Before the bombs of World War II forever altered Cologne's skyline, the city's magnificent Hauptbahnhof stood in full Wilhelmine grandeur — and this hand-colored pre-war postcard captures it at its proudest, its Romanesque clock tower presiding over arched iron-and-glass train sheds and a bustling forecourt alive with horse-drawn vehicles. Cologne's central station, rebuilt and expanded between 1889 and 1894 adjacent to the great Gothic cathedral, was one of Imperial Germany's busiest rail junctions and a masterpiece of the era's confident civic architecture. Published by H. Worringen of Köln a/Rh., Altermarkt — a well-documented local Cologne publisher — this undivided or early divided-back card (priced "#1 50¢" in pencil by a later dealer) was never posted, preserving its vivid hand-applied color lithography in exceptional detail. A time capsule of a building and a city on the eve of catastrophic change.