On the afternoon of Tuesday 3 March, the building of the Historic Archive of the city of Cologne in Germany collapsed along with two neighbouring buildings. Two residents of these neighbouring buildings were killed.
The building dated from the 1970s and contained some 65,000 original charters as well as valuable collections of maps, images, posters and files.
On Monday 27th April an international Blue Shield team went to Cologne to support the rescue work on the valuable collection of the collapsed City Archive of Cologne.
On Monday 3rd August an international Blue Shield team went to Cologne to support the rescue work on the valuable collection of the collapsed City Archive of Cologne. Throughout week about 60 heritage professionals from France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Great-Britain and Sweden will try to save as much of the collection as possible.
Photo: Cologne / Köln City Archive. The photographer witnessed the collapse and took this picture immediately after the collapse. It was taken from the south side and shows the ruins of the city archives on Severinstraße.
By Frank Domahs, Wikimedia Commons.
Read about the Blue Shield Rescue Mission to Cologne 01-08-2009 (pdf) (EN)
Read about the Blue Shield Rescue Mission to Cologne 01-08-2009 (pdf) (FR)
Read about the Blue Shield Rescue Mission to Cologne 01-08-2009 (pdf) (NL)
Read about the Blue Shield Rescue Mission to Cologne 01-08-2009 (pdf) (DE)
Or read about the first Blue Shield mission to Cologne
View The Cologne Archive Mission. Blue Shield – Powerpoint PDF