Aspern cemetery
The Asperner Friedhof is a cemetery in the Aspern part of Vienna's 22nd district, Donaustadt . The entrance is at Langobardenstraße 180.
history
The original cemetery in what was then the Viennese suburb of Aspern, laid out at the end of the 17th century, surrounded the parish church of St. Martin in the form of a churchyard and had an extension south of the church. In memory of the plague epidemic of 1679 , a chapel was built, which was taken over by the newly founded brotherhood of St. Sebastian in 1706. After the brotherhood was dissolved by Emperor Joseph II in 1783 , the Sebastiani Chapel served as an ossuary .
On May 21 and 22, 1809, the cemetery was an important site of the Battle of Aspern , in which Napoléon Bonaparte's troops suffered a heavy defeat. Since the cemetery wall provided cover and the church was located on a hill and had a high tower, the area was occupied several times by French units, but each time they were pushed back again shortly afterwards. To prevent a new occupation by the French, Field Marshal Lieutenant Freiherr von Hiller finally had the wall torn down and the church set on fire. After the troops withdrew, the cemetery, like the rest of Aspern, was a picture of devastation. Today a memorial plaque and an obelisk commemorate the around 3,000 fallen soldiers of the Napoleonic army, who, however, did not find their final resting place here, but in the Lobau .
After the construction of a new cemetery wall in 1813 and the reconstruction of the destroyed church in the following year, the cemetery was expanded in 1822, which now also included the ossuary in the cemetery area. As space in the old cemetery became scarce at the end of the 19th century, the new cemetery was built in 1892 on the other side of Langobardenstrasse on the area of the so-called herb garden . The statue “Der Auferstandene”, erected in 1829, remained in the old cemetery, however, which prompted the wealthy Asperner family Patron to donate a striking Christian symbol to the relatively unadorned new cemetery . The large stone cross, known as the patron's cross, was erected in 1898 and at that time was at the end of the main corridor, but was moved in the course of an expansion of the area.
From 1929 to 1931, after the cemetery area was extended to Langobardenstrasse, an urn grove was created to the left and right of the outwardly relocated entrance gate . In the middle of it an urn niche was built, which was included in the construction of a round blessing chapel from 1936 to 1937.
Shortly after the end of the Second World War , the Aspern grave digger Leopold Rischer built a burial mound with a wooden cross and steel helmet "For the war victims" , as could be read on a paved plaque. The decision to erect a more dignified memorial site in 1949 was delayed until 1951, as complications with the Soviet occupying forces were feared. The grave monument, which was ceremoniously unveiled on November 1, 1951, is dedicated to the victims of the two world wars and is located opposite the funeral hall. Another memorial site is a military cemetery, used for burials from 1945 to 1955, to commemorate the fallen and deceased of the Red Army . Civilians were also buried here.
When the Donaustadt district was created in its current form in 1954, the Aspern cemetery was declared the main cemetery for the deceased in the 22nd district. In 1960 the old cemetery, which had not been used since 1930, was converted into a park with a children's playground, today only a stone tablet reminds of the original purpose of the area. In the 1960s and 1970s, the cemetery grounds were expanded several times, most recently in 1973 by around 42,000 m². From 1976 to 1977, the funeral hall, built at the end of the 19th century, was renovated and redesigned according to designs by the architect Erich Boltenstern , including a new winged altar designed by Hans Robert Pippal . Since an urn shrine has now also been integrated into the hall, the chapel, which was used to store urns from 1969, lost its function and has only been used as a tool shed since then. In October 1995 tram line 25 (today: line 26) was extended to Aspern, the terminal has since been right in front of the entrance to the new cemetery, which means that it is now better connected to the public transport network. In 2013, an extension area located in the southwestern part of the cemetery was sold; after the rededication to building land, residential complexes were built here from autumn 2016, which were completed in early 2018.
General
The Asperner Friedhof is managed by Karin Göschl Grab & Gartengestaltung GmbH on behalf of Friedhöfe Wien GmbH . It has an area of almost 90,000 m² and houses over 6,200 grave sites. After several extensions, it now has enough free space for future graves.
Some gravestones from the original cemetery are located on the northern wall of the St. Martin parish church in Aspern, parts of the old cemetery wall have also been preserved. The Sebastianikapelle, which was one of the few buildings in Aspern to survive the Battle of Aspern in May 1809 almost unscathed despite its proximity to the parish church that burned down at the time, has housed the "Special Museum Aspern-Essling 1809" since 1979 as a branch of the Viennese district museums informed of the battle of Aspern.
Graves of important personalities
| Surname | Life dates | activity |
|---|---|---|
| Oswald Gartenmaier | 1948-2010 | Professional golfer |
| Theodor Hassek | 1929-2009 | Composer and musician |
| Leopold Horacek | 1907-1977 | Politician |
| Rudolf Huber | 1924-1997 | Politician |
| Rudolf Koeppl | 1913-1982 | Politician |
| Kurt Mühlbacher | 1925-2011 | Politician |
See also
literature
- Werner T. Bauer: Wiener Friedhofsführer. Exact description of all burial sites together with a history of the Viennese burial system . Falter Verlag, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-85439-335-0 .
Web links
- Asperner Friedhof on the website of Friedhöfe Wien GmbH
- Parton Cross and memorial for the war victims in the Aspern cemetery
Individual evidence
- ↑ Friedhöfe Wien GmbH sells cemetery expansion areas in Aspern
- ↑ Project description two + plus Stavangergasse
Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 59 ″ N , 16 ° 28 ′ 48 ″ E