In November 2007 the official arbiter of world records, The Guinness Book of Records, gave this accolade to a small church in Suurhusen, a village in the West of Germany close to the Dutch border.  The steeple on the church leans at an angle of 5.19 degrees.  The Leaning Tower of Pisa leans at 3.97 degrees.

In 1450 the church was truncated to make room for a new tower.  The tower was built on marshy ground burying oak tree trunks in the foundations. When the ground was drained in the eighteenth century the wood dried out and began to rot causing the tower to lean

In 1975 the tower was closed for safety reasons. It re-opened ten years later having been made safe.