graveyards are the final resting place for the dead.
background
graveyards are the last resting place of a person, and of special importance for the bereaved.
At least once a year people visit their deceased relatives, especially in the melancholy month of reflection and the dead of November with the holidays of All Saints' Day, All Souls Day, Sunday in the dead and Memorial Day. The cemeteries are becoming a popular destination for the living.
In addition, there are also “God's fields” that are more popular for tourist reasons: Well-kept parks with monumental grave monuments, with graves of famous personalities, as a year-round interesting sight.
history
Since the beginning of time people have buried their dead with rituals. The oldest testimonies are stone age graves, burial mounds or the mummies of the pharaohs in Egypt.
The oldest previously known Family graves in Germany were in Eula in 2005 Naumburg in Saxony-Anhalt discovered. The necropolis (city of the dead) has a total of twelve graves. You become the culture of Corded Ceramist assigned. People lived in the Stone Age four and a half thousand years ago, and their culture is so named because they decorated their vessels with the imprint of a string. The burial of the dead was carried out according to a strict rite with legs drawn up and lying on their side. The women with their heads to the east and the men always with their heads to the west, the line of sight of all the dead of the Cord Ceramists was always that to the south. The togetherness of those buried here as a family was proven by DNA analysis and dental examinations. Some family members hold hands and the children look at their parents. The investigations here also revealed the violent death of all those buried; an attack is suspected. More information at www.lda-lsa.de.
In the European Early days Around 1500 BC, from the Bronze Age, corpses were burned among the Germanic tribes. Flat graves and barrows were common among the Celts as individual or group graves with grave goods, nowadays treasures for archeology.
In the Roman times burial of the dead in localities was forbidden. The graves in the parts of Germany controlled by Rome were laid out as communal necropolises or family graves outside the town limits and as grave fields along major roads.
Our today's burial culture has its origins in the emerging Christianity, which has been the state religion of Rome under Emperor Constantine since the 4th century AD. The community of believers united in religion waits in the consecrated earth and in God's field by the church for the collective resurrection on Judgment Day.
in the middle Ages the place of burial was sorted according to social class: the knights rest in the castle chapel, privileged clergymen and nobles in the cathedral in the crypt, and the townspeople in the cemetery of the church with the ossuary. The dead and death are always present in the middle among the living.
The medieval one is a special case Plague cemetery: it is located outside the city and is used for the quick burial of epidemic victims. The plague was generally seen as a punishment from God. Their victims were marginalized by the healthy and buried without ceremony.
In the 19th century the first cemeteries emerged as Parks in today's style and outside the city limits of that time. The dead migrate from the midst of the living. A very pragmatic reason for this development, in addition to the newly gained knowledge of modern hygiene at the time, is also the lack of space in large cities as a result of the rapid growth in the number of inhabitants. The first example of this is the Main cemetery in Mainz.
Common today in Germany Burial forms are the coffin burial as the traditional Christian, Jewish and also Muslim form, the urn burial, the natural burial in the "Friedwäldern" and the burial at sea. Cremation has only been officially accepted by the Catholic Church since 1963.
Crime scene cemetery
While the desecrations of graves in the pre-Christian times and in the early Middle Ages can be seen as the looting of the mostly valuable grave goods such as jewelry in women's graves or useful objects in men's graves (axes, shields or even chariots), the corpse itself also moved into focus in the Middle Ages Body thieves:
The rest of the dead was sacred in the Middle Ages and should not be disturbed. From the Renaissance onwards, serious science took an interest in the interior of the human body. However, only the corpses of criminals officially executed by the judiciary were allowed to be dissected. In the absence of mass, the doctors and students from the universities made use of the cemetery. The bodies were stolen from people from the lower classes. No severe or sustained prosecution was to be expected here. The motif has found its way into horror stories and horror movies in modern times, especially through the English version of the Body snatcher in the 19th century.
The most spectacular corpse theft in German-speaking countries was the grave robbery of the multibillionaire's corpse in 2008 Friedrich Karl Flick including coffin from the family mausoleum in Velden am Wörther See: Flick's coffin and corpse, one of the richest men in Germany during his lifetime, remained missing for weeks and then reappeared in Hungary. Officially, no ransom was paid by the Flick family, unofficial sources speak of 100,000 euros. A Hungarian lawyer was arrested for pulling the coffin. The court process is currently pending.
Terms
The term cemetery is derived from “Frithof” for the “peacified” area around a church. The church was generally a free place and asylum for the persecuted in the Middle Ages. Other names for the cemetery are Gottesacker, Kirchhof, or Leichenhof.
The name coffin originated from the Greek "sarkophagos" and the German "sarkophagus".
A cenotaph is a display coffin, also a ceremonial coffin or memorial monument, which does not contain the remains of a dead person and is only used to remember important people or events. One of the most famous cenotaphs is the monument planned for Sir Issac Newton as a 150-meter-high sphere, but which was never realized.
Sepulchral culture describes the funeral culture in general and the topic of custom and commemoration of the dead and is derived from Latin sepulcrum for grave. There is a museum on this subject in kassel.
Regions
Berlin
- Berlin's celebrity cemetery is that Heerstrasse forest cemetery in Berlin-Charlottenburg. After a quiet exit in autumn 2011, the humorist Vicco von Bülow alias Loriot also rests here.
- Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof in Berlin.
Baden-Wuerttemberg
- Mountain cemetery in Heidelberg.
- 1 Hohentwiel at To sing. The small cemetery is at the foot of the mountain, on the way to the fortress. The last burial there probably took place over 140 years ago.
- 2 Heilbronn main cemetery.
The cemetery was opened in 1882. He has been part of the Intangible cultural heritage Cemetery culture of UNESCO. The crematorium was built in 1905.
Bavaria
- In Munich are particularly interesting Bogenhausen cemetery the parish church of St. Georg, the final resting place for long-time residents of Bogenhausen and for prominent Munich citizens such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Helmut Fischer, Liesl Karlstadt, Erich Kästner or Oskar-Maria Graf. The abandoned Old Southern Cemetery in the Isarvorstadt Today serves as a public park and is the final resting place of many famous personalities of the 19th century such as Leo von Klenze, Kobell, Friedrich von Gärtner, Justus von Liebig, Max von Pettenkofer and Carl Spitzweg.
- One of the most famous cemeteries in Upper Bavaria is the picturesque one Egerner cemetery in Rottach-Egern. In the fashionable health resort on Tegernsee Numerous artists rest like the poet Ludwig Thoma with siblings, Ludwig Ganghofer, the writers Heinrich and Alexander Spoerl, the opera star Leo Slezak with his wife and son, the Kiem-Pauli (folk musician), members of the noble Wittgenstein family, etc.
- in the Upper BavarianSchliersee market is located in the cemetery of the St Martin's Church the poacher's grave Georg Jennerwein: The poaching legend was the victim of an assassination. He was found dead with a gunshot wound in the back. His followers suspect the hunters. On special days, the namesake of rifle clubs and restaurants traditionally receives a poached chamois placed on his grave. Even the guards set up by the hunters have not been able to prevent this.
- St. Johannisfriedhof in Nuremberg.
- in the Lower Franconian Town Münnerstadt there is the only one in the world since July 8th, 1994 Teaching cemetery in the local federal training center for undertakers.
According to the Bavarian Funeral Act, only legal persons under public law are allowed to own cemeteries. The bearers of cemeteries are therefore the municipalities, the churches and those religious communities that have the status of a corporation under public law.
WebLinks for Bavaria:
- Page of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior to the Municipal cemeteries
- House of Bavarian History, side to side Jewish cemeteries in Bavaria
Bremen
- Riensberg cemetery in Bremen.
Hamburg
The most important cemetery for Hamburg is Ohlsdorf. In the 400 hectare largest park cemetery in the world, the personalities of the city rest under 450 species of deciduous and coniferous trees: deceased mayors, senators, poets, musicians and actors such as Hans Albers, Heinz Erhardt and Inge Meysel, the zoo founder Carl Hagenbeck, the writer Wolfgang Borchert and the Nobel laureate in physics, Prof. Gustav Hertz. The second oldest crematorium in Germany is also located in the cemetery. It was put into operation in 1891.
Hesse
- In kassel there is that Museum for Sepulchral Culture, it generally deals with death and dying, burial and remembrance in Central Europe.
- In Fulda is the Old cathedral parish cemetery (near the cathedral) an abandoned cemetery, in which, since the State Garden Show in 1994, some graves on the historical development of the grave planting can be viewed.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
- Old graveyard in Schwerin.
North Rhine-Westphalia
- It is considered the most famous and also the most beautiful cemetery in Cologne Melaten cemetery in the municipality Cologne / Lindenthal.
- The name of the fiedhof, laid out as a park and landscape protection area, comes from its function as a former leprosy asylum ("malade" = sick), which has been documented since the 12th century. The place was also a place of execution in the Middle Ages and was then outside the city limits.
- The 435,000 m² cemetery is the oldest and central burial place in Cologne. It was created against the background of the knowledge of modern hygiene at the time and after a decree of the French Emperor Napoléon. The cemetery was inaugurated on June 29, 1810. You can see the graves of numerous famous sons and daughters of the city, e.g. Nicolaus August Otto (1832 - 1891), co-inventor of the Otto engine, or those of the actors René Deltgen, Willy Birgel and Willy Millowitsch.
- The cemetery is also important as a habitat for diverse bird and animal species.
Rhineland-Palatinate
- The area of the Main cemetery in Mainz was already a burial place in Roman times.
- In the French occupied at the beginning of the 19th century Palatinate The new main cemetery in Mainz was the first cemetery in which the resolution of the revolutionary French National Assembly was enforced that the old cemeteries in the city had to be given up in favor of a new central cemetery. The cemetery was created in modern times as the first cemetery outside the city walls.
- The decision became law for all French cities, including a year later Pariswhere then a year after Mainz the famous cemetery Cimetière du Père Lachaise when the world's first cemetery was laid out in the style of a park.
- The Roman grave of Nehren between Cochem and Cell at the Moselle consists of restored grave temples and two grave chambers of roughly the same size and preserved in the original. The tomb is dated to the 3rd to 4th centuries AD. The wall paintings in the left burial chamber are considered to be the best preserved vault paintings north of the Alps.
Saxony
- Old Anne's cemetery in Dresden
- New Annenfriedhof in Dresden
- Inner Neustädter Friedhof in Dresden
- Johannisfriedhof in Dresden.
- South Cemetery in Leipzig
Saxony-Anhalt
- In Halle (Saale) is located northeast of the market square of the Stadtgottesacker.
- The system, built in 1557, is based on the Italian Camposanto systems, in particular the Camposanto monumental in Pisa, and represents one of the most important Renaissance monuments in the city. This was preceded by a decree by Cardinal Albrecht to dismantle the inner city complex. On the cemetery wall, which is also suitable for defense purposes, there are arcades with 94 candle arches that provide space for the tombs. There are also around 2000 grave sites inside the cemetery. Urn burials are still possible.
- The West Cemetery is the largest cemetery Magdeburgs.
- The cemetery, which was laid out in 1827, has numerous historical graves, fountains and monuments. A communal grave is intended for the victims of the train accident of July 6, 1967 in Langenweddingen, the second worst railway accident in German post-war history.
- Buckau cemetery in Fermersleben, district of Magdeburg.
Jewish cemeteries
It is the custom in Jewish cemeteries for men to wear headgear when visiting. One should respect this.
- The oldest Jewish cemetery on German soil is in Worms and is called Holy sand. A "foundation date" is not passed down here. The oldest surviving tombstone on site is that of Jakob ha-bachur and dates from 1076. This means that the cemetery is also the oldest Jewish one in Europe. The cemetery was strewn with sand that had been brought from Jerusalem to Worms.
- Bad Rappenau: Jewish cemetery in the Heinsheim district, former association cemetery of the surrounding communities. With over 1100 tombstones from four centuries, it is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in southwest Germany.
- The Rödelsee Jewish cemetery between Rödelsee and Iphofen and on the climb to the Schwanberg in the Steigerwald / Lower Franconia Another of the large Jewish cemeteries in southern Germany is located with over 2,500 gravestones. It was created in the 15th century.
Natural cemeteries
Lately it has become very "fashionable": urn burial in cemetery forests.
Fried forests in Germany:
- Friedwald Reinhardswald - On November 7, 2001, in the heart of the Reinhardswalds a 116 hectare cemetery opened. If you want, you can put your urn under a tree here [1] to be buried.
- At the Schwanberg in Lower Franconia is the only one so far Friedwald in church sponsorship.
War cemeteries
Wars were a seasonal business in Central Europe until well into modern times: since the weapons technology and, above all, the infrastructure of the military apparatus were not suitable for winter, marches and fights only took place in spring and autumn. The war then paused in winter.
The victor's warriors and soldiers who fell in the battles were mostly buried anonymously in mass graves together. Only the higher-ranking officers were sometimes given individual graves. The fallen of the losers fared even worse: they were first plundered by the winners. Nature then took care of the removal of the corpses, i.e. decomposition and scavengers. The losers had enough to do with caring for their wounded or had to fear for their own lives.
Since the winners were also not interested in permanent grave maintenance, their graves also overgrew very quickly. Only when the graves of the battle victims were laid out as a special case in prominent places are these locations still known today. The well-known war graves from the Middle Ages to the Thirty Years' War are mostly accidental finds. The site of the Varus Battle in the Teutoburg Forest (in the second half of the year 9 AD), which is important for all of Europe, has only recently been known. Currently applies Kalkriese as the most likely site of battle and is a field of battlefield archeology research.
Only since the wars from the renaissance onwards has a common memorial been erected for those who died in the war in their homeland and far from the graves in the theater of war, which are mostly still unknown. The victims of the Napoleonic Wars were also buried anonymously on the battlefield.
That only changed under the decisive influence of the Swiss humanist Henry Dunant: Under the impression of the conditions immediately after a battle between the army of Austria and Italy in Solferino on June 24th, 1859 and with 40,000 wounded unaided, Dunant activated the emergency aid for these wounded directly on the spot. It was under this impression that his book "A Memory of Solferino" was created. As a result, in 1864 the Geneva Convention decided in which 12 states undertake to observe certain rules in the treatment of enemy soldiers, including rules for the war dead. Another consequence was the founding of the Red Cross on October 26, 1863. In 1901 Henry Dunant was the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
The war graves designed as a memorial for the fallen soldiers in their current form were first built for the victims of the Franco-German War of 1870–1871 and then later for the victims of the mass battles in the First and Second World Wars. The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V., founded in 1919, is responsible for supplying German war graves abroad (www.volksbund.de) working on behalf of the federal government. The Volksbund maintains the graves of around 2 million war dead, which are distributed among 824 war cemeteries in 45 countries.
- The oldest military cemetery in Germany is the Ehrental military cemetery at the top Franco-German garden in Saarbrücken. It was laid out shortly after the Battle of Spichern on August 6, 1870. The fallen French and German soldiers were buried together partly in mass graves and partly in individual graves. From 1885, war veterans were also buried here for honorary reasons.
- Germany's largest military cemetery is located in Halbe in Brandenburg. Over 28,000 victims of the Second World War rest here.
Concentration camp memorials
The concentration camps (KZ or KL) were used in the Nazi era between 1933 and 1945 in the German Reich to imprison groups that the Nazi regime disliked, such as Jews, political opponents, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, the mentally disabled and so-called asocials built. There were assembly camps, transit camps, and labor camps. From 1941 onwards, the people who were disliked by the regime were also systematically murdered.
After the end of the war, memorials were created to document the events and also as a cemetery for the victims of Nazi terror, who were mostly eliminated from the concentration camp without a name. The following is a representative selection.
- Dachau: The Dachau concentration camp existed from March 1933. It is estimated that more than 40,000 prisoners were murdered here. The Concentration camp memorial Dachau was opened in the summer of 1965.
- Bergen-Belsen
- Beech forest
- Walldorf
Sea graves
As Sea graves are generally used to refer to the wrecks of ships in which there are still unsaved victims on the seabed. Naval war graves are the wrecks of sunken warships. According to international maritime law, general diving at sea graves to protect against looting is prohibited. The coordinates are therefore never officially disclosed.
- The largest sea grave in the world is the wreck of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the former cruise ship of the Nazi leisure organization "Kraft durch Freude". The evacuation ship, completely overloaded with refugees, was torpedoed off Gdynia on January 30, 1945 by a Soviet submarine (today Gdynia) sunk. An estimated 9,000 people, mostly women and children, drowned in the icy waters of the Baltic Sea.
To differentiate the terms: Ship cemeteries are places where old shipwrecks are scrapped.
trips
A look beyond the German borders:
- in the Szombathely, one of the oldest cities Hungary, is also one of the oldest continuously used cemeteries in Europe. In the birthplace of Saint Martin, the church of Saint Martin and the neighboring cemetery are considered to be a cult building that has been in continuous use since Roman times, and it is certainly documented for the 4th century.
- The most famous cemetery of Paris is the Cimetière du Père Lachaise in the 20th arrondissement. It was opened in 1804 and is considered the world's first park cemetery-style burial site. He had his role model in Main cemetery Mainz. Among the 70,000 graves are those of numerous famous personalities. The most visited grave is that of the singer Jim Morrison, singer of the rock group during his lifetime Doors.
- In the north of Verdun is the area of Red zone, a memorial to the victims of the fighting of the First World War. The battle of Verdun lasted 300 days and claimed around 700,000 victims alone. An estimated 130,000 recovered fallen soldiers from all nations are buried together in the Douaumont ossuary,
- The Central cemetery in Vienna With an area of almost 2.5 km² and around three million burials, it is one of the largest cemetery complexes in Europe. In Viennese fashion, the cemetery is considered morbid to cheerful and is even sung about by Wolfgang Ambros in his own song: "Long live the central cemetery". Mozart, Beethoven and Peter Alexander, Hans Moser and the Schrammeln "spuin" on waltzes rest here. Amtsrat Professor Julius Müller describes him in his book: "It is almost a pleasure to die".
- In Kramsach in the Tyrolean Lower Inn Valley and near the Bavarian border there is a Museum cemetery. Old cast-iron grave crosses and humorous grave inscriptions and torture sayings from the Alpine region were collected here, in the example: "Here lies Johannes Weindl. He lived like a pig, he drank like a cow. The Lord gave him eternal rest."
- South of Stockholm lies the Skogskyrkogården (German "Waldfriedhof") on the site of a former gravel pit. The cemetery, which was laid out in 1917-1920, was unprecedented at the time and has since served as a model for many burial sites. This cemetery has been part of the World Heritage of UNESCO.
- In other parts of the world there is a different attitude towards death and grief. While in Europe black is considered the color of mourning, in other countries it is the color white. So have the residents of the Caribbean island Guadeloupe the two colors mixed, the tombs are designed as small huts, and at certain times the relatives visit their deceased, have a meal together and spend a few hours here.
- in the Cimètiere of Saint-Pierre on the island Reunion in the Indian Ocean The grave of the beheaded bandit and mass murderer Sitarane is always overly decorated with colorful flowers, burning candles and also sacrificed brandy. Many Réunionese hope that the mass murderer will provide "final" support for private problems with unwelcome acquaintances.
- In Buenos Aires lies the La Recoleta Cemetery in the middle of a posh business district. It is considered to be one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world. Its magnificent mausoleums are worth seeing.
- In Punta Arenas is the Cementario municipal Sara Braun, worth seeing the mausoleums of some wealthy families. There are grave inscriptions in Spanish, English and German, they indicate the history of the settlement.
literature
- : Rest gently: cultural history of the cemetery. Butzon & Bercker, 2009, ISBN 978-3766613165 ; 304 pages. € 24.90
- Working group cemetery and memorial (Ed.): Grave culture in Germany: history of the tombs. 2009, ISBN 978-3496028246 ; 424 pages. 39, - €
- : Discovering history in cemeteries: graves in Munich; Vol.1. Alabasta Verlag 2000, ISBN 978-3938778081 ; 104 pages.
- : Discovering history in cemeteries: Graves in Bavaria: without Munich; Vol.2. Alabasta Verlag 2000, ISBN 978-3938778098 ; 128 pages.
- : Discovering history in cemeteries: graves in Hamburg; Vol.3. Alabasta Verlag 2000, ISBN 978-3938778104 ; 144 pages.
- : Discovering history in cemeteries: graves in Karlsruhe; Vol.4. Alabasta Verlag 2000, ISBN 978-3938778197 ; 80 pages.
- : You only die once: cheerful stories beyond the grave. Seifert, 2005, ISBN 978-3902406309 ; 176 pages.
- : It is almost a pleasure to die: contemplative and cheerful about the end of everything earthly. Seifert, 2009 (2nd edition), ISBN 978-3902406590 ; 192 pages.
- : A memory of Solferino. epubli GmbH, 2011, ISBN 978-3844203370 ; 144 pages. Paperback, $ 12.99. The author describes in detail the suffering and death of the soldiers after the battle of Solferino.
Web links
- wo-sie-ruhen.de leads to famous graves in historical cemeteries in Germany on the homepage or as an app. With map, audio file, picture and curriculum vitae of famous personalities.
- Contributions to funeral culture planet-wissen.de
- Internet portal on historical cemeteries and burial culture sepulcralia.de (Central German Cultural Office)
- Privately organized interest group with a database of war cemeteries worldwide: weltkriegsopfer.de
