Portal:Berlin/Article of the month/February

St Hedwig's from the Bebelplatz

St. Hedwig's is a Roman Catholic cathedral on the Bebelplatz in Berlin. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Berlin and was built in the 18th century following a request from local parishioners to King Frederick II. He donated the land on which the church was built. The church was dedicated to the patron of Silesia and Brandenburg, Saint Hedwig of Andechs and was the first Catholic church built in Prussia after the Reformation. The building was modelled on the Pantheon in Rome. Construction started in 1747, but it was not opened until 1 November 1773.

After the Kristallnacht pogroms that took place over the night of 9–10 November 1938, Bernhard Lichtenberg, a canon of the cathedral chapter of St Hedwig since 1931, prayed publicly for Jews at evening prayer. He was later jailed by the Nazis and died on the way to the concentration camp at Dachau. In 1965 Lichtenberg's remains were transferred to the crypt at St. Hedwig's.

The cathedral was severely damaged by allied bombing in an air raid on 1 March 1943 and only the shell of the building was left standing. Reconstruction started in 1952 and on the 1 November 1963 it was consecrated by the Bishop of Berlin.

Between 1949 and 1990 St. Hedwig's was in East Berlin, under the control of the East German government.. → more...