Europe's most tilted church tower, located in the eastern German spa town of Bad Frankenhausen, is in acute danger of being torn down, prompting the local mayor to launch a desperate campaign to rescue the 730-year-old landmark.

The tower of the "Church of Our Dear Ladies on the Hill" puts the leaning Tower of Pisa to shame, at least in terms of crookedness. It lists 4.45 meters (14.9 feet) from the perpendicular, beating Pisa's main attraction by 54 centimetres, due to land subsidence that plagues much of the town.

The Protestant church authority wants to tear the building down because it no longer uses the church and has spent €700,000 on repairing and maintaining it since the 1990s. In fact, the building hasn't been used as a place of worship for 70 years and was closed to the public altogether in 2007. And it leans 6 centimeters more every year.

But Mayor Matthias Strejc is pulling out all stops to save the tower. "It is not an immediate safety hazard," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "We don't need the money to straighten the tower, but rather to stabilize it because it's our landmark."

Strejc has already amassed more than €16,000 ($22,000) from private donations so far, but only has until May 31 to reach the €1 million needed to save the church.

Strejc sees the church as a vital piece of local history that must be saved. "The tower has the potential to become a real tourist magnet if it is properly marketed", he said. "It is still relatively unknown, but if we can collect enough money to take over ownership of the tower, we can massively raise its profile."

Turbulent History

It hasn't been a lucky church. It was ransacked and damaged in the German Peasants' War in 1525, then plundered again in the Thirty Years' War and in the Seven Years' War. The tower was badly damaged by a fire in 1759. It was damaged again during the Napoleonic Wars in 1806 when it became part of a French prison camp for Prussians.

A landslide in 1908 caused it to slant dramatically. It was subsequently stabilized, but had two bells melted down for metal during World War I. As if that wasn't enough, it became an weapons store for Hitler's SS in World War II. It was ransacked yet again, by the local population, in 1945 after the war ended.

It may be an unknown tower compared to that of Pisa, but the endangered edifice already has a Facebook donation page, called "Hilfe, ich falle - rettet mich!" ("Help, I'm falling down, save me!"), with 685 members.

Mayor's Staff to Forego Pay

The town hall staff offered to work one day for free so that the money could be donated to the fund. And the mayor is organizing benefit concerts and fundraising galas over the coming months.

Yet they are hundreds of thousands of euros away from their target - is it even achievable? Strejc is undeterred: "The next step is to approach charitable foundations for the preservation of old buildings -- we can't raise the money through private donations alone."