloped open spaces with fields and meadows as well as various new building areas with single-family or terraced houses. In Godorf and Hahnwald, in the vicinity of the refinery center of the Shell group (northern plant of the Rhineland refinery), several commercial and business areas with company branches as well as wholesalers and retail markets were created, which due to the good transport links via the Cologne-Bonn motorway also frequented by foreign visitors and customers from the entire Cologne catchment area.

The residential complex on the Kölnberg in Meschenich, where a high-rise complex was set up in the middle of a rural village in the 1970s, and the modern villa colony Hahnwald, which has been expanded since the 1950s, are incomparable in their settlement structure. The Diakonie Michaelshoven, located between Rodenkirchen and Sürth, which forms a community village with residential buildings and social facilities, is a self-contained and unique structure in terms of its layout.

History
The current area of the city district corresponds roughly to the extent of the mayor’s office of Rondorf in the former canton of Brühl, which was formed at the time of French rule at the end of the 18th century and taken over by the Prussian administration in 1815. The resulting municipality of Rondorf in the district of Cologne was renamed the municipality of Rodenkirchen in 1961, as Rodenkirchen had meanwhile become the capital.

The city district was founded on January 1, 1975 with the incorporation of the formerly independent community of Rodenkirchen and the city of Wesseling into the city of Cologne. In addition, some districts that were incorporated into Cologne as early as 1888 and that had previously belonged to the municipality of Rondorf were reassigned to the city district. With a successful constitutional lawsuit against the Cologne Act, the district of Wesseling was excluded on June 1, 1976 and regained its independence.

Subdivisions
Rodenkirchen is made up of 13 Stadtteile (city parts):

Bayenthal district
The name Bayenthal was first mentioned as a hallway name in 1307. Bayenthal belonged to the mayor’s office of Rondorf until it was incorporated into Cologne in 1888. Only three houses and a lime kiln dominated Bayenthal in 1830. In 1835, however, the Boisserée wood cutting mill was set up, then another, and in the mid-1840s an iron foundry was added on the Rhine. Decisive for the very rapid development to an independent suburb outside the gates of the city of Cologne was the establishment of “Kölnische Maschinenbau AG ” by Gustav Mevissen and HM Goltstein in 1856. More than a thousand workers were employed in this factory towards the end of the 1860s and workers. Most of them lived in Cologne, but some of them also settled near the factories.

Two stages of development in completely opposite directions can be clearly distinguished in Bayenthal. The business area on Alteburgerstrasse and Goltsteinstrasse is characterized by a wide variety of industrial companies that settled here from the second half of the 19th century, as well as by residential developments for the people who work here.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the development of an industrial suburb was ended and the development of a residential suburb began with the establishment of a development plan that structurally connects Bayenthal with Marienburg. Single-family houses were built, embedded in the green, and a new town center was identified, which was formed by the church, the hospital, the Sankt-Josefs-Haus and the post office. Due to a higher construction and a corresponding space design, this center point differs significantly from the structure of its surroundings.

In 1863 a church designed by Vincenz Statz was built for the growing community, which stood on the corner of Goltsteinstrasse and Bonifazstrasse. It was demolished in 1904 after the new St. Matthias Church was inaugurated. In the early 1920s, British occupation buildings and villas on the banks of the Rhine were built, which have been replaced by large office buildings in recent decades. In the 1970s, the premises of the former machine factory between Goltsteinstrasse and Alteburger Strasse were built over with the Allianz-Wohnpark Bayenthal, a high-rise complex with 800 apartments.

Sights
Bismarck Tower, Forum for Photography and Literature House Cologne, Sankt Antonius Hospital with chapel and study institute for municipal administration

St. Antonius Hospital
A largely preserved, multi-parted ensemble, which was built around 1910 in the forms of the late Gothic and the Heimat style, mixed with Art Nouveau influences. The facades are made of brick with ashlar structures, the gable roofs are delimited by gables with corrugated verges. On the west side, Schillerstrasse, the former main entrance portico with stone pillars and a mansard roof has been preserved. Above, in the gable, a figure of Anthony. Unsuccessful, bar-shaped extensions from the 1950s and 1970s are added to the south.

Dormitory St. Josefshaus Bernhardstr.
Old building: three floors, three to nine axes, brick facades with molded and ashlar elements, neo-Gothic (Low German brick Gothic).The St. Josefshaus is a building complex enclosed by a high brick wall, consisting of an old and a new building; a central wing connects the two components. The St. Josefshaus is an important building historical testimony of the suburb for the development of the district after its incorporation in 1888.

Flood pumping station
Built in 2008 according to plans by the Cologne architect Kaspar Kraemer in 2008. Depending on the occasion, it can be illuminated differently, and its light color also indicates the water level and is a spectacular sight, especially in the dark.

Godorf district
Today’s Godorf presents itself as a village in the middle of an industrial landscape. In Godorf, the petrochemical industry with its own port is predominant, in the north an extensive industrial area and in the west the motorway as a border. The street village of Godorf, located near the Rhine, was first mentioned in 1173 as “Gudegedorp”. Numerous finds prove that larger settlements already existed here in Roman and Frankish times. On the “Heldenberg” a mill overlooking the town was built in 1735 by the town miller Jakob Stemmel from Brühl. In the 18th century there was a glassworks south of the mill on the grounds of the Dahmenhof.

Up until the beginning of the 20th century, Godorfer Hauptstrasse was the main settlement area, flanked by stately estates and small farms. The two half-timbered arcade houses, of which there were once numerous examples here and especially in neighboring Wesseling, are unique for Cologne’s urban area. Most of the other old houses along the main street have been heavily changed as a result of renovations, but their proportions are still the historical scale.

In the 1920s and especially after the Second World War, Godorf expanded in a westerly direction with one to two-storey buildings. Godorf was incorporated into Cologne in 1975 as part of the Rodenkirchen community. On the edge of an older settlement area on the historic road to Immendorf are the Catholic parish church of St. Catherine from 1956 and the village cemetery, which, however, has been completely changed in the last decade. The demolition of the two largest and most stately courtyards, the Dahmenhof and the courtyard at Godorfer Hauptstrasse 20, meant a loss to the townscape.

Sights
Port of Cologne-Godorf with adjacent Shell AG refineries, IKEA furniture store, Schützenplatz, arcade houses and windmill with courtyard

In the district area there are industry (including petrochemicals) as well as some half-timbered houses and – in the west of the district – one and two-story residential buildings from the post-war period. The Godorf harbor belongs to Godorf. In 1967 it was the largest transshipment point for lignite in Europe. Several refineries were built near the port of Godorf.

Hahnwald district
The Hahnwald district, newly founded in 1949, was the youngest part of the Rodenkirchen community, which was independent until 1975, making it one of the younger districts of Cologne. The name “Hahnwald” refers to a grove forest that used to be located here, which was called “Hendtgen” in 1610 and “Haalen” around 1800. Hahnwald is one of the most sparsely populated and poorly populated districts of Cologne. In 1950 Hahnwald had 235 inhabitants. In 1967 there were 812 and in 2010 2,079. In the 1980s and 1990s, the district was expanded to the east. In addition to the more conventional villas, important architects also built very unusual houses in a very modern style.

The villa suburb started in the late 1920s and 1930s. After reaching the southern city limits with the Marienburg in Cologne, this was skipped and reoriented in the rural area. One of the first architects was Hervey Cotton Merrill, who built the Kiefernhof around 1928 on Bonner Strasse, now Bonner Landstrasse. He took up an idea from Ernst Leybold, who died in 1907. Merill and Leybold had already promoted the structural development of Marienburg.

After the Second World War, extensive development took place according to uniform requirements, such as single-storey construction. The minimum plot size of 2,000 square meters (reduced to 1,000 square meters in the 1980s) offers space for extensive gardens.

Sights
Commercial area at the wax factory and residential area. The district of Hahnwald also includes the Rodenkirchen industrial park on Emil-Hoffmann-Strasse in the east, which was built in the 1980s. It borders the districts of Rodenkirchen and Sürth.

In the south separates Kiesgrubenweg the Hahnwald from the premises of the refinery center Cologne-Godorf (factory north of the Rheinland refinery of Shell Oil Germany GmbH), to the west is the behind the Bonner highway located 555 highway the limit of Hahn forest to the district Rondorf.

In the little wood that borders the Hahnwald in the north to Rodenkirchen, there is a large sports facility (Marienburger Sportclub) on the continuation of the Jewish path. There the Hahnwald merges directly into the park landscape of the Friedenswald recreation area, which is already part of Rodenkirchen, and the forest botanical garden

Immendorf district
Immendorf is mentioned as “Iminethorp” in 948 in a diploma from Archbishop Wichfried (925-953). The church including the “tithe” was bequeathed to the brothers of the St. Severin Abbey “to alleviate their poverty”. The place is much older. On the “Heidenberg” there was probably a Roman watchtower, later Franconian farming families settled there.

The first church building is likely to have perished in the Norman storm in 881. The following early Romanesque church, the foundations of which were found in 1966/1967 during a general renovation of the Church of Saint Servatius, received a hall-like extension in 1841 and then had to make way for the new building that still exists in 1873. This church, built in neo-Romanesque form by August Lange from 1873 to 1874, dominates the townscape in a way that is unique for the Cologne city area thanks to its stately size and outstanding location on the “Heidenberg”. The parish reached until the late 19th century to the Bischofsweg south of the Severintore.

Immendorf is characterized by numerous farm estates. The Goldschmidts- und Zaunhof was owned by the Junkers von Efferen in the 16th century as a knightly estate. The Gillessenhof, which belonged to the Giessendorfer Höfe, was owned by the Groß Sankt Martin Abbey until secularization and the Friedrichshof was transferred to the poor administration of the city of Cologne after the secularization. Until the early 19th century, the development of Immendorf was concentrated exclusively along Immendorfer Hauptstrasse between Zaunhof and Giesdorfer Allee and the “Heidenberg”.

From the middle of the 19th century, the place expanded in an easterly direction, but especially on Giesdorfer Allee and Berzdorfer Straße. The new development areas after 1945 also join the old town center in an easterly direction and south of Godorfer Straße. In 1975 Immendorf became part of the former community of Rodenkirchen, a district of Cologne.

Sights
Shell AG industrial area south of the L 150, Gillessenhof, local recreation area, parish home, Sankt Servatius, ponds and indoor tennis courts

The monuments in Immendorf include the church building, the parsonage and two crossroads, as well as the former school building on Godorfer Strasse, which was built in 1872 and last redesigned in 1914 by Edmund Bolten. Other architectural monuments are the Zaunhof on Immendorfer Hauptstrasse, an estate created in the 16th century by the lords of Efferen as a knightly goldsmith’s place, and numerous small farms along Giesdorfer Allee.

The townscape is still characterized by old farms, but only a few of them are farmed. After 1945 new building areas were built in an easterly direction and south of Godorfer Straße. Apart from a kiosk in the building of the former bakery, a wood wholesaler and a large flower shop, there are no more shops in town. The famous restaurant Bitzerhof from 1821 was located on Immendorfer Hauptstrasse opposite the church until it closed in 2013.

Parish Church
A church is said to have existed in Immendorf as early as the Frankish times. When the Normans pillaged the place in 881, the church was also destroyed. This was followed by the construction of an early Romanesque church, which was expanded in 1841 and had to give way to the current building in 1873. The neo-Romanesque church was built in 1873 and 1874 according to plans by August Carl Lange. This Catholic Church of Saint Servatius was extensively renovated in 1966 and 1967.

Marienburg district
The Marienburg district on the Rhine owes its expansion into a closed villa suburb to the initiative of the Cologne industrialist Ernst Leybold, who began building the first streets and elegant country houses. The namesake was the Roman naval fort Alteburg and the first name Maria of the daughter of the property speculator PJ Hagen, who built the Marienburg estate in 1844/1845.

Towards the end of the 18th century, the mill, which still exists today, as well as an 8-hectare English garden and a commercial building were built on the site of the fleet fort. From 1870 to 1872 the industrial buildings of the “Rheinische Aktienbrauerei Alteburg” and the waterworks “Alteburg” followed south of the mill. A little later a first villa area was built in the area of the Marienburg estate. The development of Marienburg began very hesitantly on the banks of the Rhine and in Rathausstrasse. The development only developed more positively after the incorporation in 1888 through the establishment of the stock corporation “Kölnische Immobiliengesellschaft” in 1891. In 1896 the city of Cologne issued zoning regulations in four classes, which stipulated an open construction method for Marienburg.

The main expansion of Marienburg ended with the First World War. Up until then, large villas with a separate coach house or garage, as well as garden pavilions, were predominantly embedded in a park. An architecture based on the English country house style was predominant, as represented above all by Paul Pott and Otto March. After 1920 only a few large villas were built, most of which had been designed by Theodor M. Merrill.

All the buildings in Marienburg up to the outbreak of the Second World War have in common the high level of architectural and artistic quality. The leading Cologne architects, but also personalities from outside such as Josef Maria Olbrich, Bruno Paul or Otto March, created buildings here that were widely recognized and often internationally recognized. Despite considerable damage during the war, the character as a “villa colony” was preserved. Marienburg is one of the few residential areas in Germany that are still closed and characterized by architecture and green planning.

Sights
Deutschlandfunk, golf course, Reformation Church, Sankt Maria Königin, Südpark, villa district and Zwischenwerk VIIIb with fortress museum

Cologne Fortress Museum
The Cologne Fortress Museum is a voluntary, partly still under construction museum that aims to document and present the entire Prussian fortifications in Cologne. The museum has existed since 2004 in Zwischenwerk VIII b in the former outer fortress ring in Cologne in the Marienburg district of Cologne. The Exhibition show the outdoor area with parks and moats, the sculpture park and the former rose garden. Afterwards there will be a demonstration of the last bascule bridge preserved in Germany. The tour continues inside the plant, where the individual rooms from the guard to the powder chamber are explained.

Bismarck Tower
The Cologne Bismarck Tower (also Bismarck Column) is a monument to Otto von Bismarck on the corner of Gustav-Heinemann-Ufer / Bayenthalgürtel in Cologne-Marienburg. The tower was built from 1902 to a design by the Berlin architect Arnold Hartmann and was largely financed by the Cologne chocolate producer Heinrich Stollwerck (1843-1915), who owned the villa called Bismarckburg on a neighboring property. Adolf Berchem worked as a sculptor, and Fritz Encke was in charge of planning the green spaces. The inauguration took place on June 21, 1903. In the years 1999, 2001 and 2008, the tower and the surrounding area were renovated.

Churches
The Protestant Reformation Church (Goethestrasse) was built between 1903 and 1905 according to the plans of the Berlin architect Otto March. Destroyed in 1943, it was significantly redesigned during the reconstruction. Also in Goethestrasse is the Catholic parish church of St. Maria Königin, which was built from 1952 to 1954 according to plans by Dominikus Böhm. The church rises above a square floor plan. It opens up to the surrounding park along the entire length of the south wall. The tower was built in 1960 based on a design by Gottfried Böhm.

The Evangelical Garrison Church of All Saints of the Evangelical Military Parish Office Cologne I is located in Lindenallee at the corner of Bonner Straße. The Anglican community uses the church as an All Saints Chapel.

Meschenich district
Meschenich already had a settlement in Roman times. “Meschingen” was first mentioned in a document in 1166. The Magerhof, already notarized by Rainald von Dassel (1158 to 1167), belonged to the St. both Engeldorfer Höfe belonged to the Benden monastery in Brühl.Meschenich belonged to the Cologne-Electoral Office in Brühl until the beginning of the 19th century. After that it was the part of the municipality of Rondorf, which was called the municipality of Rodenkirchen from 1961 until it was incorporated into Cologne in 1975.

The town’s Romanesque church, which was laid down in 1891, was first mentioned around 1274 in the “Liber Valoris ecclesiarum Coloniensis dioceses” (Book of Values of the Churches of the Diocese of Cologne). In Meschenich, several Cologne churches and monasteries had owned since the Middle Ages. As a village, Meschenich developed along the old Roman military road and the numerous roads from the surrounding villages that intersect here. The main street of the place was originally the Alte Kölnstraße, in the middle of which was the village cemetery and the Romanesque church. After the previous building in the Middle Ages had been closed, a new church in the neo-Romanesque style was built by Pastor Piel by Theodor Kremer by 1891. Opposite is the Magerhof, which is only partially preserved.

In the narrow streets in the area of Alte Kölnstrasse, the one to two-storey gable-top brick houses typical of the 19th century can still be found very often. These were originally mostly small farms or farm workers’ houses. The broad street of Brühler Straße, which cuts through the town, was laid out between 1826 and 1830. Today the center of the village is determined by the church and the adjoining half-timbered farmhouse. The “Auf dem Kölnberg” high-rise buildings form a contrast. The large residential complex caused the population to jump by more than half.

Sights
Old village school, Meschenich youth center, Kölnberg, Sankt Blasius and wayside cross

Trenkebergstrasse cemetery
The Trenkebergstrasse cemetery is located in the Meschenich district of Cologne between Trenkebergstrasse, Südstrasse and Pfarrer-Heinrich-Fuchs-Strasse. The mourning hall offers 27 m² of space for around 15 people. The cemetery is 4,600 m² and offers space for 790 graves. In addition, there are 16 graves in this cemetery for German victims of the Second World War. The cemetery is listed under number 214 in the list of monuments of the city of Cologne.

Raderberg district
Like Raderthal, Raderberg was originally just a field name, which referred to the location above an old branch of the Rhine. The name Raderberg most likely refers to cleared forest or to the Marterberg, on which the convicts were allowed to die on. The place of execution was close to the Judenbüchel, the medieval Jewish cemetery laid out outside the city wall. The last remains of the cemetery were removed when the market hall was built in 1936. Until the early 20th century, this area of death was at the same time a place of entertainment with several restaurants and dance halls, a tradition that can be traced back to 1500.

It was not until 1850 that the first residents settled on Brühler and Bonner Strasse and formed the nucleus of the area bounded by the southern Raderberg belt, which was incorporated into Cologne in 1888. In addition to Raderberg, the towns of Arnoldshöhe and Mannsfeld, which emerged in the 19th century, grew together to form the Raderberg district.

Raderberg’s core area is in the area of the Church of St. Mary’s Conception along Brühler Strasse and Raderberger Strasse. A separation from the once closely connected Raderthal only came about with the construction of the Gürtelstrasse. Both places are street settlements that were created under the same conditions at the same time.

After small farmers first settled in Raderberg in the middle of the 19th century, small and medium-sized factories were added in the 1870s. Because of the low land prices in the Raderberger area and the good connection to the city of Cologne by a horse-drawn tram, the first large workers’ settlements emerged early on, the “Wilhelmsruhe” settlement from 1888 and the Stollwerck company settlement from around 1902, both on Bonner Strasse.

The creation of the Vorgebirgspark, 1910 to 1913, led to more sophisticated residential developments in the immediate vicinity.Raderberg received another important accent in the late 1930s with the market hall of the Cologne wholesale market. The City of Cologne Council decided in 2007 to relocate the wholesale market from this location to Marsdorf by 2020. To this day, no real center has emerged in Raderberg, rather the place merges with the neighboring districts of Bayenthal and Raderthal.

Sights
Wholesale market hall, Sacred Heart Monastery and chapel, art salon and Volksgarten

Benedictine convent Cologne
The Benedictine Monastery of Cologne (also: Herz-Jesu-Kloster) is a monastery of the Benedictine Sisters of the Holy Sacrament in Cologne-Raderberg. The Benedictine Josefine Karoline von Fürstenberg-Stammheim, prioress first in the Bonn monastery, then in Viersen, founded, returning to Germany from exile in Holland in Tegelen, with 13 Tegel sisters in 1890 first in Domstrasse in Cologne, in 1895 in Brühler Strasse 74 in Cologne-Raderberg, the Sacred Heart Monastery built there with its own assets. She died three weeks after the move and was buried in the monastery. The maximum number of nuns was around 70 in 1925. Today (2021) the convent has 32 sisters between 21 and 97 years of age. The monastery buildings have been a listed building since 1982.

Cologne wholesale market
The Cologne Wholesale Market is a wholesale market in Cologne-Raderberg, one of the largest in Germany. The wholesale market hall has been protected as a monument since October 23, 1989. The market charter of December 19, 1994 regulates the market organization and is intended to ensure the functionality of the market; it is monitored by a market office. The Cologne wholesale market gets its products from the surrounding production areas, from the Frankfurt area and at least 70% from abroad. At least 220 companies sell around 300,000 tons of goods a year to over 5000 customers.

Foothills Park
The Vorgebirgspark is a 13.9 hectare park in the south of Cologne city center between the districts of Zollstock, Raderberg and Raderthal. It was laid out from 1910 to 1914 according to plans by the garden architect Fritz Encke. The Vorgebirgspark should essentially be a modern public park. The above-mentioned grassland and playground are explained by this objective, as is the children’s playground in the south, which is shaded by mighty trees, and the concreted wading pond to the north. This wading pondbecame one of the main attractions of the foothills park and attracted several hundred people on sunny mornings who enthusiastically enjoyed the artificially recreated beach atmosphere in the big city. Today there is a basketball court on the area.

Raderthal district
The name Raderthal refers to the valley adjoining the Raderberg, a former river bed of the Rhine. Raderthal originally belonged to the municipality of Rondorf and was incorporated into Cologne in 1888. Like Raderberg, the name appears as a field name in the Cologne shrine books of the 13th century, in which property transactions were recorded. As a place name, Raderthal appears for the first time in 1838 in the death register of the parish church in Immendorf. The first half of the 19th century also saw the beginning of settlement in Raderthal, on Hitzeler Strasse, Brühler Strasse and Raderthaler Strasse.

Until then, farmers from the parish of Sankt Severin were cultivating this area. With the increasing industrialization and urbanization of Cologne, however, they were forced to give up their farms and lands in the city and to settle outside the city limits. Only a few examples have survived of the loosely built small farmhouses on Hitzeler Strasse, Brühler Strasse and Raderthaler Strasse. From the late 19th century, handicrafts and industrial companies increasingly settled in Raderthal. However, Raderthal only experienced an urban development from the beginning of the 20th century with housing developments.

The first was realized in Schulze-Delitzsch-Straße. In the 1920s, the development on Markusstraße took place, mainly by the non-profit building cooperative of the city’s railway employees. In 1923/1924, the Cologne gardening director Fritz Encke laid out the Volkspark on the uneven terrain of a former powder magazine. The so-called Volksparkiedlung (Volksparkiedlung), which was also called the “English Settlement” because it was intended for British occupation soldiers, was built in the vicinity after the Second World War.

Sights
Former cemetery with Hochkreuz, Army Office of the Federal Ministry of Defense and District Army Replacement Office, Volkspark and Hochkirchen waterworks. Raderthal borders in the south on the outer Cologne green belt. On this side of the military ring, which formerly connected the fortifications of the fortress ring in Cologne, is the Fritz-Encke-Volkspark with a newly installed drinking fountain in a small round temple. The park was created in 1924.

Rodenkirchen district
Ancient and Roman finds prove an early settlement of the area. If you follow the numerous legends that have grown up around the Rodenkirchen chapel, a church dedicated to St. Maternus is said to have stood here as early as the 4th century. “Rodenkirichon” becomes comprehensible in sources in the year 989 in connection with a confirmation of a donation of farm goods to the monastery Groß Sankt Martin in Cologne. Rodenkirchen has belonged to the mayor’s office of Rondorf since the beginning of the 19th century. From 1961 until it was incorporated into Cologne in 1975, Rodenkirchen was the center and namesake of a community with the other villages of Godorf, Hahnwald, Immendorf, Meschenich, Rondorf, Sürth and Weiß.

Fishing, agriculture and viticulture were the main livelihoods of Rodenkirchen until the 19th century. The Maternus fair, which can be traced back to the Middle Ages, was famous. Towards the end of the 19th century, the first industrial companies settled in Rodenkirchen, a development that was further supported by the construction of the Rheinuferbahn in 1905.

In Rodenkirchen, the Abbey of Groß Sankt Martin, the Cologne Abbey of Saint Georg and the Abbey of Saint Severin were also wealthy. A wayside shrine with a statue of Maternus on the Rhine is reminiscent of the Carthusian monastery and its viticulture. The Karthouses were also responsible for the elevation of the place and the creation of a first embankment wall.

While the very small-scale development of the district around the old chapel with predominantly one to two-storey gabled houses continued in the area, at the turn of the century there was a tendency towards suburban and partially, especially since the construction of the Rheinuferbahn, mansion development on Hauptstraße. For the chapel, which had become too small, a new church was built on Hauptstrasse from 1865 to 1867, opposite which the old town hall is located.

Up until the 1920s, mainly stately homes were built along the shore. From the 1930s to 1960, the vast southern area was closed with predominantly single-family houses. To the west of this street, the development increasingly mixed with the industrial companies along the Rheinuferbahn and the multi-storey residential development there. An important urban breakdown with a tendency to give the place a metropolitan character occurred in the 1960s and 1970s with the construction of the town hall. The so-called artists’ quarter and the Diakonie-Dorf Michaelshoven were also built.

Sights
Landing places, camping site on the Rhine, Sürther Feld building area, Rodenkirchen district town hall, “Alte Liebe” boathouse, “Sommershof” shopping center, Finkens garden, forest botanical garden, Friedenswäldchen, Rodenkirchen cemetery, “Treppchen” restaurant, Maternusplatz, Rodenkirchener Riviera and Maternusstraße senior center

The red and white striped boathouse “Alte Liebe” is a popular floating excursion destination. Like the boathouses “Albatros” and “Rodenkirchen”, it is located in front of the “Kölsche Riviera” area on the banks of the Rhine with many groynes protruding into the Rhine, between which small bays with sandy beaches have formed.

Maternus-wayside shrine: In a niche of the flood protection wall on the Rhine promenade stands a statue of St. Maternus, patron saint of floods and at the same time patron saint of Rodenkirchen. A first statue was erected here by Carthusian monks in 1773. The present statue dates from 1992 and was made by the sculptor Ernst Thomas Reimbold. A grille protects them from vandalism and floating debris during floods.

The Church of St. Joseph is a building by the important architects Dominikus Böhm and Gottfried Böhm. With the growth of the population in the time of industrialization, it was expected that Rodenkirchen would spread to Cologne. That is why the new St. Maternus Church was built on a flood-proof hill on the northern edge of Rodenkirchen. The place developed (due to the industrial conditions) more in a southerly direction.

Rondorf district
The Archbishop of Cologne Hermann I (889 to 925) gave a farm in Rondorf, the Fronhof (today’s Johanneshof), to the St. Ursula Abbey in Cologne, which he had founded. The monastery of Sankt Severin with the now no longer existing Zehnthof and the monastery of Sankt Anna zum Lämmchen with the Büchelhof had other spiritual property. A medieval chapel stood in front of the Büchelhof until 1898, and when it was demolished, the old Rondorf village cemetery came to light.

During the Napoleonic era, the town of Rondorf became the center of a mayor’s office, which included all the towns in the old community of Rodenkirchen and all the southern suburbs of Cologne, right up to the Bischofsweg in front of Severinstor. In 1888 this area experienced a considerable reduction in size through the incorporation of the area up to the military ring in Cologne. With the incorporation of Rodenkirchen in 1975, Rondorf also became a district of Cologne. Rondorf still includes the villages of Hochkirchen, Konraderhöhe and Höningen as well as part of Giesdorf.

Until the beginning of the 19th century, Kapellenstrasse with its large courtyards and the short arch of Rondorfer Hauptstrasse were the core area of Rondorf. In 1899/1900 the parish church of the Holy Three Kings was built on the outskirts of this old town center, which had expanded considerably in north and south directions along Rondorfer Hauptstrasse since the middle of the 19th century. In 1957 this was given a disproportionately large front tower as a dominant feature in the village panorama.

Since the 1930s, and especially since the end of the war, there has been dense development in Hochkirchen and Großrott, which is no longer known today. The village of Großrott with the Rodderhof there was originally owned by Sankt Severin, while Hochkirchen is said to have been founded by a man of that name from Liblar in the 18th century.

Both places, connected by an extensive road network, now form a unit with Rondorf. However, the village of Höningen on Brühler Strasse was able to retain its structural peculiarities. Höningen is mentioned for the first time around the year 950 in connection with a donation to the St. Cäcilien Abbey. However, as finds show, it was already a settlement in Roman times. Konraderhöhe, on the other hand, is a modern industrial settlement, which is derived from the Konrader Hof located below, which can be traced back to the Middle Ages.

Sights
Degussa, Gasthaus “Zur Alten Post”, Eifeltor freight center, courtyards on Kapellenstrasse, Private Saint Georgs School and Hochkirchen waterworks

Former Dreikönigskirche with an attached tower, the “Heilige Drei Könige” church, built in 1900 in neo-Gothic style, expanded by a tower in 1957, is no longer used as a place of worship. It was profaned in 1987 and converted into an architecture office. While the nave is used not only as an office, but also as an exhibition space and concert hall, the architects live with their families in the tower of the former church.

Sürth district
In 1067, Archbishop Anno II (1056 to 1075) donated properties in “Sorethe” to the newly founded St. Georg Abbey in Cologne. With Caesarius von Heisterbach the same place appears as “Sorenda”. At the end of the 13th century the place name was written as “Sürd” or “Sürde”.

Of the large farms that have existed since the Middle Ages, such as the Mönchshof, Leihhof, Zehnthof, Strungerhof and Falderhof, some are still preserved and still define the townscape today. So the two large facilities of the Falderhof and the Mönchshof as well as the manor house of the Zehnthof. The historical center of Sürth’s settlement runs mainly along Sürther Hauptstrasse, Falderstrasse and the street Am Rheinufer. The center of the village was the area around the old Romanesque chapel. After the construction of the new church (1828 to 1830), further development was concentrated in its area.

Fishing and agriculture were the main livelihoods of the residents of Sürth until the beginning of the 20th century. While the St. Georg Abbey in Cologne owned the driving rights on the Rhine, the fishing rights belonged to the St. Severin Abbey. At the beginning of the 20th century, the place expanded with the construction of the refrigeration industry (Linde AG) and the associated company apartments for the workforce in the north of Sürth.

Shortly after 1910, the Cologne architect Max Stirn, together with the “Cölner Terrain Society”, used the idyllic location of the place to build a villa colony in the Oberbuschweg / Ulmenallee area. After 1945, the development concentrated mainly in a north-westerly direction. The town center itself was largely retained in its structure thanks to the abundant building land in the area.

Sights
Bootshaus, Sankt Remigius, Sürther Aue, Sürther Friedhof, Sürther Hauptstrasse and Linde AG

To the west of the district is located in the streets Ulmenallee, Rotdornallee and upper Buschweg those of summer 1910 to 1912 by the architect and government architect Max forehead built “cottage colony Sürth” which is preserved in its original state and partly under monument stands. It is one of very few closed villa developments in the Cologne area that were built according to uniform planning.

The wax factory in Cologne is an artists’ association. It was formed on October 6, 1979 at the instigation and mediation of the City of Cologne in a former candle and wax factory on Industriestrasse. The building consists of several different components and a high chimney, the landmark of the whole complex. At first, the wax factory was still relatively remote in an agriculturally used landscape. Today it is partially surrounded by new industrial facilities. The building serves the artists as a place to live, work and exhibit, and also includes a café. The visual artist, graphic artist and cartoonist Josta Stapper also lives and works here. In the meantime, parts of the system have also been rented out for television series such as the one from ZDFbroadcast program Roche & Böhmermann.

Weiß district
Weiss, first mentioned in a document in 1130, is located directly on the Rhine. Agriculture and viticulture were practiced in the floodplain. As in the towns of Sürth and Godorf further up the Rhine, the fishing rights belonged to Severinstift in Cologne. In 1433 Archbishop Dietrich von Moers is said to have allowed the construction of a chapel. This should be identical in the core area with today’s Georgskirche. The current construction of the church was realized in 1954 by the architect Josef Bernard. With its canopy protruding into the embankment, the church shapes the silhouette of the district.

In 1887 there were 150 houses in Weiß, all of them lined up along the intersecting streets of Weißer Hauptstraße and Auf der Ruhr, as well as in the very short alley, Alte Rheinstraße. These three streets form the historic town center, which is still characterized today by predominantly one to two-storey gabled houses made of brick and half-timbered houses. Outside the center of the village, new building areas emerged after the Second World War, which increasingly connect the place with Rodenkirchen and Sürth to form a single unit.

With the incorporation of the old community of Rodenkirchen, Weiß came to Cologne in 1975. The district, also known for its Rhine ferry to Zündorf, offers a variety of recreational opportunities along the Rhine. Today’s Pflasterhof, a manor from the Electorate of Cologne, which was issued as a fief by the Archbishop, formed the center. In white, among others, the Cologne Antonites, the Abbey of Groß-Sankt-Martin and the Stift Sankt Severin owned lands.

Sights
Pier for the passenger ferry, camping site, Weißer Bogen recreation area, Georgstrasse youth center, Sankt Georg chapel and Pflasterhof

A nationally known white institution are the small ferries of the ferryman Heiko Dietrich called Krokodil and Krokolino, which cross over to the Zündorfer Groov leisure facility in the Zündorf district on the right bank of the Rhine. Many walkers and cyclists use this Rhine crossing for their excursions when the weather is nice. The ferry season starts in March and lasts until autumn. The landing stage is in white at the end of the Pflasterhofweg. The ferry commutes in the summer season, in spring and autumn it runs less often, sometimes only on weekends.

Zollstock district
The name of the place is Zollstock for the first time in the address book from 1877. The name of the suburb is derived from a smaller customs house that stood at the intersection of one of the country lanes with the Bischofsweg leading around Cologne. Today’s folding rule is bounded in the south by the Outer Green Belt and in the north by the railway ring.

Zollstock began as a town in 1881, when the construction of the new town began in Cologne. Due to the rich clay deposits, the brickworks were lined up in close succession in the area. The oldest Zollstock houses, from the time around 1900, are on Höninger Weg, which together with the Gottesweg, which was first laid out in 1894/1895, also forms the center of the village near the Church of St. Pius. The creation of the south cemetery, inaugurated in 1896, was important for the development of Zollstock. It brought the connection to the tram network with it. In addition, new and existing streets were expanded, such as the foothill road.

After the First World War, the various building cooperatives created the numerous settlements that still characterize the townscape today. In line with the large number of builders, social housing in the 1920s is presented in a variety that is unique for Cologne. The first settlements consisted entirely of single-family houses.

While this was still typical for all housing developments in Cologne at that time, only multi-family housing estates were built from around 1925. The Zollstocks industrial operations were mainly concentrated in the northern area, in the vicinity of Pohligstrasse. Demolitions, conversions and new buildings have been carried out here since the late 1980s, including the headquarters of Gothaer Insurance in the 1990s.

Sights
Vocational college, Höninger Platz, “Indian settlement” on Kalscheurer Weg, Rosenzweigpark, Südfriedhof, Südstadion, animal shelter, insurance park, foothills park, Zollstock arcades and Zollstocker indoor swimming pool

In addition to the large foothills park, there is another park, the Rosenzweig Park. Places that were designed as green spaces are the Vorgebirgsplatz, Hönninger Platz and Theophanoplatz.

Parks
Extensive green spaces, local recreation areas in the area of the Rheinaue and the forest botanical garden as well as nature reserves such as the Sürther Aue characterize the south of Cologne. A stage of the Rhine Cycle Path runs past Rodenkirchen and Sürth to Godorf. The leisure area is also popular for jogging.

In this part of the park landscape, one of the oldest golf clubs in Germany (founded in 1906) also maintains its nine-hole course, a successor design from 1955 by Bernhard von Limburger to replace the original 18-hole course from 1909, which was devastated in the Second World War.