The Hänneschen Theater moved 17 times within Cologne until it reached its current location on the Eisenmarkt in the old town.
It was founded in 1802 by Johann Christoph Winters and initially served only as a stage for nativity plays.
But that changed in 1823, when the first organized carnival procession took place in Cologne and the stick puppets took part.
After the last member of the puppet family died in 1919, the theater was initially closed.
It is thanks to the theater scholar Carl Niessen and Konrad Adenauer that the puppet theater came into municipal hands in 1926 and reopened.
Like almost every cultural institution in Cologne at the time, the Hänneschen Theater also came to terms with the Nazis and also performed racist plays during the Nazi era.
And today?
The annual puppet show is legendary. It really makes fun of the carnival and even includes well-known Cologne residents (who are also allowed to “perform” as stick puppets).
Hänneschen and Bärbelchen are the main characters in the main ensemble of 11 puppets.
Sometimes Bärbelchen is Hänneschen’s sister (in children’s shows) and sometimes his girlfriend. And of course the Cologne originals Tünnes and Schäl are not to be missed.
The funny stories in Cologne dialect are set in the fictional town of Knollendorf, which is very similar to Cologne. Funny plots aimed at Cologne always delight young and old.
The Hänneschen Theater is the largest puppet theater in Germany in terms of the number of employees.
And every time a show starts, the motto is: “Hinger d’r Britz es vür d’r Britz”.
Would you like a sample?
Now it’s about to get scary and wonderful, we’ll tell you a Cologne legend at our next historical location, about 50 m from here. We go to the house in Markmannsgasse with the house number 13
Image source 1st image: By © Raimond Spekking / CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46764922
Image source 2nd image: Hänneschen und Bärbelchen, Superbass, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
