The old St. Nicholas Church stood on this square. The famous Christmas carol “Silent Night! Holy Night!” was recorded there. performed for the first time at Christmas mass in 1818. The assistant priest Joseph Mohr asked his friend Mrs. Xaver Gruber to write a melody for two solo voices and guitar for the Christmas poem he had written in Mariapfarr in 1816. The resulting song impressively expresses the longing for peace after the terrible years of the Napoleonic Wars (1799 to 1815).
The spread of the song is thanks to the Zillertal organ builder Karl Mauracher, who worked in Arnsdorf in 1821 and in Oberndorf in 1825 and brought the song to Tyrol in the Zillertal soon after it was written. According to oral tradition, the Zillertal singing family Rainer is said to have performed the song in 1822 before the Austrian Emperor Franz I and the Russian Tsar Alexander I. She performed the song for the first time in New York on Christmas Day 1839.
The Zillertal glove makers and singers the Strasser family from Laimach spread the song on their travels through Germany. In 1832 they sang "Silent Night! Holy Night!" in Leipzig, which was then published as the "Tiroler Lied". By 1900, the song was already known on all continents thanks to missionaries. To date, the song has been translated into more than 330 languages and dialects. "Silent Night Holy Night!" can therefore be described as a song that unites peoples worldwide. Today the Silent Night Memorial Chapel stands on the site of the St. Nicholas Church, which was demolished after the town of Oberndorf was relocated.
(Quote: display board, set up by the city of Oberndorf)