Church of St Martin, Catholic church in Dunningen, Germany

St. Martinus is Dunningen's Catholic parish church, built in 1966/1968 to a design by the Friedrichshafen architect Hanns Schlichte (1920–1994). It is probably the seventh church on this site; excavations in 1965/1966 traced all earlier buildings, and the lower storeys of the medieval tower survive. The parish belongs to the Seelsorgeeinheit Eschach-Neckar in the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart.

A first wooden church stood here from around 630/640, and a church is already mentioned in Dunningen's first documentary record of 786. Excavations in 1965/1966 traced every later building on the site, making the 1966/1968 church by Hanns Schlichte probably the seventh. In the Middle Ages Dunningen was a mother parish with branches including Schramberg, Sulgen and Seedorf; the parish passed to the Diocese of Rottenburg in 1821.

Dunningen was a mother parish for centuries, and its church long served as the ecclesiastical centre for Schramberg, Sulgen, Lichtenau (today Heiligenbronn), Seedorf and Herrenzimmern. Sulgen separated in 1435, Schramberg around 1550, Seedorf only in 1772. The parish passed from the dissolved Diocese of Constance to the newly founded Diocese of Rottenburg in 1821.

The 1968 church stands on the site of its predecessors in central Dunningen, where excavations in 1965/1966 uncovered traces of seven church buildings, including postholes of a wooden church from around 630/640. The lower storeys of the medieval tower survive from the Romanesque predecessor. Visitors reach the parish church of the Eschach-Neckar pastoral unit on foot through the town centre.

Excavations in 1965/1966 under the present church uncovered all earlier church buildings on the site, including postholes and a wooden floor from the first timber church of around 630/640. Two women's graves from about 610–630 were found; a gold leaf cross on a face veil suggests the older one held the area's first Christian woman.