Basel cemeteries

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In the past, almost every church in the Swiss city ​​of Basel had its own cemetery or church or buried the deceased within its walls. Due to a lack of space within the city, the cemeteries were gradually moved to the outer edge of the city.

graveyards

Today there are only three cemeteries left in Basel, two in the city of Basel itself and the cantonal central cemetery of Basel in the suburb of Riehen . In these cemeteries the people of Basel find their final resting place and they show a piece of the soulful Basel with artistic grave monuments and gravestones in the midst of designed nature.

Cemetery on the Hörnli

The Hörnli cemetery ( 47 ° 33 ′ 56 ″  N , 7 ° 38 ′ 22 ″  E ) is the central cemetery of the city of Basel. A general project for a central cemetery for Basel was approved by the Grand Council in 1919. It was built between 1926 and 1932 according to plans by the architects Bräuning, Burckhardt, Klingenfuss, Leu and Suter and was inaugurated on July 1, 1932. It is located on the outskirts of the city at the foot of the Aussenberg in the municipality of Riehen and houses around 40,000 graves, niches and family graves. It is around 50 hectares in size and presents itself as a symmetrically arranged garden. The park-like area is divided into twelve grave fields, which stand out from one another through their use, architectural arrangement and planting. Only about 22% are effective grave areas and the green and forest areas make up about 53%. A walk to the top is worthwhile, because from here there is a broad view of Basel. An average of 500 burials and 2000 cremations are carried out in the cemetery each year.

It has its own grave fields for Muslims, where they can be buried according to the Islamic rite . The first was established in 2000. Since this field is occupied, there is a second field. A well-equipped washroom is available for the ritual washing of corpses.

The cemetery is also home to the Hörnli Collection Museum , which shows a large number of important objects from Basel and Swiss burial culture.

Wolfgottesacker

See : Wolfgottesacker

Israelite cemetery

See: Israelitischer Friedhof Basel .

Church graves

In addition to the grave fields, there are also some grave monuments and burial places in the Basel churches.

Basel Minster

Tomb at Basel Minster

In Basel Cathedral are many tombs of famous Basel and connected to the city personalities.

u. a. are these:

Abolished cemeteries

The inauguration of the Hörnli cemetery in 1932, with its enormous capacity, meant the end for all of Basel's other sacred sites except for the Wolf Gottesacker, and they were subsequently lifted.

  • Spalengottesacker - The Spalengottesacker was the first cemetery in the city, which was created outside the city walls. It was opened in 1825 after the St. Leonhard church closed and served as such until the Kannenfeld church was opened in 1868. In 1851 the cemetery was given a burial chapel which, after its closure, was used by the Basel Town Musicians as a club and practice room from 1920 until it was demolished in 1943. The burial site was partly built over to form the botanical garden and the botanical institute.
  • Gottesacker St. Elisabethen - With the opening of the Wolfgottesacker in 1872, that of St. Elisabethen was closed. Today it is part of the St. Elisabethenanlage on the other side of the Centralbahnplatz at Basel SBB train station . The only evidence of the cemetery is the former morgue from 1850, which is now used as a restaurant.
  • St. Theodor-Gottesacker - The cemetery in front of the Riehentor was the final resting place for the people of Kleinbasel from 1831 to 1890. On August 31, 1890, the churchyard took up the last mortal shell and the next day the new Kleinbasler cemetery was opened on the Horburg. The grounds of the closed cemetery St. Theodore now called Rosentalanlage and is an important place for the carnival of Basel Autumn Fair , next to the Trade Fair Basel . At the same time, the facility is a stand for the circuses coming to Basel . Today only the abdication hall , built according to a design by Melchior Berri in 1832, reminds of the original purpose of the square.
Abdication hall Rosentalanlage
  • Gottesacker Kannenfeld - The Kannenfeld cemetery was opened in 1868. In 1951 it was replaced by the central cemetery on Hörnli . Today the Kannenfeldpark is the largest and most diverse park in the city of Basel with 8.5  hectares . In addition to the mighty entrance portal on Burgfelderstrasse, the enclosure wall, the gardener's house and some monuments remain from the former cemetery. Due to the remains of the grave plantings, the scenery changes constantly.
  • Gottesacker Horburg - The Horburg cemetery was opened as a replacement for the too small St. Teodors-Gottesacker on September 1, 1890 and was located on Klybeckstrasse in Kleinbasel. The city ​​of Basel's first crematorium was also located in this cemetery and the Association for Cremation in Basel had to do a lot of persuasion for the construction of a corpse cremation hall . Part of the population was against the introduction of official neo-paganism in Basel and the government also harbored concerns about the causes of death from crimes that could no longer be determined afterwards. In the chapel-like building designed by the architect Leonhard Friedrich, the first test cremation took place on December 15, 1897 and the commissioning took place in January 1898. In 1932 the cemetery was too small again and after 20,290 burials its gates had to be closed. The funerals and the crematorium were moved to the new Basel central cemetery on the Hörnli. In 1951 the area was converted into a park.
  • Outer St John's churchyard - This cemetery was from 1845 to 1868 and the hospital cemetery was created at 1842 Spitales in Markgräfler Hof . It was set up on a mat of the former Order of St. John outside the city wall between the arterial road to Alsace and the left bank of the Rhine at St. Johanns-Tor . From 1868 the building department used the site for the municipal nursery, which was transferred to the municipal nursery in 1886. Today the area is partly built over or part of the St. Johann green park.

See also

literature

  • Peter Gabriel, Franz Osswald (ed.): At the end of the path, the garden of eternity blooms. 75 years of the Hörnli cemetery. Funeral culture in the canton of Basel-Stadt. Reinhardt, Basel 2007, ISBN 978-3-7245-1434-3 .
  • Werner Graf: Christian tomb symbols. An investigation at the Basel-Städtische Friedhof am Hörnli. 2nd Edition. Reinhardt, Basel 1984, ISBN 3-7245-0516-7 .
  • Paul Kölner : Basel cemeteries. Publishing house of the National-Zeitung, Basel 1927.
  • Anne Nagel: The Wolfgottesacker in Basel (= Swiss Art Guide . No. 532, Ser. 54). Society for Swiss Art History, Bern 1993, ISBN 3-85782-532-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ To the kiss • Caffè Kultur Bar. In: zumkuss.ch. Retrieved February 21, 2016 .