Schwerin Cathedral Cemetery

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The cathedral cemetery Schwerin was a cemetery in today's capital of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .

Location of the former Schwerin cathedral cemetery, marked on a table sheet from the end of the 19th century

location

In 1779 the city magistrate bought a field southwest of the suburb on the Hohen Felde on the Reiferbahn for the construction of the cemetery. The site was in the area between today's streets Wittenburger Straße , Reiferbahn, Lobedanzgang and Goethestraße / Totendamm.

history

The ruling Duke Friedrich , known as the Pious , in Mecklenburg-Schwerin is said to have not endured the fact that the churchyard around the cathedral was used as a pasture for pigs, a municipal garbage dump and a drying area for laundry. In 1769 he let the city know to look for another location for the churchyard. On April 29, 1771, he issued an ordinance relocating the cemeteries outside the city walls. Although the Duke renewed his order in July 1773, it took years before the clergy, the council and the citizenry had agreed on the area east of the Reiferbahn. In particular, the renunciation of a church burial met with resistance from Schwerin citizens who had their hereditary funerals in the cathedral.

New cathedral cemetery

The new cathedral cemetery , which was to be used forever as a churchyard for the congregation in the old town of Schwerin , was built between 1779 and 1786. Schwerin had around 7,000 inhabitants around 1780 and the new cemetery was calculated for 3202 corpses. For the inauguration in 1786 an entrance was required from the city. Since this led uphill parallel to what was then Rostocker Straße on the slope of the Hohe Feld to the new Gottesacker, it was called Totendamm , as it is today .

The designs for the buildings come from the court building director Johann Joachim Busch , who also planned the cemetery complex in Ludwigslust . Busch had submitted four drafts that are in the regional church archive in Schwerin, including the one that was implemented. They show the outer and inner fronts of the western row of chapels with gatehouse and celebration hall, another sheet shows the floor plan of the planned complex.

The rectangular area of ​​the cemetery was bordered like a courtyard on three sides by walls with lined up crypt chapels and an arcade open inward, so that a Campo Santo was created. The square gate chapel had a dome-like dome and a triangular gable on the inside. On both sides there were 23 open arched tombs closed off by lattices with barrel-vaulted lower rooms and a main room vaulted with cross ribs. The arched openings were based on square pillars and were also lit through an oval window below the simple parapet that was also present here. As in Ludwigslust, the entrance area of ​​the cemetery wall was provided with plastic ornamentation in the form of allegorical figures.

The symmetrical cemetery complex was divided into six grave fields separated by dead straight paths. Mittelallee ran towards a square, brick-facing chapel building. The funerary chapels were intended to replace members of the court nobility and wealthy citizens with the possibility of internal church burial, as in the cathedral. The Duke also approved the construction of private burial chapels.

For around 80 years the cathedral cemetery was the main cemetery of the city of Schwerin. Bones of the monks from the Franciscan monastery in Schwerin , which were found there during demolition work, were also reburied in the cathedral cemetery in July 1825. In March 1836, the grand ducal supervisory authority requested the cathedral cemetery to be beautified, which was carried out by the young court gardener Theodor Klett .

After a cholera epidemic in 1850/51 that killed 379 people, the cathedral cemetery was almost overcrowded with corpses in 1852 . In 1863, when Schwerin had around 23,500 inhabitants, there was hardly any space left for burials in the cathedral cemetery. The Schwerin magistrate and citizens' committee rejected plans to expand the Reiferbahn. According to Georg Adolf Demmler's plans to expand the residential town and his application of April 8, 1862 , the (today's) Old Cemetery was opened in front of the former field gate on the Galgenberg, on today's southern Obotritenring , and no more burials were carried out in the Cathedral Cemetery. The coffin of Demmler's wife Henriette, who was buried in the cathedral cemetery in 1862, was transferred in 1864 to the family chapel in the cemetery on Galgenberg, which was newly opened in 1863.

Later use

The building of the former lyceum built by 1914

From 1911 to 1914, the city architect Drewitz built the municipal lyceum on the eastern half of the former cathedral cemetery area. The school, inaugurated on March 23, 1914 in the presence of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV , had 30 classes with 576 students, an Oberlyzeum Schwerin with 52 and a university with 53 places. Her school yard was between the Totendamm and the school building to the west; this was separated from the remaining cemetery area by a path at the rear.

The cemetery complex was finally destroyed at the end of the Second World War when the northern field town was bombed on April 7, 1945. In 1948, the SED mayor of Schwerin, Blecha, released the ruins for demolition. The rest was taken care of by the Red Army after taking over the area with the lyceum and the adjoining hospital. The school building was then used as a school for children of the members of the Soviet Army from the Schwerin area.

Todays use

The withdrawal of the Soviet occupation troops from Schwerin in 1993 made further renovations and new buildings possible. The lyceum building, which has now been renovated for around 1,300 boys and girls, has been used since 1996, supplemented by a four-story extension, under the traditional name of Gymnasium Fridericianum . On the western part of the former cemetery between the Lobedanzgang and the former Reiferbahn there is now another green schoolyard with old trees and sports facilities; Beyond the former course of the Reiferbahn, the car park for the Schlossparkcenter , which was completed in 1996 and is approached by the Reiferbahn to the west, is adjacent.

An important historical cemetery in Mecklenburg finally became history.

swell

  • State Main Archive Schwerin
    • LHAS 5.12-7 / 1 Mecklenburg-Schwerin Ministry for Education, Art, Spiritual and Medical Matters. No. 8668 special files on cemeteries. ... construction of a mortuary in the cathedral cemetery ... 1864.
  • State Church Archive Schwerin
    • OKR No. 11. 01. 01 Schwerin Cathedral Cemetery, architectural drawings and plans of church buildings.
    • OKR No. 194 Schwerin, cathedral cemetery 3 plans, No. 195 grave chapels in the cathedral cemetery, 7 maps and cracks.
  • Schwerin City Archives
    • Stadtbauamt, MB No. 2665 ... Preservation of old oaks in the cathedral cemetery. 1935.

literature

  • Horst Ende: Historic cemeteries. Silent witnesses made of earth and stone. SVZ Schwerin, MM 1991, No. 23.
  • Horst Ende: An architect between baroque and classicism. Johann Joachim Busch on the 200th anniversary of his death. In: Monument protection and preservation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Issue 10, Schwerin 2003, pp. 1-13.
  • Gerhard Steininger: Schwerin street stories. Part 3: From the Feldstadt to the Sachsenberg. Thon, Schwerin 2007, OCLC 255781529 , pp. 7-10.
  • Christine Rehberg-Crede, Matthias Proske: 150 years old Schwerin cemetery. 1863-2013. From the churchyard to the garden bar. Schwerin 2013, ISBN 978-3-941689-15-2 , pp. 6-11.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl-Heinz Oldag: Unforgotten. Schwerin 1995, ISBN 3-910179-48-7 , p. 6.
  2. ^ Gerhard Steininger: The Totendamm led to the cathedral cemetery. In: Schwerin street stories. Part 3. 2007, p. 8.
  3. ↑ LKAS OKR, Spec. # 168.
  4. ↑ LKAS OKR, Spec. # 168.
  5. ^ Horst Ende: An architect between baroque and classicism. 2003, pp. 9-10.
  6. ^ City archive Schwerin : Funeral book Domkirchhof 1797. Schedule of fees.
  7. ↑ Hans Heinrich Leopoldi: The Franciscans and their monastery. Schwerin 1960, p. 50.
  8. ↑ LKAS OKR, No. 170.
  9. ↑ LKAS OKR No. 170.
  10. ↑ H. Zänger: From the higher girls' school to the lyceum. In: Schweriner Express. April 19, 2014.
  11. ↑ Gerhard Steiniger: The Totendamm led to the cathedral cemetery. In: Schwerin street stories. Part 3, 2007, pp. 7-10.

Coordinates: 53 ° 37 ′ 35.6 "  N , 11 ° 24 ′ 34.3"  E