“Who was Saint Erentrudis?” someone asks. Today we stand before the St. Erentrudiskapelle. It is a chapel dedicated to her. The St. Erentrudiskapelle is located at the southeastern end of the Tuniberg. It sits atop the 271-meter-high Kapellenberg. This overlooks the Munzingen district of Freiburg. The chapel is also a landmark of the Tuniberg.
Saint Erentrudis of Salzburg was the sister of Saint Rupert of Salzburg. She was mistakenly confused with Saint Trudpert. He was venerated in Breisgau.
In the 13th century, a castle of the Lords of Staufen stood on Kapellenberg. A chapel is mentioned in 1520, 1573, 1580 and 1635. A report from 1666 mentions a chapel of St. Erentrudis. It included a statue of St. Nicholas.
Johann Friedrich von Kageneck donated money in 1698. This was for holding masses in the chapel. The chapel was destroyed in 1713 during the War of the Spanish Succession. However, it was soon rebuilt. The hermit Melchior Rech and Pastor Franz Benedict Ginter initiated the reconstruction. It was consecrated in 1715 and 1716. Hermits lived in an annex until 1843. They were called “mountain brothers”.
The chapel received a new bell in 1745. In 1748, it received a relic of Erentrudis of Salzburg. This was donated by the Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg. In 1750, the sculptor Matthias Faller created an altar. It featured statues of Saints Trudpert and Erentrudius for the chapel. These were donated to the Augustiner Museum in Freiburg in 1926.
The chapel was to be secularized in 1788. However, this was withdrawn in 1792. It followed protests from the community.
In 1879, the chapel was rebuilt without the hermitage. This followed a long period of decay. After the Second World War, damage was repaired. The furnishings were renewed. The Freiburg painter Ernst Riess created a winged altar in 1948. The central panel is now on the north wall.
A small bell from the Neu-Ulm bell foundry Grüninger was hung in the open roof turret in 1949. In 1984, Abbot Franz Bachler of Salzburg consecrated a new Erentrudis statue. It was modeled after a late Gothic statue from Nonnberg Abbey. Thus ends the story of the St. Erentrudiskapelle.