The church of St Michael in Holthausen is unusual first of all because it stands “the wrong way round”, which means that the tower is in the east and the nave joins the tower in the west. The tower is obviously not accessible from the nave or the choir, which form a single unit on the inside; it can only be reached through a door in the east wall of the nave. Therefore, I do not know what is inside apart from the bells and the clockwork.

Its external appearance – apart from the spire, an eight-sided Welsh dome and the fact that the tower is to the east – is very similar to churches in East Anglia. One could therefore assume that it is also of a similar age; in fact, however, construction only began in 1927 and the church was consecrated on 19.07.1928. The driving force behind the construction was the local vicar Otto Möbius. He had already begun preparations for the church building shortly after taking up his post in Holthausen – Easter 1924 – and completed it despite much opposition.

The participation of the local population in the construction is astonishing and thus also unusual: stones for the new church were quarried in a quarry on the nearby Jüberg. Families from Holthausen and Huxel worked more than 10,000 hours in the quarry. In order to obtain the roof slate for the church free of charge, the quarrymen sacrificed 107 shifts of 8.5 hours each – a total of over 900 hours. The chronicle of the church building documents a further 4,000 hours of work for excavation, wood cutting, hauling building materials, etc.

In 1932, three bells were purchased, which rang for the first time at Christmas 1932. The stained glass windows made of antique glass, lead and black solder with the eight Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount were designed by the painter Wilhelm Rengshausen in 1956. Also worth seeing are the wooden sculptures on the choir wall from the 1980s depicting the works of mercy.

The church is open daily, and the area invites you to go on great walks. Therefore, Holthausen is definitely worth a visit.