German Cemetery (Hanau)

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The German Cemetery in Hanau is a historic cemetery.

View of the cemetery from the south
Numerous gravestones were placed in the cemetery wall along the Fischerhüttenweg.

It was opened on March 19, 1633 west of the city fortifications in the immediate vicinity of the Frankfurter Tor of Hanau Neustadt and the Kinzigbrücke to Hanau's old town, after a Swedish invasion in 1632 during the Thirty Years' War destroyed the previously used cemetery of Hanau in Kinzdorf . The German cemetery was on the site where the courthouse in Nussallee is today.

The name Deutscher Friedhof came about because the residents of Hanau Neustadt, which was founded in 1597 and settled with Dutch and French- speaking Walloons, had their own French cemetery .

Changes in hygienic ideas in the 19th century made it necessary to relocate the burial site: The German cemetery was now too close to the city and also in the floodplain of the Kinzig. It was therefore replaced in 1846 by the Hanau main cemetery - at that time far from the city gates . The numerous tombs remained initially. The city of Hanau left the area to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1906 for the construction of the new justice building , which began in 1908. More than 50 tombs from the 17th to 19th centuries were erected adjacent to the courthouse in a small park museum again, a few the main cemetery translocated .

The grave monuments, mainly made of sandstone , are badly affected by the weather today. In 2003 the city council passed the resolution to support its renovation. The Hanau History Association initiated a sponsorship campaign “Save the Old German Cemetery!”, Which is helping to restore part of the 58 gravestones and 24 cenotaphs .

literature

  • The Jewish cemetery in Hanau [anthology]. Hanau u. Wiesbaden 2005 ( = Hanauer Geschichtsblätter 42 ), p. 30.
  • Caroline Krumm: Cultural monuments in Hessen - City of Hanau. Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-8062-2054-9 ( = monument topography Federal Republic of Germany - cultural monuments in Hessen ), p. 256f.
  • Eckhard Meise : Three tombstones from the Old German Cemetery: Hanau families around the Grimms. In: New Magazine for Hanau History 2007, pp. 59–129.
  • Eckhard Meise: A court of death for every community. Historic cemeteries in Hanau. In: KulturRegion Frankfurt RheinMain gGmbH (Hrsg.): Garden RheinMain. From the monastery garden to the regional park. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt 2006, ISBN 3-7973-0981-3 , pp. 180f.
  • Eckhard Meise: Hanau's old cemeteries and the collections of the Hanau history association. In: New Magazine for Hanau History 2008, pp. 3–70.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ FAZ from December 8, 2010, page 46: Citizens save gravestones from decay

Coordinates: 50 ° 8 ′ 9.4 ″  N , 8 ° 54 ′ 40.2 ″  E