Kirchenlied

Kirchenlied (Church song) is a Catholic hymnal published in 1938. It was a collection of 140 old and new songs, including hymns by Protestant authors. It became the seed for a common Catholic hymnal which was realised decades later in the Gotteslob.

Kirchenlied was published in 1938 by Josef Diewald (), Adolf Lohmann and Georg Thurmair. It was a collection of 140 songs from different periods, starting in the 16th century, and it included several Protestant songs as well as ten of Thurmair's own songs. Known as the "Standard Songbook", it was designed to be a common hymnal for German-speaking Catholics.

Kirchenlied was published first by the Jugendhaus Düsseldorf (), subtitled Eine Auslese geistlicher Lieder für die Jugend ("A selection of sacred songs for youth"). The hymnal, unlike other publications by Thurmair, was not immediately banned by the Nazis, because of its many Protestant songs. From the fourth edition, the subtitle was shortened to "Eine Auslese geistlicher Lieder" because it was generally accepted, not only by young people. It was published by the Christophorus-Verlag, then part of the Catholic Verlag Herder.

Kirchenlied was significant for ecumenical church singing in German and became the seed for the 1975 Gotteslob. 75 of its songs were included in the Gotteslob.

The hymnal appeared in a text edition (Textausgabe) and an edition with musical scores (Notenausgabe). The exterior design was simple. The music books were partly in two colours, with the headers and staff red, text and notes black. Alfred Riedel created the layout, called "Buchschmuck", with large structuring headers for the sections, and a cover which showed a stylised view of the Altenberger Dom. The Haus Altenberg () nearby was from 1926 the centre of the Catholic youth movement. The hymnal had no illustrations and included some songs derived from Gregorian chant, rendered without rhythm and metre.

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