The infobox gives groundbreaking in about 1250 or 1265 and completion about 1350, while the text says it was built between 1265 and 1352. It replaced a wooden church and a Romanesque brick church. The article calls it the mother church of North German Brick Gothic, which drew on French and Flemish stone cathedrals and set the standard for about 70 churches in the Baltic region.
The church is 335 feet (102 m) long. The main nave vault is 126 feet (38.5 m) high, which the article calls the tallest brick vault in the world, and the towers are about 410 feet (125 m).
An RAF air raid on March 28 and 29, 1942 almost completely destroyed it. Reconstruction ran from 1947 to 1959, and the gilded spire was recreated in 1980 using lightweight concrete under copper. Wall paintings restored in the 1940s were partly forged, and the fakes were later removed. Since 2010 visitors pay a 2-euro admission.
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