In the first decades of the 19th century, Johann Georg Max ran a busy inn at a former monastery and garden on the Kreuzberg in Bonn. The monastery had been appropriated and dissolved by the state during the secularisation of 1802. The innkeeper claimed to have knowledge of cures that he had been taught by the last monastery gardener. Some of his cures must have been successful because he became widely known as a miracle healer. At the end of consultations, he recommended to almost all his patients that they drink a glass of mulled wine before going to bed. Johann Georg Max died in 1847 at the age of 104 and was buried in front of the church.

The so-called Viehmarkt (cattle market) was located on the present-day Friedensplatz in Bonn. The first documented mention of this name was in 1715. After the opening of the Vorgebirgsbahn railway in 1899, the city council decided to rename the Viehmarkt Friedrichsplatz after Emperor Friedrich III of Prussia. At the beginning of the 18th century, when the square was still used for cattle trading, strange things happened in an inn that no one could explain. Every night it was said to be haunted, so that the guests fled. It got so bad that no one dared to go there anymore.

It happened that one evening a Bornheim butcher and his dog couldn't find a place to sleep in the surrounding inns and were sent to that very haunted house. Despite all the innkeeper's warnings, the butcher decided to spend the night there. Since the innkeeper always left the premises in the evening out of sheer fear, the butcher and his four-legged friend spent the night there alone. At midnight, the banging started in the attic above the innkeeper's parlour. Then the door burst open and a huge apparition in the form of a hairy beast with chains and horns came in. The butcher let his dog loose on the ghost and the animal chased it out.

It turned out that behind the haunting at Bonn's Viehmarkt was a man wearing an oxhide. The man lived next door, and every evening he would crawl through the half-timbering of the house up on the roof to the inn. His intention was probably to reduce the value of the inn so that he could buy it himself. The man was arrested and sent to prison.

The Kurfürstliches Schloss (Electoral Palace) has served as the main building of the University of Bonn since 1818. Before that, in 1777, it burnt down. The fire broke out in the west wing, spread to the attic, and caused a huge explosion in what was then the powder magazine. There was even a risk of the town catching fire. Fire safety concerns have not only recently been an issue in what is now the main building of the University of Bonn.

The story goes that on the night of 13 January 1777, a soldier from the Elector of Cologne who was standing guard in the courtyard of the Elector's private apartments was found unconscious by his relief. When the soldier came round, he said he had had a vision. No sooner had he started his watch than he suddenly saw a spot in the cloudy sky. The spot became clearer and clearer until the gap in the clouds turned into a rain of fire. He said it lasted for several minutes, leaving the soldier in a state of shock. The rain of fire dissipated without igniting any flames. The sky then darkened before becoming bright once more. The soldier said that he then saw several coffins in the sky.

The town commander Ignaz de Cler told the sentry’s story to a larger company of people. One of them was the 36-year-old Hofrat von Breuning, who immediately said that one of the coffins was intended for him. His relatives laughed and the story was dismissed as humbug. Two days later, on 15 January 1777, an historic fire broke out in the Elector's palace. Von Breuning was hit by a falling gate while trying to save writings from the archives and broke his back. Rumours arose at the time that it was arson due to the rapidity of the fire's outbreak and the explosion of the powder chamber.

The legend of the Dransdorf farmer and the Roman ghosts brings us back to the Kreuzberg. The old Roman city of Bonn had the famous pilgrimage mount known as Kreuzberg at its gates. Numerous pilgrims went there to the relic-rich holy staircase in the old monastery church and prayed in the martyrs’ chapel. A long time ago, a poor farmer from Dransdorf made a pilgrimage up to Kreuzberg and asked the Bonn city patrons Cassius and Florentinus to help him with his bodily needs. Cassius and Florentinus were Roman soldiers of the Theban Legion who had refused to fight other Christians at the end of the 3rd century.

On his journey home, he passed by Bonn Minster and dropped a donation into the offering box. It was already dawn and the exhausted farmer lay down on a church bench to sleep. But he was kicked out by the bellringer, so he went on his way and lay down on the walls of the Roman tower at the Sternentor to rest. When someone tapped him on the shoulder, he was startled to see a man wearing a Roman soldier's helmet and shingled warrior's shirt. Next to him stood two companions dressed similarly and waving amiably to the peasant.

The Dransdorfer recognised the three men as the Roman heroes he had seen in the martyrs’ chapel, and he followed them. The three men led the peasant through the mighty building of the Sterntor, where a pile of gold lay on a table in a high vaulted room. The heroes filled the farmer’s pockets full of gold and shouted "Vivat!" (in English: "live long").

The peasant awoke from his sleep again and found himself lying in the Roman tower at the Sterntor. His pockets were filled with gold. In the inn at the Sterntor he told his story and it soon became famous. The alley that led from Münsterplatz to Sterntor was henceforth called Vivatsgasse. The Roman tower stood there for almost 2000 years.

This is a list that does not claim to be complete or to follow objective criteria.

Original text: Emre Koc

Translation: Jean Lennox