A parade before Cologne Cathedral, 1937
A uniformed brass band marches across the square before the Gothic towers of Cologne Cathedral, followed by a banner and columns of townsmen and women.
The view climbs the pinnacled west front of Cologne Cathedral against the sky; on the cobbled square below, a brass band in dark uniforms and caps marches by with tubas and trumpets, led by a man in a light uniform. Behind it come a banner and a column of middle-aged men in hats and suits, badges on their lapels, then women in hats and coats walking in step, a boy among them.
The cathedral, begun in 1248 and finished in 1880, had seen Catholic processions pass before it for centuries. By 1937 the regime was pressing the Catholic associations out of public life, and the marches on the square belonged more and more to the party, the Labour Front and its holiday organisation, Strength through Joy.
