Notkirche der evangelischen Gemeinde Alt-Saarbrücken

In Alt-Saarbrücken, the Notkirche der evangelischen Gemeinde Alt-Saarbrücken stands as a single-storey wooden church with one nave. Its gabled roof rises above a modest bell tower.

Built in Switzerland as a military barrack during the Second World War, the chapel reached Saarbrücken in 1946. War damage had heavily affected the city centre, so the wooden building rose on municipal land at the community’s edge. A kindergarten used the church from 1947 until other facilities opened nearby. Anthracite stoves heated the interior until a gas connection arrived in 1980, while restoration continued through major work between 2006 and 2008.

Inside, an organ niche from 1952 accompanies windows designed by György Lehoczky in 1953. Four Evangelists appear in those windows, giving the simple wooden interior its clearest visual focus. The nearby grave of three Hohenzollern Fusilier Regiment No. 40 soldiers explains the alternative name, Notkirche am 40er Grab. A sandstone slab marks their burial place, first identified by a French military plaque. The church remains one of Germany’s few surviving wooden emergency churches and stands as a protected historic monument.