Kreuzkloster Gotha

The Kreuzkloster once stood outside Gotha’s Brühler Tor, a Cistercian nunnery founded in the 13th century. The sisters moved there from an earlier site near the later Augustinerkirche around 1255. In 1519 a fire ruined much of the complex, and five years later the monastery closed during the Reformation. After the buildings passed to the city, they were demolished by 1542 and replaced by the Alter Gottesacker cemetery. A garrison church, St Katharinen, was built on the site in 1656 but torn down again in the late 19th century. By 1911 the area had become home to the Arnoldischule, its gymnasium and a public bath. All visible traces of the nunnery have long since vanished beneath later construction. Only written records, such as an 1860 list of its abbesses, preserve its memory. Today the former monastery grounds lie beneath modern school yards and playing fields. Visitors find no ruins or cloister walks, yet the quiet square between Eisenacher and Bohnstedtstraße marks the spot where the nuns once lived and prayed. A nearby information board recalls the site’s history for passers-by. The vanished monastery survives only in the names of streets and in the city’s chronicles.