Krippkirche

Krippkirche stands in Füssen’s old town, embedded in a row of houses along a pedestrianised former main thoroughfare. Its narrow, elongated Baroque hall rises four steps above the street, with a saddle roof and small roof turret. The façade combines a volute gable, arched niche, oval windows and round-arched openings. Inside, subtle stucco surrounds a splendid high altar beneath a choir fresco of Saint Nicholas.

Johann Jakob Herkomer began construction in 1717, and his nephew Johann Georg Fischer completed the church in 1718. A vaulted cellar beneath the neighbouring house explains the unusual raised floor. Jesuits had established a simple chapel here in 1611, while Franciscans and the Füssener chapter shaped its later history. Today, Catholic and Syrian Orthodox communities use the protected Bavarian monument.

Dominikus Zimmermann created the stucco-marble high altar in 1719, while Herkomer began its nativity painting before Franz Georg Hermann finished it in 1721. A large 1764 Transfiguration painting by Balthasar Riepp hangs on the left wall, after once standing above St. Mang’s monastery church. Wooden figures of Saint Nicholas and the Mater Dolorosa add another vivid Baroque detail.