Sankt Ansgarii

Sankt Ansgarii traces its beginnings to Bremen around 850, when Archbishop Ansgar founded a community for twelve clergy. The medieval church stood in the city centre as a Brick Gothic parish church, later becoming a hall church. Its western tower rose about 97 metres above Bremen after a fire in 1590.

The church gained a lasting place in Bremen’s Reformation history through Heinrich von Zütphen’s sermon in 1522. Its tower also served as a surveying landmark for Bremen’s first land survey in 1797 and Carl Friedrich Gauß’s triangulation work in 1824. World War II destroyed much of the structure, and the main tower collapsed in 1944.

The ruins disappeared during the 1950s, when the Bremer Carreé block replaced them. A new church opened in Schwachhausen between 1955 and 1957, preserving the medieval pulpit and stone epitaphs. On Ansgarikirchhof, the Ansgar Column has commemorated the lost church and Ansgar since 1965.

City: Bremen
Content updated: 2026-06-22

Image: Pagentorn CC BY-SA 4.0
Image: Jürgen Howaldt CC BY-SA 2.0 de
Image: Ernst Ehrhard (1855–1944), screenshot & upload Ulamm (talk)Public domain
Image: B. H. WienbergPublic domain

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