St. Godehard

St. Godehard is the Catholic parish church of Linden-Mitte, a district of Hanover. Christoph Hehl designed the neo-Gothic brick building, raised in 1873 and 1874, when Linden was still an independent industrial city. The longhouse holds three naves, with a polygonal apse to the west and a transept to the east. That transept serves as the entrance area and baptistery. Above the crossing, a square, copper-clad turret carries the bells.

It was the second post-Reformation Catholic church in what is now Hanover. Saint Godehard, an eleventh-century bishop of Hildesheim, is its patron, and Bishop Wilhelm Sommerwerck consecrated the building on 4 October 1874. Four thousand Catholics made up the early parish, and its mission district reached the Deister. Incendiary bombs burned the church out during a heavy raid on Hanover in October 1943. The city's final air raid, on 28 March 1945, destroyed it outright. Reconstruction in 1949 and 1950 produced the exterior you see today. Auxiliary Bishop Johannes Bydolek consecrated the rebuilt church on 13 August 1950. Catholic refugees from East Germany then swelled the parish. Since 2010 it has been the parish church for the whole of Linden, taking in St. Benno, Badenstedt and Ahlem.

Inside, the walls are painted white, and only the column capitals stand out in yellow. A gold-yellow frieze runs beneath the high, pointed chancel arch, and most furnishings date from the 1950s. The Emil Hammer organ of 1987 holds thirty-eight registers on three manuals and a pedal. Part of its pipework comes from the earlier organ of 1954. The church is wheelchair accessible, and nearby stands the Godehardistift, a Catholic senior centre built in 1977. Since 2009 a Protestant foundation, the Johannesstift, has run the home. Its house chapel of St. Vincent hosts both Catholic and Protestant services.