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The Persian carpets of the city of Cologne look back on an eventful history. They were originally part of an order for a total of 22 carpets for the official buildings of the Third Reich placed with the Persische Teppich-Aktien-Gesellschaft (PETAG), a German company founded in 1911 in Northern Iran by Heinrich Jacoby (1889-1964). In order to be able to produce the enormous carpets in the first place, a new production hall had to be built to fit the correspondingly huge looms.

When the events of the war made it increasingly unlikely that the carpets would ever be delivered, they were bought back by the director of the weaving factory and the pieces changed hands several times until ten of them were exhibited by a Swiss dealer in the Kaufhof in Cologne in 1962 and four were acquired by the city.

The largest of the four carpets on offer was in the "Hansasaal" of the City of Cologne. The Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln holds photographs showing the city's guests of honour on this very carpet. Among the most prominent are the Queen of England and John F. Kennedy. Elizabeth II (21 April 1926 - 8 September 2022) visited the Rhenish metropolis with her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on 25 May 1965, where she was received by the then Lord Mayor Theo Burauen and an estimated 200,000 Cologne residents. The photo shows her on the carpet in the Hansa Hall after signing the Golden Book of the City of Cologne. In 1992, the city of Cologne again had the honour of receiving the Queen. There is also a photo of this visit, where she is standing on the carpet smiling.

In 1963, Cologne became the first German city to receive American President John F. Kennedy, who also walked the carpet, accompanied by German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Lord Mayor Theo Burauen. Three days later, Kennedy gave his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in Berlin.