Cologne Prison (Justizvollzugsanstalt Köln)

In 1959 the state of North Rhine-Westphalia held a competition for a new prison on Rochusstraße, won by architect Fritz Jaenecke, engineer Erich Heyne, and Swedish architect Sten Samuelsen. The new facility, about ten times the size of its cramped inner-city predecessor at Gereonswall, was cornerstoned in 1961. A general freeze on public construction between 1960 and 1963 delayed the project; the topping-out ceremony followed on 7 December 1966. The first inmates arrived in November 1968, the women's wing was occupied in March 1969, and the facility formally began operations in May 1969.

Cologne-Ossendorf has housed several inmates who drew nationwide attention, including Chancellery spy Günter Guillaume, banker Iwan David Herstatt, child murderer Jürgen Bartsch, RAF terrorist Ulrike Meinhof, and NSU terrorist Beate Zschäpe. Thomas Drach, known for the Reemtsma kidnapping, is currently held here. Art forgers Helene and Wolfgang Beltracchi later published the letters they exchanged during their 14-month pretrial detention, offering an inmate's-eye view of conditions and grievances inside the prison.

The prison offers vocational training with 73 places, run in cooperation with the German Trade Union Confederation's vocational training agency. Notably, all the training tracks carry feminine job titles—hairdresser and textile cleaner—alongside modular courses in hairdressing, alterations tailoring and dressmaking, office communication, and a basic adult-education course. Since 1998, the Cologne Evening Grammar School has run coeducational classes leading to school-leaving qualifications ranging from lower secondary to technical college entrance level.