Paulskirche

The Paulskirche is a neoclassical oval rotunda in Frankfurt's old town, consecrated in 1833 as a Lutheran parish church but destined for a far larger role. On 18 May 1848 it became the seat of the first freely elected all-German parliament, the Frankfurt National Assembly, which spent months drafting a liberal imperial constitution. The project collapsed in 1849 when Prussia and Austria refused to accept constitutional monarchy, and the delegates dispersed — an early, bitter lesson in German democratic fragility. Gutted by wartime bombing, the building was deliberately chosen as Frankfurt's first major reconstruction and reopened in 1948 for the centenary of the revolution. Today it serves as a civic memorial hall and ceremonial venue — most notably as the venue for the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade — its plain interior and panoramic gallery mural a deliberate contrast to its church origins.

Neoclassical rotunda where the Frankfurt National Assembly met in 1848/49.