St. Andreas in Hildesheim

Visible from afar, the enormous, three-nave, Gothic St. Andrew's Church with the highest church tower in Niedersachsen dominates Hildesheim's townscape. Its location, today's Andreasplatz, was the centre of economic life in the period from the 11th to the middle of the 13th century. It was at this prominent square that the long-distance hiking trail from Flanders via Aachen to Königsberg, today's Bundesstrasse 1, ran in the north, while at the same time the north-south trade route from Bremen to Mainz crossed this place. Around 1140 a three-nave basilica was built, which could be reconstructed in its original location in 1949/50 based on the results of excavations. At the end of the 13th century, the citizens planned the construction of a new large church. This church was to bear witness to the self-confidence and pride of the citizens and the importance of the town through its size and decoration. In the years 1956 - 1965 the St. Andrew's Church, which was destroyed in March 1945, was rebuilt in 11 construction phases in the old Gothic form on the outside and inside, but without the lost baroque furnishings and the painted flat ceiling.