St. Joseph, Catholic church in Maxvorstadt, Munich, Germany.
St. Joseph is a neo-Baroque wall-pillar basilica with a barrel vault, built 1898–1902 to plans by Hans Schurr at the east end of Josephsplatz. It measures 79 m long and 31 m wide, with the vault apex 24 m above the floor and a 63 m tower. The pale yellow west facade has a recessed three-arch portico modelled on Salzburg Cathedral; the tower's octagonal fourth storey carries a copper onion dome and cross.
St. Joseph was built from 1898 to 1902 to plans by Hans Schurr as the second parish church of the Maxvorstadt, consecrated on 15 June 1902 by Archbishop Franz Josef von Stein. It served as a Capuchin convent church, and on 19 September 1913 Archbishop Franz von Bettinger raised it to a parish. On 13 June 1944 two bombs destroyed almost everything but the tower; rebuilding began in 1950 and the high altar was consecrated on 6 July 1952.
The church is dedicated to Saint Joseph and was long served by the Capuchin order, who ran the parish from 1913. Inside the tower, a memorial commemorates the 21 members of the parish's Catholic journeymen's association who were tortured and murdered by Freikorps Bayreuth on 6 and 7 May 1919 in the cellar of the Prinz-Georg-Palais.
St. Joseph stands at Josephsplatz 1, at the eastern end of Josephsplatz on the border between Maxvorstadt and Schwabing-West; the tower closes the view up Augustenstraße. The building is free-standing on three sides, with the parish house and former Capuchin convent adjoining the north side, so the west facade with its three-arched portico is best seen from the square.
Inside the tower is a memorial to the parish's victims of both world wars, including 21 members of the Catholic journeymen's association who were tortured and murdered on 6 and 7 May 1919 in the cellar of the Prinz-Georg-Palais by Freikorps Bayreuth under Wolff von Stutterheim on suspicion of communism.
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