Kreuzkirche

Kreuzkirche stands in Heidelberg’s Wieblingen district as a protected Protestant church built in the neo-Gothic style. Hermann Behaghel designed the building, which rose between 1904 and 1906 with a cross-shaped floor plan and galleries in three arms.

Its history reaches back to a fifteenth-century church in the present park of the Elisabeth-von-Thadden-Schule. That building first served Protestants and Catholics after the Reformation, then became Protestant as Wieblingen’s congregation grew. Plans for a replacement emerged in the 1840s, but disputes over the old tower delayed construction for about sixty years. Baron Van La-Roche-Starkenfels provided land from the park of Schloss Wieblingen in exchange for the former church square.

Inside, three stained-glass windows by Rudolf Yelin show the Nativity, Crucifixion and Resurrection. A painted wooden ceiling replaces a vaulted roof, while restored vine patterns recall the interior’s earlier decoration. The organ, built by G. F. Steinmeyer & Co. in 1963 and modified in 2008, has 32 stops, three manuals and a pedal.