The ruins of the Old St. Alban Church on the Quatermarkt in Cologne are one of the city's most impressive monuments and a central memorial site for the victims of the World Wars. The former parish church is one of the oldest in Cologne, with the original building estimated to date back to the 9th century. Over time, the church underwent numerous renovations, from its Romanesque construction to its conversion into a three-aisled hall church in the Baroque style between 1668 and 1672. During bombing raids during World War II, the church was severely damaged and burned down, leaving only the outer walls and parts of the tower. Unlike many other Romanesque churches in Cologne, a conscious decision was made not to rebuild after 1945; the ruins were merely secured and preserved. After being deconsecrated in 1954, the church ruins were declared a memorial to the victims of the two World Wars in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1959 and consecrated by Federal President Theodor Heuss. The interior features the haunting sculptural group "The Mourning Parents," a copy of the original by Käthe Kollwitz, who mourned her son, Peter, who had fallen in the war. The copies in St. Alban's were made of shell limestone by Ewald Mataré (mother) and Joseph Beuys and Erwin Heerich (father). Today, the ruins are closely linked to the reconstructed Gürzenich (ballroom), whose architects, Rudolf Schwarz and Karl Band, incorporated the ruins into their overall design. The Bruder Konrad Chapel has been located on the ground floor of the preserved tower since 1964. The new parish church, New St. Alban, was built between 1957 and 1959 to replace the destroyed church, designed by the architect Hans Schilling.
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