Holy Spirit Chapel 1957

The chapel on Ellenstraße was built around 1425 to serve the adjacent hospital, which provided accommodation and meals for pilgrims and the needy.

The land had been purchased around 1390 by Johann Arnold von Broichhausen, who founded the Holy Spirit Hospital Foundation – Germany’s oldest charitable foundation for the poor.

Inside, the simple cross-vaulted room with two bays and a star-vaulted choir was designed for the needy to pray for the founder’s salvation.

When the chapel was no longer needed for religious purposes, it was put to a variety of secular uses during the 19th and 20th centuries: as a taproom with a dining room above, as the Hotel Kempener Hof, as an office of the German Labour Front during the Nazi era, as a hairdressing salon, as a municipal library, and most recently as a Christian bookshop.

Today, the chapel is once again owned by the Catholic parish and is regularly open to visitors for meetings and quiet reflection.