Himmerod Abbey was founded in 1134 by Saint Bernard and is a direct foundation of Clairvaux. In its turn it founded a daughter house, Heisterbach Abbey, in 1189. The Baroque church was completed in 1751, but after secularisation from 1802 under French occupation fell into ruin.
Second foundation
In 1922 the monastery was re-founded by the settlement here of German Cistercian monks from the former monastery of Mariastern in the present Bosnia. The church was re-built under Abbot Vitus Recke, and completed in 1962, and contains a famous organ by Johannes Klais. The new abbey founded the Abbey of the Holy Cross, Itaporanga near São Paulo in Brazil, in 1936. The abbey has a museum, a book - and art shop, a café, a guesthouse and retreat-house and a fishery. The last abbot is Bruno Fromme, in post since 1991.
Closure
On 14 October 2017, the Mehrerau Cistercian Congregation announced that Himmerod Abbey would be scheduled to close after nearly nine centuries in operation. The monastery’s head, Abbot Johannes, referred to the financial situation of the abbey as having played a key role in the decision. The monastery’s property near the village of Großlittgen would be transferred into the possession of the Catholic Diocese of Trier, while the remaining six monks at Himmerod would move on to other monasteries. Five of the six monks had left Himmerod by March 2018; Father Stephan Reimund Senge remained the last formal member of the abbey.
Publishers
The abbey also has its own publishing house, the Himmerod Drucke, which to date has published over 50 works by a number of authors, especially Father Stephan Reimund Senge, a monk at Himmerod. The journal Unsere Liebe Frau von Himmerod appears three times a year, and the newsletter Himmeroder Rundbrief about 10 times a year.
From 5 October to 9 October 1950, officers of the former Wehrmacht, on the authority of the WestGerman government, met in conference at Himmerod Abbey to prepare for Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to launch the re-armament of Germany. The conference produced the Himmerod memorandum, which laid out the prerequisites for re-armament and suggested what Germany could contribute to the defense of western Europe. This was an important step toward the official founding of the Bundeswehr in 1955.
