Since 1983, the Federal President has welcomed a group of carol singers every year on Epiphany. The carol singers travel between Christmas and January 6 to collect money for charity and use chalk to write their blessing - the letters C M B between the numbers of the new year - on the front door.

It was Karl Carstens who was the first German President to welcome the children dressed as the Three Wise Men to the Villa Hammerschmidt and initiated this tradition. Our archival photo of the month, taken by Bonn photographer Camillo Fischer, documents this start.

The Bonn City Archive - memory of the city of Bonn - takes over, evaluates, indexes, preserves and makes usable. The first mention of it dates back to 1284, as "scrinium seu archivum publicum scabinorum Bonnensium" ("shrine or public archive of the Bonn aldermen"). It is assumed that the creation of this institution is connected to the legal establishment of Bonn as a city in the middle of the 13th century. Bonn is therefore one of the first four cities on the Lower Rhine to have an archive. The Bonn "Policey-Ordnung" of 1585 also explicitly mentions the city archive and its tasks.

In 1689, there was a very great loss: during the bombardment of Bonn in the Palatinate War of Succession, the archive was also burnt: there is talk of a "burnt archive" and in 1709 it is said that the loss of the documents "put everything in utter confusion". A new reconstruction was initiated. While the archive had primarily served the town's own administration for centuries, the town archive and town history library were founded in 1899 as a scientific institution and cultural institute in their own right. The holdings were reorganized and the documents were now accessible to all citizens for academic purposes. The archive was housed in the Old Town Hall until 1942, when the archive records were moved to bunkers - mainly the Gronaubunker.

After the war, the city archive moved to Quantiusstraße 9. The photograph of the city's picture office, taken around 1960, shows the archive's storeroom: it is filled to the very high ceiling with archive materials. On the left-hand side of the picture you can see bundles of files from the "Prussian period" collection; the files were still wrapped in packing paper and tied up with a cord that had to be laboriously opened each time they were used. On the right you can see the Bonn residents' register index cards, which were stored in cardboard boxes.

The move to the City Hall took place in 1977. This had become necessary after the city and municipal archives of Bonn, Bad Godesberg, Duisdorf, Oberkassel and Beuel were merged as part of the municipal reorganization of 1969. In the meantime, another move is imminent for the archive, which has grown enormously in recent decades: in July 2017, the city council decided to relocate the city archive and city history library to the Pestalozzi School site on Budapester Straße. However, this will require extensive conversion and
This will, however, require extensive renovation and new building work, so that the new premises are not expected to be occupied until the third decade of this century.

In order to make the archive work, which often takes place in secret, better known and more transparent, a "Day of the Archives" has been held regularly throughout Germany since 2001, on which the archives open their doors even wider than usual. Since 2010, this "Open Day" has always been held in March to commemorate the collapse of the Cologne City Archive on March 3, 2009. This year, the Bonn City Archive is presenting itself to the public with the theme "Democracy and Civil Rights" on Saturday, March 3, 2018.

In the summer of 1948, the Minister Presidents of the federal states decide that the city of Bonn will be the seat of the new Parliamentary Council. The deliberations are initially planned for the period from September to December and present the city with a number of challenges in terms of accommodation and catering for the delegates. The files of the Publicity and Transport Office of the City of Bonn, with the shelfmark N 03/5, provide extensive documentation of these short-term preparations. They include repairs to the Pedagogical Academy and the Koenig Museum as well as a request to the citizens of Bonn to ensure a tidy cityscape by maintaining sidewalks and front gardens.

Significantly, the meeting of the Parliamentary Council took place in the year of the 100th anniversary of the German Revolution of 1848 and the subsequent proclamation of the fundamental rights of the German people by the Frankfurt National Assembly. Accordingly, the files also contain a letter from Florestan Verlag Gummersbach Rheinland to the Bonn city administration with the proposal to present the publication "by the well-known Bonn historian Prof. Dr. Heinrich Neu 'The Revolution of 1848'" as a gift to the politicians and journalists present, stating that it "particularly highlights the importance of Bonn for the first German parliament".

This friendly suggestion by the publisher was rejected by the city "in view of the financial situation", but the publication did find its way into the administrative library and the catalog of the City History Library. There it can be consulted under the shelfmark IIa 1214.

Despite this episode, the 65 representatives of the state parliaments meet in the atrium of the Museum Koenig on September 1, 1948 for the opening ceremony of the Parliamentary Council. Our picture shows the Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia, Karl Arnold, standing at the lectern. Seated opposite him in the front row are, among others, the future first Federal President Theodor Heuss and the former Mayor of Cologne Konrad Adenauer, who was elected as the first Federal Chancellor in 1949.

This time window clearly shows how the holdings of the city archive complement each other thematically. Files from the archive, publications from the City History Library and the image collections of the documentation thus enable extensive scientific research. Interested citizens can see this for themselves, for example at the nationwide Day of Archives on March 3, 2018. Lectures, tours of the stacks and exhibitions under the nationwide theme of "Democracy and Civil Rights" will provide an insight into the work of the city archive and the diversity of its holdings.

Aenne Gausebeck was a charismatic speaker and publicist as well as an advocate for improvements and progress in rural women's lives. In April, a small selection of Aenne Gausebeck's writings from the Stadthistorische Bibliothek's collection will be presented in the Zeitfenster. These writings were acquired as antiquarian books in 2015.

Aenne Gausebeck, who came from Everswinkel (Münsterland, Westphalia), worked as a teacher in rural areas, mainly in Westphalia and the Rhineland, for eight years from 1910. In 1918, she got a job at the Chamber of Agriculture for the Rhine Province (later the Rhineland Chamber of Agriculture) in Bonn. She became a consultant and publicist for rural topics, which mainly concerned women, children and families: further training for rural women, making work easier, modernizing households and improving living conditions and nutrition, but also integrating art, culture, beauty and enjoyment into everyday rural life. Until the 1960s, she published numerous writings, which were very successful and in some cases were repeatedly published in new editions for decades.

She often encouraged countrywomen in a very personal and humorous way to further their education, to plan and carry out building measures in the house and barn, to operate agricultural and household machinery, to keep order, to use herbs in cooking, to set the table beautifully and, when choosing a new milk jug, not only to think about the practical side, but also to consider beautiful shapes and colors.

Gausebeck paid great attention to high-quality and expressive illustrations for her publications and often commissioned Bonn photographer Gerhard Sachsse to take special photos for her publications.

The Westphalian studied philosophy, art history and literature part-time at the University of Bonn and wrote her doctoral thesis on "Love and marriage in the changing views of the international women's novel since the women's movement". She herself never married and had no children.

Aenne Gausebeck's professional life lasted until 1955, but even after her retirement she remained active as a journalist and was actively involved in rural women's associations. In 1962, the Mayor of Bonn, Hans Daniels, presented her with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Sources:

• File: N 10/179 (Federal Order of Merit)
• Literature: Sawhan, Anke: We women from the countryside : how courageous rural women dared to set out. 2010 ; Sign: 2015/518

Also:

• Gerhard Sachsse photographic collection, fonds DC 02

The philologist Franz Bücheler died in Bonn on May 3, 1908. He is considered an important representative of the 'Bonn School' of classical philology founded under his teacher Friedrich Ritschl, which was characterized above all by its methodical textual criticism and made the Bonn Philological Seminar one of the most renowned institutes in Central Europe until the Second World War. Together with the Greek scholar Hermann Usener, Bücheler headed the department until his retirement in 1906. During this time, the Latin scholar, who was highly respected by his colleagues, made a name for himself far beyond Bonn, not least through his significant contribution to the "Thesaurus linguae Latinae" - a dictionary of ancient Latin from the beginnings to 600 AD that has not yet been completed.

Bücheler, who was born on June 3, 1837 in Rheinberg as the son of the justice of the peace Anton Bücheler, studied classical philology, archaeology and ancient history in Bonn from 1852 under Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, Ludwig Schopen and Friedrich Ritschl, among others. After gaining his doctorate in 1856, Bücheler initially worked as an assistant teacher at the Königliches Gymnasium in Bonn (now the Beethoven-Gymnasium). Following his habilitation, he was first appointed as a university professor in Freiburg i. Br. (1858) and Greifswald (1866) before returning to Bonn University in 1870 to succeed Otto Jahn. Bücheler lived in Bonn-Kessenich until his death, where his grave can still be found in the Old Cemetery and where a street has been named after him since 1953.

Franz Bücheler's extensive scientific and personal estate is located in the Bonn City Archives, where it is currently being comprehensively catalogued for the first time and made accessible via an online finding aid. The first part of the estate was donated in 1936 by the wife of the youngest son and Bonn district court judge Emil Bücheler. In addition to family documents of the wife Manuela Schleiden, daughter of a mining director, the scientific correspondence makes up the largest part of the estate (1,153 letters in total). Among the approximately 365 writers are quite a few important personalities such as the ancient historians Theodor Mommsen and Otto Hirschfeld or, especially from Bücheler's circle of colleagues and students in Bonn, the classical philologists Friedrich Ritschl, Hermann Usener, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Friedrich Marx and Eduard Norden. There are only a few personal materials in the collection - most of the documents date from Bücheler's time in Bonn and his teaching activities at Bonn University from 1870 onwards.

One exception is a notebook in quarto format from Bücheler's time as a student in Bonn, which contains handwritten notes on several lectures Bücheler attended between 1852 and 1854, including Friedrich Ritschl's "Encyclopädie der Philologie" and Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker's "Griechische Mythologie".

Adolf Heuser was born in Bonn-Buschdorf on October 3, 1907. The son of a bricklayer, he had 16 siblings and initially worked on the Buschdorf Burg estate after leaving school. He became a member of the Bonn Boxing Club in 1926 and a professional boxer in 1929 after 30 amateur fights. Just two years later, Heuser defeated the European champion Martinez de Alfara by knockout to win his title. In the same year, he embarked on a trip to the USA, where he won 13 out of 14 boxing matches in 15 months and was nicknamed the "German Bulldog" as a result of his success.

Heuser eventually became German champion and won the world and European light heavyweight titles from Gustav Roth in 1938. The next year, he became European heavyweight champion when he defeated Heinz Lazek - the first time the latter lost by knockout.

On July 2, 1939, however, Adolf Heuser lost to Max Schmeling, world heavyweight champion, by knockout in the 71st second. He ended his sporting career in 1949 due to increasing health problems.

Heuser fought a total of 127 fights, of which he won 88 and only lost 21; one fight was not scored and 17 fights ended in a draw. Of the 88 victories, Heuser won 43 by knockout and lost twelve of the 21 defeats by knockout. He will go down in Bonn sporting history as the first and so far only world and European boxing champion.

The photograph shows an autograph card. Heuser can be seen in the boxing stance with boxing gloves, shorts and shoes. The handwritten lines "Greetings from America, March 1932, A. Heuser" can also be read. In that year, he defeated the reigning world number one George Manley by knockout.

The LVR portal for historical newspapers in NRW goes online on 29.06.2018. The portal presents the results of a project funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia to digitize historical newspapers. The long-term goal of the project is the digitization and free online publication of the entire spectrum of historical newspapers from archives and libraries in North Rhine-Westphalia. The project was launched in 2014 by the University and State Library Bonn (ULB), received funding from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2017 and was extended to the whole of North Rhine-Westphalia in close coordination with the Rhineland Regional Association. By 2019, around 5,000 newspaper microfilms (approx. 6,000,000 newspaper pages) are to be digitized and made available online. The City Archive and the Bonn City History Library are among the first institutions to take part in this project.

So far, 11 titles from the collection of the City Archive and the City History Library have been digitized as part of this project, most recently the 1913 - 1942 volumes of the Godesberger Volkszeitung. To mark the launch of the portal, the Bonner Wochenblatt is presented in the Zeitfenster as an example of the digitized newspapers from the collection of the Stadthistorische Bibliothek and a brief insight into Bonn's newspaper history is given. From 1808 to 1811, the newspaper was published as the weekly paper of the Bönnischer Bezirk and from 1812 as Feuille d'affiches. Bonner Nachrichts-und Anzeige-Blatt, whose last bilingual number appeared on January 14, 1814. The subsequent issues were simply called Bonner Wochenblatt.

The publisher was Peter Neusser, who came into possession of the former court printing works in 1801 through marriage into the Rommelskirchen family. Since then, the Neusser family has been active as newspaper editors and publishers. In 1840, the Bonner Wochenblatt was taken over by Peter Neusser's son, Johann. The Bonner Wochenblatt was initially published in varying formats twice a week (Sundays and Thursdays), from 1836 three times a week (Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays) and from July 1, 1843 daily.

After the French had left Bonn and the city was annexed to Prussia on April 5, 1815, an eventful transitional period began. Economic life slowly recovered and the population began to increase. The university, founded in 1818, had a positive effect on life in the town as a whole. Publishers, printers and bookshops also received new orders and new businesses were founded. The Bonn weekly newspaper reported on local and regional events in accordance with strict Prussian censorship requirements, publishing current news, official reports, entertaining articles and advertisements. Political topics, on the other hand, were not covered. The Bonn Wochenblatt maintained this character for decades with virtually no competing newspaper companies. Plans to do so by the booksellers Adolf Marcus and Heinrich Büschler and the university curator Philipp Joseph Rehfues were rejected by the authorities.

Finally, Heinrich Büschler succeeded in publishing a four-day Bonn newspaper in 1824. The newspaper with harmless political news and entertainment was published until 1829, after which it was edited by Emil Thormann; the year 1830 is documented. Although the revolutionary year of 1848 freed the press from censorship, it also brought new challenges for the politically and religiously reserved, conservative newspaper company.

Gottfried Kinkel founded the democratic Neue Bonner Zeitung in 1848 with the Spartacus supplement and also challenged the Bonner Zeitung. Johann Neusser kept a completely low profile during this turbulent time and thus saved his company during the reactionary period. From 01.09.1850 the paper was called Bonner Zeitung combined with the Bonner Wochenblatt and from 01.10.1859 Bonner Zeitung. From 01.12.1889 the newspaper ran under the name General-Anzeiger für Bonn und Umgegend.

From 16.08.1944, the title was changed again to Bonner Nachrichten, Tageszeitung für Bonn und Umgebung, under the influence of the Reich Press Office. After the destruction of the publishing house during the bombing raid on Bonn on October 18, 1944 and several attempts to produce the newspaper in other companies, printing of the newspaper was finally discontinued on March 2, 1945 and only resumed on October 1, 1949 under the old title General-Anzeiger.

120 years ago, on July 25, 1898, Hugo Grüters took up his position as Municipal Music Director in Bonn, for which he had applied exactly three months earlier. During his almost 25 years in office, numerous important music festivals were held in Bonn, including the Handel Festival (1900), the Bonn Schumann Festival (1906), the Brahms-Schumann Festival (1910) and the Middle Rhine Music Festival of the cities of Bonn and Koblenz (1914). The founding of the Beethoven Orchestra in 1907 also took place at this time.

Grüter's most important pupils included the conductor Fritz Busch and his brother, the violinist Adolf Busch. He was also a committed supporter of young talents such as the musician Rudolf Peters and, above all, the composer Max Reger, with whom he had a close friendship. Hugo Grüters was born on October 8, 1851 in Uerdingen as the son of the organist and choirmaster Matthäus Grüters. After attending the conservatory in Cologne for four years, he took up his first post as music director in Zieriksee/Holland in 1871. In 1873, Grüters moved to Hamm in Westphalia and again in 1877 to Zweibrücken for a year. He then worked as music director in Saarbrücken and from 1884 in the same position in Duisburg.

Grüters retired at the beginning of October 1922 and died - exactly 90 years ago - on August 19, 1928 during a vacation in Leukerbad, Switzerland. He was buried a few days later in the Poppelsdorf cemetery, where his grave is still located today. The very extensive Hugo Grüters estate (SN 70), with over four linear meters of shelves, is located in the Bonn City Archives and includes personal documents as well as a collection of concert programs from the years 1898 to 1925 and the almost complete family correspondence of Hugo Grüters and his children.

This rare view of Bonn's market square at the turn of the 20th century is part of the current exhibition "Bonn. Photographs from 1850 to 1970". The photograph was taken by Carl Schaaf and directs the viewer's gaze across the market square through the market bridge to the towers of the cathedral. In the foreground, there is bustling market activity on a late summer's day. Vendors, horse-drawn carts and carts transport people and goods through the crowd. There are only a few fixed market stalls. Many female traders, mainly farmers' wives from the Voreifel region in their traditional costumes, offer their wares in large baskets and panniers on the cobblestones, including cabbages, apples, potatoes and flowers. The mostly female customers look closely at the products on offer and have the goods presented to them.

The three large stores Mundorf, Blömer and Alsberg line the market square. While Mundorf specializes in "girls' and boys' clothing", the Blömer department store offers a wider range of clothing, manufactured goods and underwear. The Alsberg fashion house also caters to international customers, especially British tourists, and offers "ready-made costumes". The impressive photograph of Carl Schaaf (1857-1920) provides an inimitable insight into everyday life in Bonn. Carl Schaaf was one of the most important photographers in Bonn at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. In a later obituary in the Bonn Rundschau newspaper on October 3, 1965, we read about Carl Schaaf:

A further five paintings by Carl Schaaf are shown in the exhibition mentioned at the beginning. "Bonn. Photographs from 1850 to 1970" was curated by Rolf Sachsse and can be seen from September 4 to October 26 at the Adult Education Center in the Haus der Bildung (Mülheimer Platz 1, 53111 Bonn). Opening hours are Monday to Friday from 8 am to 8 pm, at weekends during course times. Admission is free.

The exhibition is accompanied by the book "Bonn. From the Rhine Journey to the Eastern Treaties. Photographs 1850-1970" has been published by Greven Verlag Cologne.

The "sweet craft" used to be celebrated on Sunday afternoons with the whole family. Pastry shops always had a lot to offer, good cakes and delicious coffee, but also a lot of gossip. Before the Second World War, there were still 70 cafés in Bonn that spoiled its citizens with their offerings. One of these was the Hofkonditorei Rittershaus in Kaiserstrasse. Founded in 1898 by Carl Rittershaus, it also supplied Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia with delicacies. After the war, the café was able to re-establish itself, changing owners from time to time, but was always a very good address for delicacies. Ludwig Erhard bought chocolates for himself here and Herbert Wehner drank his coffee on Saturdays, turning the whole place into a smoky thicket with his pipe smoke.

But Carl Rittershaus was not only the owner and master confectioner, he was also the author of the book "Die Konditorkunst in der Küche. A practical hand and house book". Although there were enough recipe books at the beginning of the 20th century, he complied with the requests of his customers and wrote his own, in his opinion, "an advantageous aid for every kitchen that would make things much easier". He also criticized the feasibility of the recipes given in other works or the high price of reliable specialist publications.

In the book, which was published in 1909, "appetizing and easily digestible" was important to him, but above all that women with simple kitchen equipment could also use the recipes. On 269 pages, Carl Rittershaus describes the world of cream cakes, cream pies and fruit tarts, the variety of pastries, Baumkuchen and almond mountains as well as smaller baked goods, waffles, rusks and cookies. But lovers of ice cream, pudding, jam and even savory pies, meat dishes and sauces will also find what they are looking for in this book. The recipes are short and concise, but written in a very precise and understandable way for preparation. So that everyone can work with this copy, a glossary of utensils and technical terms is listed at the beginning. The book ends with illustrations of cake templates and garnishes, with design suggestions for ice cream bombs and font templates for a successful design of special baked goods.

On the "broad daylight" of November 10, 1938, the synagogues in Mehlem, Bad Godesberg, Poppelsdorf, Beuel and Bonn burned. The night before, supposedly "spontaneous" outbursts of popular anger had been ordered and organized by the NSDAP and SA throughout Germany. On November 7, 1938, 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan, who was living in Paris, shot Ernst Eduard vom Rath, an employee of the German embassy. This event, which was used for propaganda purposes as an "assassination", was instrumentalized for the anti-Jewish smear campaign that now began, the so-called "November pogrom". The destruction of the synagogues was a further step on a path that began in 1933 and was to end in Auschwitz and other extermination camps.

The largest and architecturally most significant of these synagogues was the one in Bonn. It was inaugurated on January 31, 1879 on the banks of the Rhine at what was then Judengasse 2-6 (renamed Tempelstraße in 1886). The Mayor of Bonn unlocked the portal in a symbolic gesture. The imposing building, with its front facing the banks of the Rhine, was built in the neo-Romanesque style using oriental ("Moorish") decorative elements.

Designed by architect Eduard Hermann Maertens (1823-1898), who was active in Bonn at the time, the plot of land on which the synagogue and the neighboring buildings also used by the Jewish community had stood lay fallow for decades and was used as a parking lot. The old Tempelstrasse had disappeared. Today there is a hotel complex on the site of the old synagogue. On January 11, 1963, a bronze plaque commemorating this place of worship was unveiled on the western abutment of the Rhine bridge right next to the destroyed synagogue following a council resolution.

Since around the 1880s, each building has had a so-called "house file", which accompanies each building from the building application to its demolition and is kept by the responsible building authority. These house files contain, among other things, design drawings, plans and applications for conversions and extensions. These files are regarded as ongoing administrative business as long as the buildings exist. Only after their destruction or demolition do the files end up in the archive.

And while the house files of the synagogue outbuildings at Tempelstraße 10 and 12, which were also demolished in 1938, had been properly archived since around the 1950s (shelfmark: Pr 24/1685), the house file of the synagogue itself was considered lost. By a stroke of luck, this materially and ideally valuable file was rediscovered in November 2017 and handed over to the city archive. At the time, the document had been made available by the building authorities in connection with the creation of the memorial plaque and had fallen into oblivion.

The documents include the application for the new building dated December 12, 1876, design drawings, floor plans and elevations, building sketches, applications for structural alterations and a succinct note from 1955 stating that the land in question on the former Tempelstraße had become the property of the city of Bonn as part of a "reallocation procedure". Incidentally, a plot of land on Wörthstraße (now Tempelstraße) had already been transferred to the newly established Jewish community in Bonn in 1950, on which today's Bonn Synagogue was built in 1959. Incidentally, the events of November 1938 were not directly reflected in the synagogue's house file. Only the file cover contains the correct but nevertheless cynical-sounding note "laid down at the end of 1938".

The magazine "Ohrenkuss" celebrated its 20th anniversary in November 2018. Founded in 1998 as a project of the downtown workshop for culture and science, it was intended to show, according to the official website, that people with Down syndrome can also read and write and therefore also be authors. The magazine is published twice a year and deals with one topic, which is reflected on 28 pages. It is written by the permanent Ohrenkuss authors, who meet regularly - but people with Down syndrome from all over the world also send their articles by post, email or voice message. The magazine has remained true to the layout of the first issue for 20 years: the title is printed in a horizontal bar at the top, the issue topic is photographed and written in a lower horizontal bar.

It is a magazine by young people with disabilities who do not present their disability as such. They write about the topic in the same way as any other young person or young adult writes about interesting topics. Their texts are not censored, as all the authors' stories and poems are to be reproduced in their original form. To this end, they allow themselves to be photographed naturally or even have entire photo series taken of themselves.

The first issue from November 1998 deals with the topic of love. It tells a love story that took place in Vienna. Photos show the two authors meeting, laughing together, touching and even kissing. Just like in every "Bravo Love Story", a happy couple is shown, which was still a special feature at the end of the 1990s as it involved two people with intellectual disabilities. On further pages, the authors explain what types of love there are, for example the love between mother and child or between friends. They supplement the topic with poems and talk about their love lives in a very natural way.

The anniversary edition is about the ocean. It shows how the Ohrenkuss team visits the Ozeaneum in Stralsund and asks the director there for an interview. An employee of Mission Lifeline - a non-governmental organization whose mission is to rescue people in distress at sea - is also interviewed. The interview is accompanied by short texts by the authors.

A photo series shows a young man in swimming trunks, along with many short stories and thoughts on the subject of the sea and water. Photographs of animals, coastal panoramas and harbors alternate again and again. Other topics covered in the magazine included: Work, Music, Sport, Woman and Man, Fashion, Mongolia, Living, Baby, Luxury, Humor, Beginning of the World.

All themed issues are in the collection of the City History Library and can be borrowed if you are interested.