Marienkapelle, Religious chapel in southern Aachen, Germany

Marienkapelle, known as Schneebergkapelle, is a small white votive chapel on the southwest slope of the Schneeberg above the Senserbach. Its octagonal upper section, modelled on the Aachen Cathedral octagon, carries a concrete ten-point rosary crown with a blue-stone cross and a bell from the former Redemptorist monastery in Vaals. Peter Hodiamont designed the enamel windows and entrance door; inside, a 16-hundredweight boulder supports the altar slab beneath a grey Madonna from Bruges by Louis Dupont.

Farmer Wilhelm Maahsen vowed during the Second World War to build a chapel if he, his family and the villages of Vaals and Vaalserquartier survived; after the liberation in October 1944 he began work, using rubble from around Aachen Cathedral for the foundation. Lacking a permit, he halted until an architecture student drew up the plans, then continued with his neighbours. The chapel was consecrated on 8 September 1963 before more than a thousand pilgrims.

The chapel's name comes from its dedication to Mary, and its annual pilgrim processions began after the 1963 consecration. The enamel plaques by Aachen artist Peter Hodiamont around the windows and door show motifs from the Loreto Litany and depict the chapel's construction from the 1944 vow to the 1963 blessing.

The chapel stands on the southwest slope of the Schneeberg above the Senserbach, north of Vaals in the Laurensberg district. The stairway from the farmyard on Senserbachweg and the family burial plot are private; public access is only from the north via the paved Schneebergweg. The chapel itself remains in private ownership.

The bell in the concrete crown of ten points came from the dissolved Redemptorist monastery in Vaals and was bought by Maahsen for 75 DM; it is now fixed in place. During his lifetime he or his wife rang it three times a day, in the morning, at noon and in the evening.