Hardly any other major German city was bombed as often and as intense during the Second World War as Cologne

Hardly any other major German city was bombed as often and as intense during the Second World War as Cologne. The Allies flew 262 times (almost all Royal Air Force bombing runs) into the cathedral city and turned her into a veritable field of rubble. An estimated 70% of the city was destroyed, 20,000 people died, but one special building survived the attacks as if by magic: the Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom).

Miraculously, the cathedral was hit several times at the time only, but not destroyed. To this day, two myths in particular surround the cathedral and the bombings of Cologne during the Second World War. Did the Allies refrain from reducing the city's largest church to rubble for reasons of piety? Or did the pilots of the air commandos use the cathedral, which is easily recognizable from the air, as a reference point for their attacks? Maybe the Cologne Cathedral was just lucky to survive the war.

On 6 March 1945, the Americans captured Cologne. "American soldiers don't need a city guide in Cologne." That's what a US military magazine wrote after the city was taken. After about 1.5 million bombs were dropped, Köln resembled a wasteland of rubble. Only about 40,000 people still lived in the left-bank part of the city by then. "It is easier to describe what is still standing in Cologne than to list what has been destroyed," the newspaper continued.

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