Ohrbeck Abbey

Kloster Ohrbeck is a Franciscan (OFM) establishment in Holzhausen, a district of Georgsmarienhütte in the Osnabrück district (Lower Saxony). The Franciscan Order and the Diocese of Osnabrück operate the educational institution and residential adult education center "Haus Ohrbeck" in the monastery.

After the end of the First World War, the Catholic population of the Holzhausen and Ohrbeck farming communities increasingly desired a Franciscan monastery in their area. In 1916, farmer Poggemann provided a four-hectare forest area on the slope of the Boberg on the border with Holzhausen for this purpose. In the same year, the Prussian government granted permission for the construction of the monastery. The first Franciscans arrived in Ohrbeck on June 18, 1918, and moved into a wooden barracks in August 1919. The retreat house, monastery, and monastery church were completed in 1926 according to plans by the architect Johannes Nellesen from Münster (Westphalia). The Bishop of Osnabrück, Hermann Wilhelm Berning, consecrated the monastery church to Anthony of Padua on September 22, 1929. During the National Socialist era, the monastery came under state scrutiny. The Gestapo confiscated the monastery in 1941 and expelled the religious. From 1942, after the then Municipal Hospitals in Osnabrück had been damaged by bombing, the retreat house was used as an emergency hospital. After the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Franciscans returned, and the retreat house continued to serve as a hospital until 1953. The confiscation of the monastery was officially lifted in 1951.

Since 1971, "Haus Ohrbeck", a Catholic educational institution, has been located in the northwestern part of the monastery building, which was recognized as a residential adult education center by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Culture in 1974. The founder and first director (until 1983) of Haus Ohrbeck was the then Provincial of the Saxon Franciscan Province, P. Dr. Constantin Pohlmann, OFM. In 1987, an extension was built for the educational institution.