Stephingertor

The Stephingertor stands in Augsburg’s old northern defences, a small square gate built in 1304 between the Lueginsland bastion and the Oblattertor. It began life as St Gallentor after the nearby church of St Gallus, and only later took its present name from the monastery of St Stephan. A wooden bridge crossed the city moat by 1367, later rebuilt in stone with timber beams resting on masonry piers.

The gate once carried a pointed spire visible in a 1514 view and Georg Seld’s 1521 plan, but this disappeared in later centuries. In 1619 the city master-builder Elias Holl tore the whole structure down and rebuilt it in grander form. During the War of the Spanish Succession it was destroyed again and left unrepaired; only the outer gate survived until 1880, when even that was removed to make way for new streets.

Today nothing of the gate remains above ground, yet its old route is still marked on maps near the junction of Stephingertor and Oblattertor streets. The line of the vanished moat can be traced in the alignment of nearby buildings, and the name lives on in local bus stops and street signs.