Heiligste Dreifaltigkeit

Heiligste Dreifaltigkeit is a Catholic parish church in Augsburg-Kriegshaber and the oldest church in this part of the city. What you see is a three-aisled basilica facing east, with a transept and a northern tower carrying a copper spire. Inside, whitewashed walls surround a coffered nave ceiling in brown and red tones, and Solnhofen stone slabs cover the floor.

Kriegshaber once had no church of its own, and its Catholics belonged to St. Peter and Paul in nearby Oberhausen. From 1689 a chapel dedicated to the Visitation of Mary served the village, replaced in 1717 and enlarged again in 1816. Max Treu, an Augsburg architect, designed the brick neo-Gothic church that rose from 1866, closely following St. Ulrich in Königsbrunn. Blessed in 1868 and consecrated in 1873, it received a high altar by Karl Ebner and an altarpiece by Liberat Hundertpfund. Between 1925 and 1929, architect Michael Kurz reduced the unstable tower from 46 to 37 metres and plastered over the brickwork.

In July 1944 a bombing raid left nothing standing but the tower and the chancel. The Trinity group above the altar survived the attack, and you can still see it there. Reconstruction began in 1948 under Kurz again, reusing the old foundations and bricks and adding two side aisles. Seating rose from 350 to 450, pointed windows gave way to round arches, and the reconsecration followed in 1950. Karl Radinger supplied a new high altar, pulpit and large nativity scene in the late 1950s. A Lourdes chapel came in 2000, and the parish shares its life with neighbouring St. Thaddäus. Yellow, red and blue in the apse windows by Georg Bernhard stand for the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.