Porz district, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Porz is a district on the right bank of the Rhine in the southeast of the independent city of Cologne. In 1951 the former independent town of Porz was awarded the town privileges (Stadtrechte). In the course of the local government reform in the 1970s in North Rhine-Westphalia, Porz was incorporated with Cologne.

The city district includes the following districts: Eil, Elsdorf, Ensen, Finkenberg (formerly “demo area”), Gremberghoven, (the) Grengel, Langel, Libur, Lind, Poll, Porz, Urbach, Wahn, Wahnheide, Westhoven, Zündorf. Except for Poll, all belonged to the former town of Porz.

In 2014 around 110,900 inhabitants lived in the district on an area of 78.78 km². The former city of Porz has belonged to Cologne since January 1st, 1975 through the Cologne Act as part of the regional reform in North Rhine-Westphalia. The then newly created district of Porz is the largest in the city in terms of area. It includes the Poll district, which was incorporated before 1975, but not the former Heumar district of Porz, which was merged with the Rath zu Rath / Heumar district of Cologne and has since become the Kalk districtbelongs. As an independent town, Porz was part of the Rheinisch-Bergisch district until it was incorporated.

History
Porz is a very old settlement area. The lower terrace was probably free of settlement up to the time of the Great Migration and was characterized by frequent flooding, while the area of the middle terrace in the area of today’s Wahner Heide shows numerous traces of prehistoric settlement.

The place name Porz is probably of Latin origin. More probable than the meaning of porta (“gate”) as an access point is the derivation of portus (“harbor”) (cf. Pforzheim). The arch of the Rhine, which was originally less pronounced, was suitable for creating a natural harbor. The old Porzer Straße (Steinstraße, Bergerstraße, Kaiserstraße, Poststraße), whose extensions would intersect in today’s Rhine, point to the early importance of the port. Before the 16th century, a small castle or a fortified courtyard, similar to the facilities in Zündorf and Lülsdorf, could be found herebe suspected.

The individual localities originated in Franconian times, which is evident both in terms of their names and z. T. can be documented; the country was built around the year 1000. Some of the districts are oriented along the Rhine (Westhoven, Ensen, Porz, Zündorf and Langel), others along an arm of the Rhine that had already dried up in Roman times (Eil, Urbach, Elsdorf and Wahn). Furthermore, Libur and Lind traditionally belong to Porz. With the expansion of the military base on the Wahner Heidethe district of Cologne-Wahnheide was created, with the expansion of the Gremberg marshalling yard the district of Gremberghoven was established, and after the Second World War, Grengel and finally Finkenberg were founded. In addition, there are some larger farms that were formerly used for agriculture, such as Gut Leidenhausen, Schloss Röttgen and Gut Maarhausen.

Porz belonged to the Grafschaft Berg very early on and, due to its favorable location on the Rhine, was the seat of an office (Amt Porz), the area of which was far larger than that of the former city of Porz or today’s city district. Ecclesiastically Porz was divided into the parishes of Zündorf, Heumar and Urbach. Although parts of the Duchy of Berg became Protestant, the Porz area remained Catholic. During the affiliation to the Grand Duchy of Berg (1806 to 1813), the administration was reformed according to the French model in 1808, the newly established Mairien Heumar and Wahn belonged to the canton of Mülheim in the department of the Rhineassigned. As a result of the agreements made at the Congress of Vienna (1815), the region became part of Prussia, the Mairien became mayor’s offices, Heumar and Wahn belonged to the district of Cologne in the administrative district of Cologne and from 1822 to the Rhine province.

The village of Porz was part of the municipality of Heumar in the mayor’s office of the same name and around 1830 had a total of only 268 inhabitants. In 1927, all mayorships in the Rhine Province were renamed offices. In 1928 the municipality of Heumar was renamed the municipality of Porz, following an order from the Cologne District Presidentthe two rural communities of Porz (until 1928 Heumar) and the community of Wahn were merged to form a new rural community with the name Porz with effect from July 1, 1929. At the same time the offices of Heumar and Wahn were dissolved and merged into a new office in Porz.

With industrialization, Porz gained in importance, and gradual urbanization began. After the Second World War, Porz experienced an above-average population increase, and accordingly Porz received city rights in 1951. Today Cologne-Porz includes the following districts: Eil, Elsdorf, Ensen, Finkenberg, Gremberghoven, Grengel, Langel, Libur, Lind, Poll, Porz (Porz-Zentrum), Urbach, Wahn, Wahnheide, Westhoven, Zündorf.

With the incorporation of Porz into Cologne, which came into force on January 1, 1975, the old Heumar district of Porz was merged with the Rath district of Cologne and incorporated into the Kalk district of Cologne. In return, the Poll, which had been part of Cologne since 1888, was assigned to the new Porz district. The district of Poll is the only old Cologne district in district 7, which was part of the regional reform in North Rhine-Westphalia1975 Porz was assigned. Due to historical and geographical conditions, Poll has some peculiarities compared to the other districts of Porz, such as that the telephone code is 0221 (Cologne area code) instead of 02203 (for the Porzer Urgebiet); In contrast to the other postcode areas in Porz, the postcode is (5114x) 51105, and the Cologne-Kalk police station is responsible for Poll instead of the Porzer police station.

Since August 24, 2007 Finkenberg is the 86th district of Cologne. Until then the area belonged to Porz-Eil.

After the local elections in 2014, the district caused a sensation at least nationwide, as the district mayor, Henk van Benthem (CDU). was elected with the votes of AfD, FDP and proKöln. This led to protests in the city district, in Cologne and NRW.

Subdivisions
Porz consists of 16 Stadtteile (city parts):

Eil district
Eil extends along Frankfurter Straße between the villages of Heumar and Urbach. The name goes back to an old arm of the Rhine (Eil – Rinne or Furche) and was first mentioned in a document in 1227. Originally the place belonged to the parish Urbach, which was connected with Eil by a processional path, some of which is still preserved today. The Catholic parish church of St. Michael was built in 1903/1904. The originally towerless church only received its square tower in 1956. At the end of the 1980s, it was given its current appearance through lead cladding. Sankt Michael belongs to the simple rural sacred buildings adapted to the modest means of a rural community.

in the Heumar mayor, founded in 1815. After the mayors Heumar and Wahn were merged, the place belonged to the municipality and later to the city of Porz. In the 1960s, many Cologne companies, including Deutz AG and Kaufhof AG, moved into commercial space in the Eiler area.In the 1970s, the first shopping center in the Cologne area was built here, with a drive-in cinema in the immediate vicinity. In 1975 Eils was incorporated together with the rest of the Porz districts. Historically significant buildings such as Gut Leidenhausen are on the outskirts of the village.

Gut Leidenhausen is a former farm complex on the edge of the Wahner Heide nature reserve. It is one of the former knights’ seats on the right bank of the Rhine, which were built near the mouse path. Today Gut Leidenhausen houses a bird of prey station, the natural history museum “House of the Forest” and the German Fruit Museum. As part of the Regionale 2010, Gut Leidenhausen became one of four Heide portals. On the one hand it has a meeting place with gastronomic offerings, on the other hand the exhibition “Nature is different – contrasts” is presented.

Sights

Leidenhausen estate
Gut Leidenhausen is a former water-defended knight’s seat in today’s Cologne district of Eil. It is located on the western edge of the Wahner Heide, adjacent to the Königsforst. Since the 14th century. the formerly water-protected knight’s seat (first documented mention 1329) passed through the hands of several noble families. The name “Leidenhausen” is a place name. It goes back to the 7th to 9th centuries and means “the settlement or the farm of an owner named Leido”. Today’s building complex was largely given its shape during the time of the Barons von Hatzfeld in the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as the Barons von Weichs and the Counts of Mirbach-Harff in the 18th and 19th centuries. Until 1803, Gut Leidenhausen was also the administrative center for the entire area between Bergisch Gladbach and Siegburg.

Recreation area Gut Leidenhausen
The Gut Leidenhausen recreation area borders the grounds of Röttgen Castle. There are: the former manor seat; the bird of prey protection station of the German Forest Protection Association Cologne V; the fruit museum Cologne; the house of the forest; a game reserve; the Leidenhausen racecourse; the exhibition “Nature is different – contrasts” of the Heideportals Gut Leidenhausen

Wahner Heide
The Wahner Heide is a nature reserve that was mostly used as a military training area until 2004. With Wahner Heide the right bank is central terraced landscape between the mouth of the course of victory in the south and the Dhünn in the north called. It is part of the Bergische Heideterrasse and extends east of the city of Cologne over about 28 kilometers in a north-northwest direction and occupies an area of about 177 km².

Elsdorf district
Elsdorf is first mentioned in a document as Eygelstorp in the 14th century. The name is derived from the proper name Eigil, which was a common first name in the Middle Ages. Elsdorf is a hamlet that was originally located south of Urbach, off Frankfurter Strasse in a former arm of the Rhine. Elsdorf is characterized by agriculture. There were a number of larger farms here, for example the Leyenhof. However, this oldest building in the village was demolished in the mid-1970s.

The place still consists mostly of numerous small houses and a few larger courtyards. The old aristocratic Bergerhof estate is located on Gilsonstrasse, a closed courtyard with two mansions. The date 1789 is noted on a wall anchor. The older mansion is made of half-timbered, originally single-storey, and heightened in the late 19th century; The current condition of the Bergerhof is the result of multiple changes, but the basic substance of the facility remained untouched.

At the Bergerhof there is a path chapel made of plastered brickwork with an ogival opening. The current form dates from 1925. The chapel serves as the starting point for a pilgrimage to Walldürn in the Odenwald, which has been undertaken every year since the first half of the 17th century. Inside the chapel, a pieta from the 19th century can be seen on the altar plate. In front of the house at Gilsonstrasse 67 is the wayside cross donated by alder Johann Schmitz, tenant of the Gisterhof or Kapitelhof in Elsdorf. An inscription dates it to 1760. When the courtyard was demolished in the 19th century, the cross was moved to its current location.

Sights

The most beautiful building in Elsdorf is the “Bergerhof”, an estate from the 18th and 19th centuries. Century. There are more former farms along Gilsonstrasse.
One of the aldermen Johann Schmitz, tenants of the “Gister-” or “Kapitelhofs” in Elsdorf, Endowed thanksgiving or commemorative cross is dated to the 1760th
Alone in the field, but framed by three linden trees, stands the so-called “ Holy House ”, a Lady Chapel from 1925 that replaced a dilapidated previous building. Inside there is a plaque with the names of the dead from the two world wars.

Ensen district
The name “Ensen” is probably of Celtic origin and means “flowing water”. Ensen is mentioned for the first time in a book of miracles in St. Anno (Anno II – Archbishop of Cologne lived from around 1110 to 1175). The population of the old village, which had only 160 inhabitants in 1797, made a modest living from fishing, agriculture and viticulture. In the 19th century the village grew and moved closer to the neighboring town of Westhoven, which borders Ensen in the northwest. Due to the extensive development after the Second World War, the boundaries between the two districts are completely blurred today.

Apart from the town center, other older houses have been preserved on Kölner Strasse and at the Alexian hospital. The Alexian Order Hospital was established between 1905 and 1908 as a clinic for the mentally ill. It was realized in the “Bergisch Baroque” style and is inspired by the palace buildings of the 17th and 18th centuries in the Bergisch part of the Rhineland.

The Catholic parish church of Sankt Laurentius was built from 1894 to 1896 as a neo-Gothic, three-aisled hybrid between a basilica and a hall church with a striking square tower with corner turrets and an octagonal helmet. Since 1989 Sankt Laurentius has also had a way of the cross again: 14 woodcuts by Jochem Pechau relocate the individual stations of Christ’s passion to the present day in sharp black and white contours. Around the church, some other buildings that have been preserved give an impression of the old buildings in Ensens.

Sights

Alexian Hospital, built between 1905 and 1908 as a clinic for the mentally ill by the Convent and Hospital of the Alexian Brothers.
Cologne volunteer fire brigade, fire fighting group Ensen-Westhoven
Municipal primary school in Ensen

Finkenberg district
Finkenberg was conceived as a planned town in the mid-1960s and was built on Eiler arable land from 1972. A combination of apartment blocks with up to 20 floors, single-family houses and a covered shopping arcade was used. The original idea when Finkenberg was planning was to create a particularly human-friendly living experience with well-designed apartments, attractively designed open spaces and separate rooms for events and social projects.

This status as a “demonstrative building project” resulted in the term “Das Demo”, which is still used by many residents today. In order to strengthen the personal identification of the citizens living here, the Porz district council suggested in December 2004 that Finkenberg be granted the status of a district. This was implemented on August 24, 2007, making Finkenberg Cologne’s 86th and youngest district.

Finkenberg is often wrongly viewed as a pure high-rise residential area, as 72.8 percent of the residential buildings are single and two-family houses. Nevertheless, the skyscrapers in particular shape its appearance. At the beginning these were still in the hands of a project sponsor, but the ownership structure changed continuously in the following years. The various current investors are very reluctant to carry out renovations and repairs, as the buildings are barely vacant. The steady slight decline in the number of residents in recent years has not changed that.

There has been a significant improvement in the area of infrastructure in recent years. Good transport connections (motorway, S-Bahn, bus lines and airport), diverse shopping opportunities and an extensive range of schools and social institutions have resulted in the district being upgraded. The renovation of the pedestrian and shopping area also contributed to this. The areas between Konrad-Adenauer-Straße, Theodor-Heuss-Straße and Humboldtstraße are now much more open, clearer and largely barrier-free.

Both the proportion of residents with a migration background and the unemployment rate in Finkenberg are above average. However, the social, voluntary commitment in this district is just as pronounced. Numerous municipal, church and free organizations offer support, carry out projects and provide advice and assistance. Particular attention is paid to working with children and adolescents, as they (up to 17 years of age) make up 21 percent of the total population of Finkenberg. Examples of special voluntary engagement are the homework supervision, a cooperation project of the Evangelical Church of Hope, the family education center “Treffpunkt” and the community center Finkenberg Pari Sozial gGmbH, as well as the children’s music theater “The fun!” for example, are mentioned. Both projects were awarded the CologneEngagiert honorary award in 2009 and 2007, respectively.

Gremberghoven district
The history of Gremberghoven is closely linked to the establishment of the Gremberg marshalling yard during the First World War. The name of the so-called district for the first time in 1922 is derived from the Cologne suburb of Gremberg and the former Porz village of Westhoven – two localities that are in the immediate vicinity. On behalf of the Reichsbahn, a settlement with large gardens for self-sufficiency was created for the employees of the new marshalling yard based on the idea of the garden city. The settlement with low single-family and multi-family houses built in an old arm of the Rhine in a depression forms the core of the district that was incorporated into the city of Cologne in 1975.

During the Second World War, parts of the railway settlement were destroyed due to their proximity to the marshalling yard, but were rebuilt and expanded in an exemplary manner. In the post-war period, it was mainly in the south. The large gardens and the good connection to Cologne’s center make the estate an attractive place to live even today.

Since the late 1980s, a modern industrial center has been built in the northern part of the district along Frankfurter Strasse with the Airport Business Park. The best known is the abc Tower, which is visible from afar with its 17 floors.

Sights

A special feature of the district is that the Serbian Orthodox parish of Cologne has its center here with the Church of the Elevation of the Precious Cross on Frankenplatz. The church is available to all Orthodox believers, and services and liturgy are celebrated in several languages. The house of God previously served the Catholic faithful as the Holy Spirit Church, but has been rented by the Archdiocese of Cologne since 2005. The Heilig-Geist-Gemeinde was an independent parish for decades and since the 1990s a subsidiary church of the Catholic parish of St. Maximilian Kolbe.
Evangelical Christians visited the Matthew Church. The church was deconstructed on September 4, 2016 and intended for demolition.

Grengel district
The name goes back to the barrier used to mark the boundary between Urbach and the eastward heath. This was called Grengel. Grengel was planned as a garden city-like settlement as early as 1932, but only realized after the Second World War. The district developed in the course of the establishment of the “Am Grengel” settlement.

In the area of the Porz district of Urbach, an open rural suburban settlement was built from 1948 onwards, with 68 settler sites in the final stage and one acre of land each for horticulture and livestock farming. In 1975 Grengel was incorporated into Cologne with Porz; the previous Porz district “Airport” was connected to Grengel: Although the airport is often assigned to the Wahner Heide, most of the runways and the terminal building are actually located in Grengel.

The Bieselwald is a gem for those seeking relaxation from Grengel and the surrounding districts. Above all, the sink ponds, which get their fresh water from the Butzbach, invite you to linger and relax. Inside and on the edge of the forest there is also a sports facility, a riding hall and various riding and jumping courses.

Sights

In the Grengel district there is a park with a stream and two duck ponds as well as other large areas of the Bieselwald nature reserve.The Bieselwald is an urban forest and recreational area within the Cologne districts of Grengel and Wahnheide. The forest is part of the Freiräume nature reserve around Zündorf, Wahn, Libur, Lind and Langel on the right bank of the Rhine. Within the forest there is a sports facility with a football pitch; On the edge of the Bieselwald a riding hall as well as various riding and jumping courses have been created – and specially marked paths within the forest area have also been opened for riders. There is also a day-care center in the Bieselwald.

Langel district
Langel was first mentioned in 965 as “Langalon”. The name goes back to the name “Lange Au”, which indicates that the place is close to the Rhine. The village is probably a few centuries older: A Franconian burial ground from the 3rd or 4th century was found during excavations on the Poppenberg.

The townscape is shaped by the Catholic Church of St. Clemens. In 1891 it was built as a neo-Gothic, three-aisled brick hall church. The original painting was restored in 1980. A square tower, the transept and the choir, which is divided into three parts, are attached to the central nave with its ribbed vault. Another focal point of the place is the Frohnhof. Since the Middle Ages it has been the center of a manor with a large number of dependent courts. Frohnhof, which was owned by the St. Pantaleon Monastery in Cologne, passed into secular hands in the course of secularization in 1803.

The so-called Peace Oak is a natural monument that is intended to commemorate the Franco-German War of 1870/1871 and the establishment of the Empire in 1871. At the time, oaks were chosen for such purposes because they were considered typical “German trees”. The striking tree was planted at the intersection of two paths: The first route ran from the former Langeler Unterdorf to Lülsdorf, the second route from the former Oberdorf to Zündorf.

Libur district
The small village called “villula Lebure” in a document from 1183 and in the miracle book of St. Anno from 1185 is located on a very old settlement. In 1936 a so-called “shaft hole hoe” was found at the south-east entrance of the village, which indicates a band ceramic settlement at this point. The name of the small rural settlement probably comes from the Old High German words “lê” for burial mound and “bûr” for apartment, which means that it could be translated as “place of residence on the burial mound”. In 1482, Count von Plettenberg established a priesthood here, and in 1582 a field chapel of St. Margaret was built.

The small town, a hamlet with an octagonal center, on which numerous roads lead from the surrounding villages, used to belong to the mayor’s office Wahn as the southernmost town, and later to Porz. The still somewhat secluded Libur in the midst of agriculturally used areas has retained a large part of its rural character. Several half-timbered and brick buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries, but also numerous crossroads and chapels characterize the townscape.

In the Kuxgasse, the old Libur townscape has been best preserved in an ensemble of two-story, gable- independent houses. Some of them date from the 18th, but mostly from the 19th century.

Sights

The Catholic parish church of St. Margaretha is located in the center of the village. Today it belongs with the churches of St. Aegidius Wahn, Christ King Wahnheide, St. Bartholomäus Urbach and St. Mary’s Assumption Grengel to the parish association of Christ King.

Lind district
The street village of Lind, located on the edge of a quarry, a former marshy river arm drained in the 1920s, was settled in prehistoric times. The town, which belongs to the mayor’s office of Wahn, had barely 100 inhabitants in 1795 who lived on agriculture and animal husbandry.

Lind is best known for the scrubbing mill ponds. This natural monument is located on the edge of the Bergische Heideterasse. A mill had existed here since the 13th century, powered by the water from the ponds. In 1818 the Barons Eltz zu Rübenach sold the land on which the mill is located to the Prussian state, which set up a parade ground there. In 1949 the mill, whose work had suffered from military requirements, was finally demolished.

The German Aerospace Center (DLR), one of the largest engineering research institutions in Germany, has its main location on the Linder Höhe. The DLR is also involved in major projects Ariane and manned space laboratory as on the European space development under the ” European Space Agency – ESA.”

Poll district
Poll has been on settled ground on the banks of the Rhine since prehistoric times. Bronze Age and Franconian finds testify to the history of the settlement. The abbeys of Sankt Pantaleon and Sankt Heribert had large estates here. The soils and meadows of the Rheinaue offered the best conditions for arable farming and cattle breeding.

On an area between Rolshover Kirchweg, Allerseelenstraße and An den Maien, the “Milchmädchensiedlung” was built from 1919 to 1921 in the local style of the city. One and a half-story single-family houses with archways, dormers and decorative gables were built. The urban center is the Efeuplatz with the “milkmaid” sculpture, which was completed around 1922.

In the past, the townscape of Polls was largely characterized by small brick and half-timbered houses. Today’s Poll, incorporated into Cologne as early as 1888, with its narrow streets with unregulated guidance and the many small houses without a uniform alignment in the center around the church square still shows this origin.

The Rolshover Hof is a closed courtyard from the 19th century with older predecessor buildings. In addition to the two-storey mansion, the two transverse storage and tool houses have been preserved. In the Middle Ages the farm was run by dependent farriers who were liable to pay taxes to the abbot of Sankt Pantaleon. In addition to the rent, fish from the Rhine, the so-called poller allis shad, were to be delivered to the abbot on certain days of the year.

Sights

The Catholic parish church of St. Joseph was built from 1862 to 1864 according to plans by Heinrich Nagelschmidt as a neo-Gothic three-aisled brick basilica. After severe war damage, the church was rebuilt from 1951 by A. Hauk and M. Kratz while retaining the surrounding walls and the lower floors of the west tower. The old village cross made of trachyte has stood in the front garden of the rectory since 1891.

From 1914 the restaurant “Zum Jägerhof” was expanded into a small Poller local history museum. A committed Poller citizen, Hans Burgwinkel, seeks to continue the tradition of this local museum in the form of picture exhibitions and virtual offers. Since August 27, 2015 there has been a permanent exhibition in the Cologne Sportspark, Poller Weg, with approx. 400 information and picture boards on Poll, fishing, allis shad, EU-Life + allis shad program, Deutz and the aircraft pioneer Hanno Fischer from Porz- Westhoven. Temporary special exhibitions in the city of Cologne complete the offer.

Inside the museum of local history there are still hand-painted hunting pictures and scenes by the Rhenish painter Wild-Lenz on the wooden wall paneling. The glass pictures by the Cologne painter Ludwig Preckel, which were expanded during World War II and then recently disappeared, are now in the Burgwinkel private collection. The windows showed pictures of the Poller May Games, the Poller fair, a milkmaid, the last ferryman from Poll and the Poller coat of arms. As part of a future new Poller Heimatmuseum, the heavily damaged glass pictures are to be restored as far as possible and made accessible to the public. A special feature is the large triptych Ludwig Egidius Ronig, painted in oil, with scenes from the bollard fishing. Ludwig Egidius Ronig belonged to the group of ” Cologne Progressives “along with Hoerle, Seiwert, Sander and others.

Porz district
The district of Porz is located in southern Cologne on the right bank of the Rhine. In addition to the industrial settlements, rural areas, extensive local recreation areas and large forest and open spaces characterize the city district. The Porz district includes 16 districts with a total area of 78.80 square kilometers and 113,670 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2017).

As early as 1888, the former fishing village of Poll was incorporated into Cologne. The regional reform in 1975 added the previously independent city of Porz. It was created in 1929 from the amalgamation of 15 municipalities and received city rights in 1951.

The mirror glass works “Germania”, founded in 1899, are early evidence of the advancing industrial development of Porz. Other important industrial companies such as Felten & Guilleaume and Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz also settled in the Porz area.

The Cologne Bonn Airport “Konrad Adenauer” is an important building block for the economic development of the entire region. With the German Aerospace Center, one of the most important major German research institutions is based here, and the European Transschall wind tunnel is one of the most innovative European research projects.

Sights

Germania settlement
The almost completely preserved Germania settlement was laid out from 1899 to 1903. It consists of a director’s villa with a park (Concordiaplatz), masters ‘houses (Germaniastraße) and staff and workers’ houses (Glasstraße) for the workforce of the former Germania mirror glass works. The layout and architecture of the houses reflect the social hierarchy of the residents at the time: the higher the status, the larger their houses were and the closer they lived to the factory. The settlement is a listed building.

St. Josef church
St. Josef is a Catholic parish church in Cologne-Porz, which is a listed building. The hall church, designed in the neo-Gothic style, especially based on models from the late Gothic and built between 1910 and 1911, goes back to plans by the Cologne architect Eduard Endler. In 1928 a side tower was added to the southwest in Expressionist forms, which also has Gothic elements. Except for the choir windows that were destroyed in the Second World War, all of the original stained glass have been preserved. From 1952 to 1959 the choir was re-glazed. 1957-1958 the church was extended to the west by the architect Karl Band.

St. Corpus Christi
St. Corpus Christi is a Catholic branch church in the Cologne district of Porz, which was built as a parish church from 1958 to 1960 based on a design by the architect Gottfried Böhm. It has been a listed building since 1997. In the 1950s, a new settlement was built on the former farmland in Porz, for which a parish was founded in early 1958. This initially used the Franz-Wärme- Haus, which had already been used by Catholic groups, and a nearby school as an emergency church, before the groundbreaking ceremony for the church’s own building took place at the end of 1958. Only thirteen months passed between the laying of the foundation stone in May 1959 and the inauguration on Pentecost 1960.

Urbach district
The name of the place is probably derived from the Old High German “Urbich” = old brook, which is underlined by its location on the edge of an old river bed. The special location of Urbach on the road from the Rhine to Agger and the central importance of its church as a parish, also for the surrounding small towns, gave the place a special position.

The people of Urbach lived almost exclusively from agriculture. The expansion of Frankfurter Strasse then permanently destroyed the old town center. Only a few remnants of the old, rural-rural building fabric have been preserved in the area around the Church of St. Bartholomew from 1879/1880.

The Maarhof, a closed, four-wing courtyard complex, has a two-story mansion with a rich stucco facade and a crooked roof. In 1984/1985, after the agricultural use was abandoned, the stables were converted into a residential complex with extended roofs and dormers. The Maarhof was the conclusion and highlight of the development on Frankfurter Strasse.

Between Frankfurter Strasse and Kupfergasse, at the southern tip of the former village square, bordered by trees and bushes and a low wall, is the memorial dedicated to the Urbach and Elsdorf soldiers who died in World War I: one made of rough ashlar around a semicircular, high wall surrounding courtyard with a towering pillar in the central axis.

Wahn district
The starting point for the development of the street village is a castle. Wahn was the mayor’s office from the Napoleonic era until 1929. Schloss Wahn and its park are located on Burgallee. The former moated castle complex was built on the old castle grounds from 1753 to 1757 using older buildings: a uniform four-wing complex with a two-storey manor house.

From 1975 to 1988 extensive restoration work was carried out, especially inside with restoration of the ground floor, consisting of stucco and wall painting, as well as the natural stone staircase. Today the facility houses the theater museum with theater history study collections of the Institute for Theater, Film and Television Studies at the University of Cologne.

Gut Eltzhof, the Versuchsgut Wahn, is the courtyard that belongs to Schloss Wahn and is closed on all sides. The two-storey house was built around 1830. The Eltzhof’s “farm workers’ houses” date from 1855, the horse stable around 1910, the blacksmith’s shop in 1850, the cowshed and barn around 1880, the pigsty in 1865. The facades, roofs and windows of the south wing were restored in 1989/1990.

The Catholic parish church of Sankt Aegidius was built between 1893 and 1895 as a neo-Gothic three-aisled brick hall church. Inside, a ribbed vault that was renewed between 1990 and 1992 spans the original furnishings. The painting has been renewed according to the historical findings. In the tower masonry there is the inscription of a cross from 1743. In the anteroom of the tower there is also a baroque marble epitaph (monument with inscription), which reminds of the previous chapel, which was demolished in the mid-1880s.

Sights

The first mention can be found in old records from 1358 about a Catholic chapel in the Porzer city archive. When the old church, which had been rebuilt several times, was demolished in 1893, the remains of a chapel from the 11th century were uncovered. For centuries the Wahner church belonged to the parish of Ober- and later Niederündorf. The parish of Wahn was not established until 1835. The neo-Gothic parish church of St. Aegidius was built between 1893 and 1895. A certain A. Becker is named as the builder. The parish church became known nationwide through the unconventional window in the nave. In addition to the traditional symbols and images, a depicted aircraft also shows a clear reference to the adjacent Cologne-Bonn Airport.

Wahnheide district
The development of Wahnheide is closely linked to the use of the Wahner Heide as a shooting range and military training area. Originally the village consisted of only a few houses “on the Biesel”. With the expansion of the military training area, inns and shops were added.

In 1938, the German Air Force built an air base on the former firing range. The British Air Force used this after the Second World War, expanding it with a runway, which in 1954 was followed by the almost 2.5-kilometer cross-wind runway. In 1957 the airport was handed over to civil administration. After the construction of an almost 4 km long runway, the first ” drive-in airport with a decentralized satellite system” was built in Europe in the second half of the 1960s.

In 2000, a new, second terminal was built with construction costs of 325 million euros. Both the freight traffic and the “low-cost airlines” ensured an upswing at the airport, which in some cases recorded double-digit growth rates in the decade after the turn of the millennium. Around 10 million passengers take off or land at Cologne Bonn Airport every year.

Westhoven district
A forged document from the year 922 for the monastery of the Holy Virgins – Saint Ursula – in Cologne mentions the village for the first time. In 1003 Archbishop Heribert of Cologne endowed Deutz Abbey with a tithe of the Westhoven estate, among other things, and Archbishop Hermann II expanded this foundation in 1041 to include the Court of Westhoven

The Nikolaus chapel, which still exists today, was built there around 1100. The chapel, consecrated to the patron saint of the boatmen, formerly belonged to Deutz Abbey and is located in the middle of the former cemetery with old gravestones and iron crosses, which was still in use until 1929. The small, romantic hall made of plastered tuff and pebble masonry has a retracted rectangular choir, half-timbered gable and a roof turret with a pointed helmet. The cemetery was restored in 1987 by the Ensen-Westhoven Citizens’ Association.

The rural character of the small town, which is away from the main roads, is only preserved in remnants. Older development is mainly in Oberstraße. The Engelshof estate was built around 1880. It is a typical closed courtyard with a two-story, seven-axis brick mansion and single-story extensions. The farm has been owned by the city since 1927. Used for agricultural purposes until 1971, it now houses a public meeting place. The building of the waterworks, today a technical monument, of the Rechtsrheinische Gas- und Wasserversorgungs AG, was erected in the former fortress area in 1904, away from all residential and industrial settlements.

Sights

Nicholas Chapel
The Nikolaus Chapel, built in 1100 – consecrated to the patron saint of boatmen, Nikolaus von Myra – was granted burial rights in 1128 by the Benedictine Abbey of St. Heribert zu Deutz. The aim of the chapel was to save the residents of the Westhoven farm from having to go to church in Deutz. The small Romanesque hall building (restored from 1959 to 1964) is located on the cemetery area that was used until 1929 and was restored in 1987 by the Ensen-Westhoven citizens’ association.

Engelshof
Today’s civic center, Gutshof Engelshof, was built in 1880 and has been owned by the city of Cologne since 1920. After the end of the management in 1971, the first renovation took place in 1976. The community center has existed in its current form since 1994. There are regular events and concerts. The intermediate plant IXa is located in the area of the Westhovener Aue. The associated Fort IX is located between the Mudra barracks and Porzer-Ringstrasse.

Zündorf district
On the outskirts of the city there is still a unique, rural and small-town area that has retained part of its historical character with its churches, old town houses, half-timbered houses, old courtyards and its medieval tower block. Zündorf is made up of the two independent villages of Ober- and Niederündorf.

Due to the stacking rights introduced in Cologne in 1259, the Groov, a small island on the Rhine, was used as a trading center. The Cologne stacking law stated that the merchants who carried their goods on the Rhine had to offer their goods for sale in Cologne. Resourceful merchants came up with the idea of unloading the goods in front of the city and transporting them around Cologne on carts in order to circumvent the annoying regulation. Zündorf owes its economic importance and relative prosperity to a large extent to this idea.

Today this prosperity can still be seen in the representative half-timbered houses of the Protestant and Jewish merchants who lived undisturbed and free and who were not allowed to reside here by Catholic Cologne for centuries.

The small, extremely remarkable old parish church of Niederündorf, Sankt Michael, was built between the 11th and 17th centuries. The Romanesque hall building is located in the middle of the old cemetery on a slight hill above an old arm of the Rhine. The north aisle was demolished in 1906. The square tower with rhombus helmet (12th century) was preserved. In addition, the three-sided choir in the east, the chapel in the south and the sacristy in the north, which was built in 1692, are still in their original state.

One of the oldest buildings in Niederündorf is the tower courtyard, which was first mentioned in 1380, a medieval courtyard complex with a five-story residential tower and two-story mansion. The original system consisted of the mighty, approximately 20-meter-high tower made of head basalt. The tower has housed the branch of the Cologne City Museum since 1980.

The Groov was used to grow pastures and vines until the middle of the 18th century. Since the beginning of the systematic bank fortification in 1815, the water between the Rhine island and the bank has silted up more and more, so that the Groov became a peninsula and its water became a lagoon. Today the Groov is one of the most beautiful leisure areas along the Rhine with its boat harbor, inland waters, play and sports facilities. Particularly noteworthy is the Zündorfbad, a combination pool with a sauna area, which, after a general overhaul, offers additional attractions such as a white water slide and more.

Sights

Jewish community
In Zündorf there was a Jewish community with a synagogue on the main street. The Salomon family operated in Marktstr. 7 a popular butcher shop. The Jews were expelled during the Hitler era and some were murdered. The synagogue was converted into a residential building. Today the Jewish cemetery on Gartenweg still reminds of this time. Funerals took place there between 1930 and 1940.