Maria-Hilf-Kirche

The Maria-Hilf-Kirche stands in Hürben, the eastern part of Krumbach in Schwaben. The Catholic parish church rose between 1966 and 1968, the largest church built in southern Germany after the Second World War. Krumbach's population had doubled with the influx of displaced persons, and the parish needed a larger home. The Ulm architects Manfred Wacker and Erich Niederbacher drew up the design. An irregular outline marks the exterior, and a narrow freestanding bell tower rises 42 metres, crowned with a prominent cross. With St. Michael's Church and Lichtenstein Castle, the tower forms a striking ensemble in the town centre.

Inside, a play of light and shadow meets you. The north side stays dim beneath the large gallery, while daylight strikes the altar from above and the west. On the south wall, a fresco of the Holy Trinity dominates the altar area. Above it hovers a dove, the sign of the Holy Spirit. At its centre the eye of God looks down on the cross and the space below. A tall, narrow tabernacle on the same wall points heavenward like the upward-striving forms of Gothic churches. To the right of the tabernacle, a statue of the Virgin Mary with Child stands on a pedestal, the church's patroness. At Christmas a nativity scene occupies that pedestal. Ambo and altar are large yet plain, matching the scale of the room. The organ built by Maximilian Offner in 1974 offers 36 registers on three manuals and a pedal. In the northwest corner you find the baptismal chapel.

The ground under all of this has its own history. From 1939 to 1945 a camp of the Reich Labour Service for women occupied the site. After the war it became a reception and transit station for displaced persons. That role lasted until work on the church began. So the building stands on ground that first received the very people whose arrival made it necessary.