St. Marien

St. Marien is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Nordstadt district of Hanover, dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Christoph Hehl designed the neo-Gothic building, raised between 1886 and 1890. Bishop Daniel Wilhelm Sommerwerck consecrated it on 20 May 1890, the second Catholic church in the city after St. Clemens. Ludwig Windthorst, a driving force behind its founding, was buried here in 1891.

In 1913 the northern districts formed their own community, St. Joseph. Four air raids between July 1943 and March 1945 left nothing standing but the tower. Safety concerns brought the remaining walls down in 1952, and a simplified three-aisled rebuild followed in 1953 and 1954. Heinrich Gerhard Bücker reshaped the interior artistically in 1979. Since 2006 it has served as the main church of the parish of St. Maria. St. Adalbert and St. Hedwig belong to that parish, and the Catholic International Center of Hanover also uses the building.

The organ began life in 1901, when Furtwängler & Hammer built it for Brunswick Cathedral, and it arrived here in 1960. Seventy-three registers make it one of the largest organs in Northern Germany. In the tower hang four bells cast in 1986 by the Eifeler Glockengießerei Mark in Brockscheid.