Cölln

Today, the former site of Cölln is the historic core of the modern Mitte locality of the Berlin-Mitte borough in central Berlin.

Cölln and Altberlin were separated only by the river Spree, linked by the Mühlendamm causeway, hence there was a close connection right from the start.

The common policy of Berlin and Cölln led 1307 to a first alliance with other towns (Brandenburg an der Havel, Frankfurt (Oder) and Salzwedel) in the March to defend their rights against the sovereign.

[2] Cölln's centre the Saint Peter's Church, originally built about 1230 and reconstructed several times over the centuries, had been badly damaged by air raids and the Battle of Berlin in 1945.

Though most of the neighbourhood was destroyed, a few Baroque houses remained: The bookseller Christoph Friedrich Nicolai lived on Brüderstraße 13 from 1787 until his death in 1811.

Nicolai had it remodeled by the mason and composer Carl Friedrich Zelter, making it a meeting-point of intellectuals influenced by the Age of Enlightenment (Aufklärung) and Romanticism movement.

In 1786 Honoré Mirabeau stayed here on his first trip to Berlin and so did the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow, the printmaker Daniel Chodowiecki as well as the poet Theodor Körner in 1811.

According to legend, a maidservant was hanged right in front of the house in 1735, being falsely accused of stealing a silver spoon.

On neighbouring Breite Straße 35 is the late Renaissance Ribbeckhaus from 1624, one of Berlin's oldest preserved residential buildings, which since 1920 houses the Central and Regional Library.