Niederaltaich Abbey - Later History

Later History

The abbey was dissolved at the secularisation of Bavaria in 1803. A fire in the church in 1813, caused by a bolt of lightning, signalled the beginning of the demolition of the Baroque complex. The monastery buildings were sold off to private individuals. The side chapels of the abbey church, the Gothic cloisters and adjoining buildings, as well as the parish church, were demolished.

In 1918, with the help of a legacy from the theology professor Franz Xaver Knabenbauer, a native of Niederalteich, a monastery was re-established here and settled from Metten Abbey. In 1932 the monastery church received from the pope the title of "Basilica minor". In 1949, under Abbot Emmanuel Maria Heufelder, the monastery became once again an independent abbey.

In 1946 the St.-Gotthard-Gymnasium ("St.-Gotthard-Grammar School") was refounded after having been closed by the Nazis. The remaining parts of the Baroque buildings were incorporated into new buildings in 1953–1954 and gradually renovated. In 1959 the Katholische Landvolkshochschule ("Catholic State Secondary School") was established here, and between 1971 and 1973 a new school building was erected for the St.-Gotthard-Gymnasium because the number of pupils had continually risen in the 1960s. Its boarding facilities, however, were shut down in 1994 and converted in 1999–2001 into the St. Pirmin Conference and Hospitality Centre. In 2006 and 2007 the school building of the St.-Gotthard-Gymnasium was refurbished. As a consequence, the school itself is transformed into a school that offers obligatory lessons from 7.45 am till 4.00 pm (a so-called Ganztagsschule) at the moment.

Niederaltaich has been a member of the Bavarian Congregation of the Benedictine Confederation since its re-foundation in 1918.

• Interior of Abbey Church