St. Marien and St. Nikolai Cemetery I

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Main entrance with relief by Ernst Wenck

The St. Marien and St. Nikolai Cemetery I (also the old cemetery of the St. Nikolai and St. Marien parishes ) is a cemetery on Prenzlauer Allee No. 1 in the Prenzlauer Berg district of the Berlin district of Pankow .

history

The neo-Gothic cemetery chapel from 1863 The neo-Gothic cemetery chapel from 1863
The neo-Gothic cemetery chapel from 1863

The cemetery was opened by the parishes of the Marienkirche and the Nikolaikirche at Prenzlauer Tor within the excise wall on July 27, 1802 and expanded in 1814 and 1847 - to a total of 35,400 m². In 1858, not far from Prenzlauer Allee No. 7, a new piece of land was bought, the new one, or the St. Marien and St. Nikolai Cemetery II .

The cemetery has been extensively restored in recent years. Above all, the almost closed east wall with hereditary burials of different architectural styles has been preserved. The north wall was destroyed in the battle for Berlin . The main administration of the Hitler Youth was located opposite in the former Jonaß department store . The defenders, including members of the Hitler Youth, had holed up behind these hereditary funerals.

After the cemetery was closed for funerals in 1970, it reopened in 1995. Lush vegetation developed during the long break . This was retained in some areas. Some grave crosses from the Royal Prussian Iron Foundry have been preserved in this cemetery . There is a stone relief by Ernst Wenck above the main entrance . It represents the path of man from birth to death.

Graves of important personalities

(* = Honor grave of the state of Berlin)

General plan (numbers can be found behind the names in brackets)
Hereditary funeral of the Rudloff and Wolff families, sculpture by Hans Dammann

Burial sites of architectural interest

lili rere
Mausoleum of the Leo family
Wall grave of the Franz family
  • Mausoleum of the Hildebrand family (40), built in 1851
  • Mausoleum of the Leo family (41), built in 1851
  • Mausoleum of the Kux family (42), built in 1871, renovated in 1993
  • Wall grave of the Franz family in the form of a portal (43), first hereditary burial in 1862
  • Grave of Justizrat Kurt Ackermann with grave figure "Flora" in marble by Wilhelm Wandschneider , 1902
  • Schumann-Recke grave with larger-than-life mourners by Otto Stichling (44), around 1906

Former burial sites

Of controversial interest was Horst Wessel's grave , which was destroyed immediately after the end of the war, but was still recognizable until 2013. Joseph Goebbels had the inconspicuous grave of the Wessel family costly redesigned in marble as a national memorial. Horst Wessel's German national father Ludwig Wessel , who died in 1922, was the pastor of the Nikolai congregation, and after 1945 the parish did not want to do without the grave of its old pastor. Until 2013 a marble fragment bearing the letters Ludwig W reminded him of him. In 2000, an anti-fascist gravedigger committee admitted to digging there and throwing all the remains of bones of the Wessel family into the Spree . According to the police, however, the digging was only superficial. The perpetrators were never identified. His grave was removed from the cemetery in June 2013 after it had become a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis since the fall of the Wall .

Web links

Commons : St. Marien- and St. Nikolai-Friedhof I  - Collection of pictures

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Not to be confused with his brother Johann Carl Stahn (1808-1891), preacher at the Friedrichswerder church and consistorial councilor in the consistory of the province of Brandenburg, or with the father of the two, Johann Gottfried Stahn (1764-1849), archdeacon to St. Marien .
  2. ^ Theo Schneider (2013): Right cult of the dead. In: look to the right. August 8, 2013. Retrieved August 8, 2013 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '39.4 "  N , 13 ° 25' 3.4"  E