St. Hedwig’s Cathedral

Catholic Cathedral on Bebelplatz in Berlin. The seat of the Archbishop of Berlin, Cardinal Rainer Wolka.nThe cathedral became the first after the Protestant Reformation Catholic Church in Prussia, built in the 18th century with the permission of King Frederick II the Great. The building was modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, and construction began in 1747, interrupting and lingering several times due to cost savings.nAfter the pogroms of Crystal Night, which occurred on the night of November 9-10, 1938, Bernhard Lichtenberg, a canon of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, publicly prayed for the Jews in the evening prayer. Subsequently, Lichtenberg was arrested by the Nazis and died on the way to the concentration camp of Dachau. In 1965, the remains of Lichtenberg were transferred to the crypt in the Cathedral of St. Hedwig.nThe cathedral completely burned down in 1943 during the air raids on Berlin and was under reconstruction from 1952 to 1963.