The history of the Jews in Cologne dates to 321 C.E., when they were first recorded in a census decreed by Emperor Constantine I. As such, it is the oldest European Jewish community north of the Alps. The community quickly established itself in what came to be known as Cologne's Jewish quarter, building its first synagogue by 1040 C.E. The Crusades put an end to peaceful coexistence with Christians in 1096 C.E. Despite the Archbishop's protection many Jews were killed and their synagogue destroyed. The community regained its economic and religious life until about 1300 C.E., when the Christian majority again applied pressure. The community's fortunes improved and worsened a number of times into the 20th century. Before the 1930s, it consisted of 19,500 people. After the end of World War II it had been almost entirely extinguished due to Nazi destruction, expulsion and murder. Currently it numbers approximately 5,000.From the Website of the Synagogen-Gemeinde Köln, http://www.sgk.de/; accessed 6 June 2022
The Roman Age
Cologne was founded and established in the 1st century AD, as the Roman Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in Ubii territory. It was the capital of the Roman province of Germania Inferior and the headquarters of the military in the region. Cologne was an important city in Roman times. H. Nissen assumes a much greater population for Roman Cologne than it was in the Middle Ages, when he estimates it was between 30,000 and 40,000.
Judaism was recognized as a religio licita (permitted religion), and Jews were exempt from the offering to the Emperor and to the offerings to the Roman state gods. However, these offerings were preconditions to holding public office. Thus, Jews were excluded from public service.Tacitus, Historiae V,5,4. For the appointment to a town office a person was required to own land and to have a certain reputation. In Late Antiquity, the Roman upper class increasingly refused to participate in these expensive offices, and the Roman administration went into crisis and the emperor had to look for alternatives. It became necessary for the Cologne Council to use a decree of Emperor Constantine the Great of 321, which permitted Jews to be appointed to the curia. This is the first evidence of the existence of a Jewish community in the town of Cologne. The emperor's decree was passed down in the Codex Theodosianus (439), which indicates the existence of a firmly established Jewish community in Cologne in 321 and 331.Adolf Kober, Cologne, p. 5. A partial translation of the Codex reads:
"We allow all town councils to appoint through general law, Jewish people in the Curia. To give them a certain compensation for the previous rules, we let that always two or three of them enjoy the privilege not to be taken to any office."
Archaeological finds indicate the presence of people from the Middle East at around this period, and among them there were Syrians, as is proved by an Aramaic inscription dug up in 1930. In another document, from 341, it is recorded that the synagogue was provided with the emperor's privilege. These decrees of Constantine remained for some centuries the only accounts of the existence of a Jewish community in Cologne.Carl Dietmar, Die Chronik Kölns, p. 34
Middle Ages
Under the Frankish, Saxon and Salian kings The region was occupied by the Franks in 462, which converted to Christianity by the end of the century. During the Middle Ages, Cologne flourished as one of the most important trade routes between east and west Europe. Cologne was one of the leading members of the Hanseatic League and one of the largest cities north of the Alps in medieval and renaissance times. The first documentary reference to the Jews in Cologne in the Middle Ages was to the time of Archbishop Heribert of Cologne (9991021), the wise friend of Holy Roman Emperor Otto III. Winheim and Gelenius, basing themselves on the Annual Chronicles of Cologne during the 14th and 15th centuries, report that in 1426 the synagogue was turned into a church. They then remark that this synagogue had been in existence 414 years. That would place its origin in the time of Heribert.Adolf Kober, Cologne, p. 12 The Jewish Quarter close to Hohe Straße is mentioned for the first time during the episcopate of Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne (1056–1075) and a report has come down about the Jews joining in lament over the archbishop's death.
The number of Jews in the community during the last quarter of the 11th century was not less than 600. The markets of Cologne had attracted many Jewish visitors who had partly stayed. Italian Jews are mentioned in the stories about the Crusaders in Cologne. The fact that the Jewish community was important is proved further by the statement in these Hebrew reports that out of Cologne there went forth "our brethren scattered over the earth support for their life and correct words of judgment". It means that the community was the center of Jewish life for all the communities of the area.Adolf Kober, Cologne, pp. 12–14
Crusades
During the Middle Ages, the Jewish community had been settled in a quarter near the Rathaus. Still now the name "Judengasse" testifies its existence. During the First Crusade in 1096 there were several pogroms. Although the Crusade started from France, assaults happened through the Holy Roman Empire. On 27 May 1096 hundreds of Jews were killed in Mainz during the Rhineland massacres. The palace of the archbishop of Mainz, Ruthard, where the Jews had taken refuge, was stormed by the Crusaders after little resistance. Ruthard was accused of appropriating the property of murdered Jews. A similar thing happened in July of the same year in Cologne.Schubert 2007, p. 45; Wenniger 1984, p. 17. The Jews were forcibly baptized. The permission of Emperor Henry IV to let the Jews who had been forcibly baptized go back to their faith was not ratified by Antipope Clement III.Patschovsky1999, p. 330. From those times, small and large assaults were repeated not only in the Rhineland.
In the 12th and 13th century the antisemitic attitude of the town citizens became stronger. In 1146 other Jewish people were killed near Königswinter by a mob of furious Christians, just after the beginning of the Second Crusade.Schmandt 2002, p. 85. Also in Andernach,Germania Judaica II,1 p. 15 Altenahr,Germania Judaica II,1 p. 10. BonnGermania Judaica II,1 p. 94. and LechenichGermania Judaica II,1 p. 475. Jews were killed and their houses plundered. These events are presumably to be associated with a wave of persecutions in 1287/88.Only a few years later, in 1298, a new wave of persecution took place in France, which can be connected to the so called "König Rintfleisch". See Lotter, F.: Die Judenverfolgung des "König Rintfleisch" in Franken um 1298. Die endgültige Wende in den christlich - jüdischen Beziehungen im deutschen Reich des Mittelalters, in: Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 4 (1988) p. 385–422. Violent assaults on Jews of Cologne are not reported in this period. Following the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, all Jews were obliged to display on their clothing a clear sign they were not Christians.Schubert 2007, p. 48.
Medieval pogroms in Cologne
An early pogrom against had taken place after the Battle of Worringen on 8 June 1288, when the defeated archbishop of Cologne had been imprisoned. For days afterwards a persecution of Jews swept through the surroundings of Cologne.Mentgen 1995, p. 178. In 1300, a wall was built around the Jewish Quarter, presumably paid for by the Jewish community itself, though the permission of the Archbishop would have been required.Schmandt 2002. S. 26f.
In 1317 Pope John XXII started a rigorous campaign against the Jews and publicly declared that usurious interest (which meant any interest) should not be paid to Jews. In 1320, some inhabitants of Cologne tried to avoid the obligation to pay their debts to Jews by appealing to the legislation of the church. The Cologne Council thought necessary to act preemptively in regard to this apparently Church-sanctioned refusal to repay debts and took action in 1321 to limit interest due under penalty. In 1327, the council reiterated this ordinance and appealed directly against a papal decree directed specifically against Salomon of Basel.Schmandt 2002. p. 78f. The same council referred in 1334 to the same letter of the pope and appealed to Archbishop Walram von Jülich for protection from a Jewish banker named Meyer of Siegburg who demanded payment of money from it. The action finished with the withdrawal of all city debts and the condemnation of Meyer to death.Ennen, L. u. Eckertz, G.: Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Köln, Bd. IV, Köln 1872 Nr. 201, p. 220. The councilmen were in debt to Meyer, and the archbishop kept the confiscated property of the condemned. In addition, the archbishop had also debts with Meyer and was able to cancel them in the same way.Janssen, W.: Die Regesten der Erzbischöfe von Köln im Mittelalter, Bonn/Köln 1973 V, Nr. 226, p. 61: "… item hoc anno Judaeus quidam dictus Meyer, id est villicus, in Bunna pecuniis maximis Walrami per officiatos archiepiscopi Coloniensis nequiter comburitur et occiditur. Cum enim in archiepiscopus sibi obligaretur, fingunt eum falsarium et comburunt …"(translation: "besides, in that year a certain Jew called 'Meyer' (the name means 'manager') was wickedly burnt and killed in Bonn for the sake of huge sums of money by the officers of Walram, Archbishop of Cologne. In fact because the archbishop was indebted to him they pretended he was a forger and burnt him.")
Altogether the Jews of Cologne between 1096 and 1349 appear indeed to have been relatively safe regarding life and physical conditionSchmandt 2002. S. 85. as "fellow citizens (Mitbürger)".The term here applies not to the legal status, but merely to "general inhabitants". However, there is substantial evidence of a generally diffused feeling of antagonism against them.Schmandt 2002. p. 86. For instance, the infamous so-called "Jewish sow", made presumably around 1320, appears on a wooden choir stall of Cologne CathedralFranzheim 1984. S. 82.
From 1266 the Cologne Jews had the exclusive privilege of lending money, which was forbidden to Christians by Church law. Decisions between 1252 and 1320 address the legal status, protection, and taxation of the Cologne Jews.Schmandt 2002. S. 36. The Archbishop Engelbert II von Falkenburg had the Judenprivileg carved in stone on the outside of the cathedral treasure-room.Richard Kipping: Die Regesten der Erzbischöfe von Köln im Mittelalter Bd. 3, Nr. 1233, S. 280. In the years towards 1320 there are definite indications of religious hostility directed by the clergy of Cologne against the Jews for religious reasons, particularly roused by the privileges of the Cologne Jews. The reason for this can be seen in a change of the status of the Schutzjude. The Cologne clergy received no more profit from the loan transactions of the Jews. Increasingly the town council participated in the business, and this provoked additional frictions between the Archbishop and the Council. In the struggle for power, the Cologne Jews could also be used to a certain extent as a means of pressuring their clients. The protectors of the Cologne Jews, the Archbishop and the King, could sell the Schutzjude. There was a legal fight between the clergy, the king and the Cologne Council, so the council could deprive these rivals of a profitable source of revenue if they got rid of the Jews. Additionally some debts could be cancelled. Council decisions document the worsening climate between Christians and Jews.
Preparation of the pogrom