St. Michael's Church, Berlin
Saint Michael’s Church (Sankt-Michael-Kirche) in Berlin is a historic Roman Catholic church in the Mitte district, near Kreuzberg. Built from 1851 to 1861, it also served as a garrison church for Catholic soldiers. It was badly damaged in World War II and rebuilt in the 1950s. Today it is protected as a historical monument.
The church stands on Michaelkirchplatz beside Engelbecken, the former Luisenstadt Canal. When the canal closed in 1926, it was turned into a park, giving a clear view of the church from the south; after the Berlin Wall came down, that view was restored to resemble how the church was originally seen.
The idea for a second Catholic church in Berlin after the Reformation came from King Frederick William IV, who wanted a spiritual home for soldiers and to ease pressure on St. Hedwig’s Cathedral. The design was created by August Soller. He first planned a front with two towers, but changed the plan to a domed tower and a hall-church layout with three aisles ending in apses. The foundation stone was laid on July 14, 1851. Soller died in 1856, and the church was completed by Andreas Simon(s), Martin Gropius, and Soller's nephew Richard Lucae. The cost was about 438,000 marks.
Saint Michael’s was consecrated on October 28, 1861, in the presence of William I, Emperor of Germany. A military church area for about 3,000 soldiers was created, and the parish gradually grew, becoming a formal parish in 1888. At its peak around 1900, the area had about 20,000 Roman Catholics, who were known as the Michaelites.
The church influenced social life in the area. The Marienstift, founded by the Breslau Marist sisters in 1909, provided social services, health care, a kindergarten, and housing. Bernhard Lichtenberg, who would later oppose the Nazis, was a chaplain here from 1903 to 1905, and Maximilian Kaller led social and pastoral efforts from 1917 to 1926.
When the Engelbecken was being planned as a pool after 1926, Catholics resisted. The plan was blocked, and the area was kept as a pond with green space.
In the final months of the war, on February 3, 1945, the area was almost completely destroyed by air raids. Saint Michael’s suffered heavy fire damage; the organ and most of the interior were destroyed, but the outer walls and the dome survived. A mosaic of the Annunciation above the portal partly survived. After the war, services moved to the Marienstift, and interior work began again, with a partial reopening in 1953. Bells were added in 1957, and a new organ was installed in 1960.
When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, the parish was split into eastern and western halves. St. Michael’s in the east remained part of the parish there, while in West Berlin a new Church of St. Michael on Waldemarstraße was built by Rudolf Schwarz. The centennial of the church’s dedication was celebrated in 1961. By the 1980s, the western part focused more on youth, while the eastern part kept traditional liturgy. After German reunification, the eastern church joined the parish of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, and the western part joined St. Mary’s.
Saint Michael’s received heritage protection in 1978. In the late 1970s and 1980s, repairs were made to the dome and brickwork, and a new parish house was built within the ruins of the church (1985–1988). For years the view of the church from Oranienplatz was blocked by the Wall, and a trompe-l’œil depiction of the lower part of the church was painted on the western wall to illustrate permeability of the barrier. After the Wall fell, restoration work continued: the bell tower was refurbished (1991–1993), and the Annunciation mosaic above the portal was restored in 1999. The nave roof remained absent, and services were held in the transepts.
In 2003 the parish of Saint Michael’s was merged into the nearby parish of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, so it no longer functions as an independent parish church, though religious services continue there. In 2005 plans were announced to restore the nave and create a Center Against Expulsions, but the archbishop canceled the church’s agreement with the Federation of Expellees due to lack of consent.
The church’s three-aisled brick nave is about 55 meters long, with a copper dome over the crossing rising more than 56 meters high. The exterior is richly decorated with buttresses, friezes, statues, and colorful details. Inside, Saint Michael’s is a hall church with three equal naves; the central apse shows the Archangel Michael fighting Lucifer, and the dome’s half-dome contains a Pantokrator image. The original organ was lost; the current organ, placed in a new gallery above the eastern entrance, was built in 1960 by W. Sauer Orgelbau. The nave’s west end now houses the choir and altar, while much of the former nave has become a garden.
Saint Michael’s blends Neoclassical and Medieval influences, drawing on Italian models from Padua and Venice. Its design helped shape later Berlin churches in the Schinkel school tradition.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 19:19 (CET).