With such visionaries seated in Cologne’s government, it’s surprising to discover that the new logo is nearly identical to its predecessor. Except for changing the city’s coat of arms from black to red, and reversing the red-white color sequence of ‘Stadt Köln,’ the new sign is the same as the old—just without the steeple insignia. The change has already cost the city €10,000, and the bill for materially enforcing the changes is expected to run into the tens of thousands. Such is the price for rebranding a vibrant, “highly attractive” German metropolis.
Not everyone accepts the rationale, and objections have been widespread in Germany and throughout Europe. Many were astonished over the announcement, and several politicians of various political stripes took to Twitter to express their outrage.
Parliamentary leader of the AfD, Beatrix von Storch, was particularly indignant toward the mayor, and saw the decision as a watershed in German national sovereignty:
The mayor removes the Cologne Cathedral from the city logo because it is ‘old-fashioned.’ Nobody conquers our country. It is we ourselves who voluntarily erase our culture. We create a vacuum that others are happy to fill.
Former Cologne Mayor Fritz Schramma, co-designer of the previous logo, also felt compelled to speak up. He dismissed the decision as a result of the “unqualified, inaccurate judgment of an advertising agency,” and is determined to get involved: “I don’t usually interfere in current city politics, but now this is enough for me.”
The site of the cathedral has been a place of Christian worship since the 4th century, and the cathedral itself, whose building began in 1248, took over five hundred years to finish. Completed in 1880 and withstanding two world wars, for nearly a millennia it has been the source of Cologne’s pride, and a majestic monument to the faith of Europe. Six million people a year visit the cathedral, recognized as a World Heritage Site since 1996. As the shrine of the Three Kings, the wise men who gave homage to the infant Christ, the cathedral continues to attract millions of pilgrims every year. Msgr. Robert Keine, dean of Köhlner Dom, speaks of the disappointment this change will bring to his city: “it was good for us in Cologne to show that it is we who have the cathedral.”
The logo change is subtle, and visually unspectacular. Conceptually, however, the alteration appears to be part of a larger pattern in western Europe of neglecting or erasing evidence of its Christian roots.
City administration rejects this interpretation, pointing out that the coat of arms, with the crowns of the three kings, still remains, and that the new logo could “hardly be more Christian. … Cologne’s Christian history is still in the logo—in the form of our city coat of arms.”
But, whereas the history of the Three Kings belongs to Christian history, the cathedral is Cologne’s alone; unlike the Christmas magi who have long ago passed from this earth, the cathedral provides a physical, audible, and visible touchstone for the sacred spaces in public life today. The cathedral is a living art—as the residents of Cologne well know—and erasing it, even while it radiates Cologne’s vitality, projects a secularism that seeks to eradicate the Church itself.
