A cannonball, embedded in the façade more than two hundred years ago, passes daily before the eyes of thousands of passers-by and tourists, yet only a few stop to notice this detail and learn its history.
St Peter’s Church and its nickname
St Peter’s Church, situated on Rindermarkt square, has long been known to Municheners simply as “Alter Peter” — “Old Peter.” It is the city’s oldest parish church: the earliest mentions of a church on this site date back to the pre-Munich period of the settlement’s history, well before the official founding of Munich in 1158. The church stands on a slight rise near Marienplatz — the city’s main square — and can be recognised from afar by its distinctive tower with eight clock faces, which for a long time served as Munich’s principal viewing point.
It is from this very tower, incidentally, that one of the city’s best-known panoramas unfolds — a view over Marienplatz, the town hall and, on a clear day, the Alps. But if, instead of climbing to the top, one walks around the choir of the church from the outside and looks up at the apse wall, a less striking but curiously notable detail can be spotted: set into the sill of one of the windows is a round stone object — the cannonball itself.
Where the cannonball came from
The story of its origin is connected with the so-called Coalition Wars — a series of military conflicts waged by European monarchies against revolutionary France at the turn of the eighteenth century. The First Coalition War lasted from 1792 to 1797 and united Austria, Prussia, Great Britain and other powers against France. Fighting spread across much of Central Europe, and at one point the war reached Bavaria.
In 1796, Munich was briefly occupied by French troops. Austrian units attempted to retake the city and shelled it from Gasteig — a rise to the east of the Isar river. Today Gasteig is known chiefly as Munich’s cultural quarter, home to concert halls and theatres, but more than two centuries ago it was a military position.
One of the cannonballs fired failed to reach its intended target: it flew through a window of St Peter’s Church and landed on the floor of the chancel.
The service that was not interrupted
A detail has come down to us that appears to be what turned this cannonball into part of the city’s lore. According to tradition, the shot struck the church during a service. On hearing the crash and seeing the object fly in through the window, the congregation panicked and rushed for the exit.
The only one who remained unmoved was the parish priest. Together with the altar servers, he carried the Mass through to its conclusion, without interrupting the service even as the city came under bombardment. This episode of composure seems to have shaped what happened to the find afterwards:
- the cannonball was not removed as mere debris or a consequence of the damage;
- it was decided that it should be kept as a memorial to what the city had endured;
- in time, the shot was set into the outer wall of the choir, where it remains to this day.
A small monument in the middle of the city
Today the cannonball can be seen without any difficulty — it is fixed on the outside of the choir wall and requires no special detour on an ordinary walk through the Old Town. On the surface it is a modest, almost inconspicuous feature of the façade, easily lost among the church’s other architectural detail.
Even so, this small detail is a reminder of a time when the military campaigns of Europe’s powers broke directly into the everyday life of Munich — even into a church service in its oldest house of worship. Such material traces of the past, set into the fabric of the city, are often more eloquent than official chronicles: they do not narrate history but stand as its direct, physically preserved imprint.
Sources: alterpeter, stadtgeschichte-muenchen
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