Blankenheimer Hof

From 14 to 16 September 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte spent the night at the Blankenheimer Hof during his state visit. He had previously passed through cheering crowds from the Eigelsteintorburg along Eigelstein, Marzellenstraße, Hohe Straße and Schildergasse. Empress Joséphine was lodged at the Hackeneyscher Hof at the time. From 5 November 1811, Napoleon stayed here again for four days, this time together with his wife.

According to Helmut Signon, Count Philipp Christian von Sternberg und Manderscheid had the estate built in 1758. He named it after his wife Augusta, a daughter of Johann Wilhelm Franz von Manderscheid zu Blankenheim. Hans Vogts takes a different view: in his account, the Nesselroder Hof, built in 1724/28 for Franz Carl von Nesselrode, later passed to the Counts of Manderscheid-Blankenheim and only then received the name “Blankenheimer Hof”. According to this source, the Blankenheimer Hof was built in 1766 by the Imperial Count of Manderscheid-Blankenheim on the site of the Schützenhof.

Under an imperial decree of 29 December 1810, the imperial tobacco factory (“Imperiale de tabacs”), which administered the tobacco monopoly, moved in in 1811. Of its 517 employees, 11 had previously been tobacco manufacturers themselves. From 1814 to 1816, the tobacco manufacturer Heinrich Joseph DuMont leased the property. In 1830 the estate was assigned to Prussian troops as a provisional garrison, and in September 1848 it officially became a barracks. On 11 September 1848, during the revolution, soldiers of a regiment stationed here attacked citizens of Cologne with drawn sabres and injured some of them.

From around 1901 to 1912, the building served as an officers’ mess. Urban planner Carl Rehorst’s traffic plan called for widening the Schildergasse, which leads to the Neumarkt, and the Blankenheimer Hof stood in the way. It was demolished in 1913.