Vom Guten Hirten

In 1858, a sanctuary emerged in Alt-Lietzow, now Charlottenburg. It was called “Vom Guten Hirten,” a refuge for fallen girls. Vom Guten Hirten housed about 20 women by 1860. The Prussian Klosteraufhebungsgesetz forced its closure in 1875, scattering the sisters and rehoming the residents. A shift in its statutes allowed it to continue as a hospital. The law’s repeal in 1887 restored Vom Guten Hirten’s status as a convent, and by 1894, it trained female prison guards. Overcrowding led to a new branch opening in Reinickendorf in April 1887. By 1900, with 325 occupants bursting its seams in Charlottenburg, Vom Guten Hirten expanded to Marienfelde. Between 1903 and 1905, architect Josef Lückerath designed a new Vom Guten Hirten complex on Malteserstraße. This closed institution accommodated 400 women and girls. It featured a domestic science school, laundry, farm, bakery, and even a cemetery. The sisters and their charges relocated to Marienfelde on February 8, 1905, concluding the order’s work in Alt-Lietzow. During World War I, Vom Guten Hirten transformed into a military hospital under Dr. Moritz Jacobsohn. It served the same purpose in World War II. Starting around 1960, Petruswerk developed housing on Vom Guten Hirten’s farmland. A dwindling number of nuns led to the convent’s closure in 1967. The nuns departed in 1968. The living quarters were converted into a social center by 1974. The church found new life as the parish church for the newly established Catholic parish Vom Guten Hirten. In 2020, during Marienfelde’s 800th anniversary, artists Maria Vill and David Mannstein incorporated Vom Guten Hirten into their “Paste Up History” project. Photos of two girls from the shelter now grace the facades above the church’s main entrance and the rectory. The church’s cornerstone was laid on October 28, 1903. Its benediction followed on February 8, 1905. The consecration took place much later, on June 29, 1927. The church at Vom Guten Hirten boasts a unique seven-sided, neo-Gothic central structure. Attached are four separate naves, leading to four-story residential wings arranged in a star shape around the altar. This design, resembling a prison, ensured strict separation under the nuns’ watchful eyes. Each nave served the residents of its corresponding wing, originally separated from the central building by bars, except for the eastern wing for the nuns. The concept echoes early 19th-century prison architecture. The surrounding crenellated attic and frieze below enhance the castle-like impression. Red brick cladding and dark green glazed tiles protect exposed areas. A seven-sided tented roof covers the sanctuary, topped by a lantern-shaped bell tower with its own pointed roof. Symmetrical single-story wings house the sacristy and former community hall, where Marienfelde’s Catholic residents, barred from the church, gathered. Gothic elements adorn the church walls. Two large pointed arch windows sit between buttresses on the nave walls. The sanctuary’s three sides feature triangular gables, each with a two-part arched window and rose window above. Each nave holds painted Stations of the Cross, although the original frames are gone. The high altar once displayed a neo-Gothic retable with a Good Shepherd sculpture, but this was replaced in 1957 with a simple marble altar. The Nazarene-style vault paintings and stained glass, depicting Old and New Testament scenes, remain. The original two bells were confiscated in 1941 for the war effort. Three bronze bells, cast by Friedrich Wilhelm Schilling in 1965, now hang in the belfry. Vom Guten Hirten also houses an 1888 organ from the Charlottenburg monastery, its original location unknown. Built by Friedrich Fleiter of Münster, it was expanded and restored in 1979 by Hartwig Späth of Freiburg. It’s the oldest playable organ in a Berlin Catholic church.