Texts and Research

Stories between research and narrative

It is only in the telling that events become history.

Hannah Arendt


The Chapel of the Holy Three Kings in Rondorf
Traces of a Place Between Road, Faith, and Community

A historically grounded narrative account of the former chapel in Rondorf.
The text combines archaeological evidence, written sources, and local tradition, placing them within a broader spatial and historical context.
It offers a readable overview of the development of the site, the chapel, and its transformation leading up to the new beginning around 1900.

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Nikolaus Houallet
Traces of a Parish Priest

Nikolaus Houallet was parish priest in Immendorf.
He served here during the final years of his life and remained in office until shortly before his death in 1895.

This contribution follows the surviving traces of this parish priest: his origins, his education, and his ecclesiastical service in the Rhineland of the nineteenth century.
Archival sources, official records, and his death notice form the basis.

Immendorf was his place of ministry and forms part of his family history.
His grave in the Immendorf cemetery remains a visible trace of this life.



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Bernhard Steiner (1921–1945)
Tracing a life between Rondorf and Lower Silesia

A simple gravestone in the cemetery of Rondorf sets a search in motion.
The research leads from Cologne-Rondorf through archives and eyewitness accounts to Lower Silesia, revealing how war, displacement and individual lives are intertwined.



A source-based investigation into local and family history.

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By a conscientious chronicler of Rondorf

A narrative local history from Rondorf

On a snowy night, a young couple becomes stranded in Rondorf, near Cologne and gives birth to their child in an old stable at the Johanneshof.

What follows is a modern, ironic variation of the Christmas story,
in which neighbors, the police, shepherds and self-appointed wise men all play an unexpected role.


A literary local history with satirical and contemporary references.


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