Bonner Stadtbefestigung

The Bonner Stadtbefestigung once enclosed the city in two layers of defence. A medieval wall built in the 13th century after the granting of town rights in 1244 ran roughly along today’s Kasernenstraße and Theaterstraße, with four main gates: the Stockentor to the south, the Sterntor to the west, the Kölntor to the north and the Rheinpforte to the east. Smaller gates such as the Mülheimer Pförtchen and the Wenzelpforte gave access to outlying streets, while the Alte Zoll at the southern end of the Rhine wall was added in the late 16th century. The medieval fortifications followed Cologne’s pattern, using a square tower called the Neuer Turm to guard the river front. In the 17th century the city added a baroque bastion ring shaped by Italian and French engineers under the influence of Vauban’s methods. Construction began with a ravelin in front of the Sterntor in 1587 and continued with the Stockentor bastion in 1622–23. The Zollbastion was completed by 1642, and the Alte Zoll itself appears in records from 1644. Later sieges, especially in 1689, damaged parts of the system, but the Alte Zoll became a fashionable promenade in the 18th century. Visitors today can trace these defences in scattered remains. The rebuilt Sterntor on Bottlerplatz incorporates sections of the old wall and a semicircular tower, while a stretch of the medieval counter-scarp serves as seating in the pedestrian zone at Friedensplatz. Bronze plaques and paving marks in Gangolfstraße show where the half-tower stood, and the Beethovenhalle sits on the site of the northern bastion. Along the Annagraben and in the Oxfordstraße car park, fragments of the Sterntor bastion’s faces survive, and the Kaiserpassage displays a curtain wall between the Ferdinand and Cassius bastions. In the Sparkasse KölnBonn underground garage, two sections of the bastion core reveal alternating courses of brick and basalt, offering a rare glimpse of the fortress’s inner structure.