Düxer Bock

The story tells of a feud between a Deutz tailor and his neighbour, a tax collector. The tailor kept songbirds in cages outside his window; the tax collector, who lived across the street, was disturbed by their singing during his morning sleep. He took the matter to court and lost, because the tailor pointed out that many Cologne families kept songbirds — even the judge himself. In retaliation, the tax collector hung an underfed billy goat in a birdcage outside his own window, whose bleating rang out across the street. From then on, people mocked the tailor wherever he went with the cry "Schneidermeckmeckmeck" (tailor-bleat-bleat-bleat). When the tax collector later had a stone goat mounted above his front door, the ridicule drove the tailor and his family away. In a conciliatory twist, the tailor's daughter Gertrud eventually marries the tax collector's son, Fritz.

The upcoming 500th anniversary of the Deutz St. Sebastian Marksmen's Brotherhood revived an old promise to erect a goat monument. Cologne City Council insisted on a modern, contemporary sculpture. It was created in 1964 by sculptor Gerhard Marcks, who was living in Cologne at the time and had long been drawn to animal subjects.