Old cemetery (Heilbronn)
The old cemetery on Weinsberger Straße in Heilbronn is the city's former cemetery, which was converted into a park after 1887 and was occupied from the 16th to the 19th century. In the old cemetery there are over 200 historical graves and memorials, many of them for mayors and celebrities.
history
Plant outside the city walls
The cemetery was laid out in 1530 as a municipal cemetery near the Carmelite monastery , which had existed since the 15th century and was demolished in 1632 . At the time it was founded, the cemetery was outside the city walls and replaced the previous and from then on closed inner-city Kilianskirchhof . The Carmelite monastery had previously had an older burial site and a monastery cemetery, which quickly became part of the municipal cemetery when it was expanded. In 1545 the cemetery received a large stone cross, which was there until the 20th century and after which the cemetery was sometimes called Kreuzkirchhof . The cemetery was originally only a burial place for Protestants, the (numerically small) Catholics were initially buried in the cemetery at Deutschhof . When times of emergency, e.g. B. the siege of the city in 1634 and 1688, no burials in the cemetery outside the city walls allowed, the dead were occasionally still buried within the city at the Kirchhöfle near the Nikolaikirche .
Expansion into the 19th century
The cemetery was enlarged several times, mostly due to epidemic outbreaks with a large number of dead people to be buried, including in 1611 and 1613, whereby the cemetery was also surrounded by fences and walls on the occasion of the latter enlargement. The main wall was built in 1659. After the Catholic Deutschhof cemetery was closed in 1778, Catholics were also buried there. After the purchase of the Carmelite Garden and some private gardens for the last cemetery expansion after 1834, the facility, which was expanded to its present size, was reopened on July 23, 1836 with an area of almost 12 acres as the New Cemetery . In 1840 a morgue was built. Because of its exotic plant population as well as the well-tended impression of the complex, the cemetery was named as the most beautiful in Württemberg in the description of the Oberamts from 1865 . From the 1870s, the sculptor Georg Friedrich Spindler ran a tombstone shop right next to the cemetery. Burials in row graves were stopped in November 1882 due to overcrowding; burials in existing family graves continued until 1887. The new Heilbronn main cemetery was opened as a replacement in 1882 . To distinguish it from what was then called the New Cemetery , the cemetery on Weinsberger Strasse became the Old Cemetery .
Conversion to a park around 1900
Around 1900 the city began to gradually transform the abandoned cemetery into a public park. Some grave fields were converted to lawns, and in addition to the existing larger ornamental plants, other exotic plants were planted. The old cemetery has been a natural monument since 1937 .
The morgue, built in 1840, was extended and converted into a museum building. From 1916 it housed the Robert Mayer Museum for Natural History , and after a reorganization of the Heilbronn museum system from 1935, the Alfred Schliz Museum named after the city doctor and prehistorian Alfred Schliz .
The cemetery was badly damaged in the air raid on December 4, 1944 . The teacher and local historian Wilhelm Mattes recovered over 300 exhibits from the ruins of the completely destroyed Schliz Museum. The large historic stone cross of the cemetery was completely destroyed, and the rest of the complex was also badly damaged by the effects of the war.
Use since the Second World War
After the Second World War, there were various considerations about the future use of the facility. Discussions included the reconstruction of the museum building as a kindergarten and the renaming of the facility to Robert-Mayer-Park. Many war-damaged gravestones were removed, and the ruins of the museum building temporarily served as a stage for theater performances. At the beginning of the 1950s, the decision was made to keep the complex as an old cemetery. The trees that were damaged during the war were supplemented, the museum ruins were removed and instead of most of the paths that had previously run at right angles, new paths were created through the park, following the beaten paths that had developed. The remaining historical tombstones were distributed in a loose arrangement over the complex. In the mid-1950s, the playground that still exists on the site was built. In the course of the redesign of Heilbronner Allee , the Heilbronner Kaiser Wilhelm monument originally located there was moved to the park.
In 1961, renovation work was carried out on the historic cemetery wall, in particular to create more convenient access to the park. In 1968 the city made efforts to demolish the cemetery wall along Weinsberger Strasse in order to make the park more open. The project failed due to massive public protests. After some paths were changed and straightened again in the 1970s, the city's green space department has since taken care of the maintenance and preservation of the historic tree population. Around 1990 many of the historical tombs were renovated, although their progressive decay is also accepted as a coherent sign of the transience of the former burial site.
The cemetery serves as a public park, occasionally as a backdrop for events.
Funerary monuments and monuments
The oldest of the more than 200 preserved tombs still come from historical churches, in addition to the St. Mary's Church of the Carmelite monastery, above all from the Franciscan church on the harbor market. In addition to these tombstones, which were subsequently moved to the cemetery, some of which date from before the 16th century, tombstones from all times when the cemetery was occupied from the 16th to the 19th century have been preserved on the site. Due to the multiple redesigns of the facility, there are only a few tombs in their original location. Due to its sometimes old age and its great stylistic diversity, the cemetery is one of the most remarkable natural and cultural monuments in Württemberg. Particularly ornate or historically interesting are u. a. the tombs of the mayor Franz B. rckner († 1574), Balthasar Aff († 1575), Johann David Feyerabend (1643–1716) and Heinrich Titot (1796–1871), the paper manufacturer Gustav Schaeuffelen (1798–1848), the silver goods manufacturer Georg Peter Bruckmann (1778–1850), the physicist Robert Mayer (1814–1878) and the geologist Friedrich von Alberti (1795–1878). Other significant tombs include the tombs of the theologian Christian Märklin (1807–1849), the Heilbronn families Rümelin, Rauch (with the graves of Adolf von Rauch (1798–1882) and Moriz von Rauch (1794–1849) and other relatives) and Klett (with tomb of Christian Johann Klett (1770–1823), his wife Lisette Kornacher (1773–1858) and other relatives), the organ builder Ludwig Kulmbacher (1790–1855), the city doctor Adolf Schliz (1813–1877), the merchant and founder Ernst Achtung (1837–1874), the wholesaler and member of the state parliament Friedrich Eduard Mayer (1809–1875), the pharmacist Philipp Friedrich Safe (1803–1861), the Heilbronner Cluss family father Georg Andreas Cluss (1750–1822) and two women Rüdt von Collenberg from the 19th century.
The war memorial in the old cemetery from 1870/71 is the oldest war memorial in Heilbronn and commemorates 16 soldiers from the Franco-German War of 1870/71 who died in Heilbronn hospitals. Sedan celebrations were held regularly at the memorial until 1918 . The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial from 1893 , which previously stood on the avenue , has been located on the site of the former morgue since 1959 .
Kaiser Wilhelm Monument
JD Feyerabend tomb
Grave of GP Bruckmann
Pilgrim statue by Albert Güldenstein on the grave of the Pilger family
Gustav Schaeuffelen tomb
Memorial stone for FA v. Alberti
Tombstone Robert Mayer
Friedrich Eduard Mayer's tomb
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literature
- The old cemetery in Heilbronn. Swabian Heimatbund district group Heilbronn, Heilbronn 1992
- Maria Theresia Heitlinger: The Old Cemetery - Heilbronn Fates. Verlag Heilbronner Demokratie, Heilbronn 2007. - With a plan of the old cemetery on page 36, without marking known grave sites.
- Wilhelm Steinhilber: The health system in old Heilbronn 1281–1871 . Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1956 ( Publications of the Heilbronn City Archives. Volume 4)
- Karl Walter: Riddle about old tombs - criminal case old cemetery . In: Swabia and Franconia. Local history supplement of the Heilbronn voice . 39th year, 8th and 9th Verlag Heilbronner Voice, 1993, ZDB -ID 128017-X . - With a map of the old cemetery from 1992 on page 1, with marking of 21 known grave sites.
- Julius Fekete , Simon Haag, Adelheid Hanke, Daniela Naumann: Heilbronn district . (= Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany , cultural monuments in Baden-Württemberg, Volume I.5.). Theiss, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1988-3 , pp. 68-69 .
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 8 ′ 42 " N , 9 ° 13 ′ 39" E