Oberndorf is famous worldwide as the birthplace of the carol Silent Night (German: Stille Nacht), which was first performed at Nikolauskirche, then the parish church, by the schoolmaster Franz Xaver Gruber and the young priest Joseph Mohr on Christmas Eve 1818, from where it spread out to the world. As in the 1890s several floods of the Salzach River destroyed large parts of Oberndorf, the church was finally demolished and a memorial chapel erected on its site in 1937. A full-scale replica of the memorial chapel, built in 1992, can be found in Frankenmuth, Michigan.[4]
Transport
Oberndorf can be reached from Salzburg by S-Bahn rapid transit railway and the B 156 Lamprechtshausener Straßefederal highway running from Salzburg toward Braunau am Inn.