The plain Baroque Katharinenkirche on the Hauptwache is the city's main Lutheran church and the only one of the inner city churches whose tower made it through the war intact. Goethe was baptised here in 1749, and Schopenhauer attended sermons here as a young man.
The post-war reconstruction kept the 1681 exterior but replaced the interior with a stripped-back modern hall in pale stone and wood. The notable stained glass — designed by the contemporary artist Charles Crodel in the 1950s — uses abstract patterns of blue, green and red and is more striking from inside than the conservative exterior would suggest. Free entry; usually open daylight hours.