Ehrenfriedhof Heidelberg
The Ehrenfriedhof Heidelberg is located above the southern part of Heidelberg at a height of about 295 meters on the so-called ant hump above the Heidelberg Bergfriedhof . The facility was laid out from 1933 to 1935 as a military cemetery to accommodate more than 500 reburied fallen soldiers from the First World War and covers an area of over 17 hectares.
history
In 1913, a new central cemetery for Heidelberg was planned in Neuenheimer Feld and its development began. When the First World War broke out in 1914, this cemetery was initially only used for the burial of soldiers who had died in Heidelberg hospitals and of war dead who were transferred to Heidelberg. After the end of the war there were several other burials of people who later died of war injuries. In total there were 599 soldiers' graves in the Neuenheimer Feld cemetery, including 73 French, 24 Russians, 3 English and 2 Italians. With the exception of the Russians, the dead of other nationalities were later reburied in their home countries. Since the plans for the central cemetery in Neuenheimer Feld had meanwhile been discarded, there were soon considerations to transfer the remaining dead so that the area in Neuenheimer Feld could be used differently.
On May 22, 1933, the city council and the citizens' committee decided to set up a cemetery of honor on the so-called ant hump, which was assigned various early historical meanings as a place of worship and historically significant place during the Nazi era . With the establishment of the cemetery of honor, the desire to create a memorial was connected. The plans for the cemetery were drawn up by Oberbaurat Haller from the municipal building department and Professor Paul Bonatz from Stuttgart . In 1933, the construction of the cemetery was preceded by lengthy clearing work on the previously densely wooded area.
In 1934 the actual cemetery was laid out. 423 workers and countless members of the Reich Labor Service were employed on the construction site . The stone material required, mainly red sandstone , was extracted and processed on site. A total of 23,000 cubic meters of earth were moved, 1,600 cubic meters of foundations and masonry were carried out, several hundred square meters of floor slabs and around 7,000 square meters of pieces were manufactured and laid, and 8,500 square meters of lawns and several hundred trees were planted. 544 stone crosses were carved for graves and memorials and 28 honor plaques were made from huge stone blocks. A stone cube around 5.5 meters long and weighing 20 tons formed the death altar on a semicircular terrace facing the valley at the end of the rectangular court of honor formed by the plaques of honor, on the sides of which are the grave fields.
On October 28, 1934, the ceremonial transfer of 498 dead from Neuenheimer Feld to the cemetery of honor, where Heidelberg's Lord Mayor Carl Neinhaus and Reich Governor Robert Wagner gave commemorative speeches. In addition to the reburial from Neuenheimer Feld, 22 were reburied from the mountain cemetery and from abroad, so that 520 dead were initially buried in the Ehrenfriedhof. The names of 2,132 Heidelberg soldiers who fell in World War I were also carved into the 28 plaques. The stone carving on grave crosses and honor plaques were not finished until autumn 1935.
Fallen soldiers of the Second World War were later buried on the grounds of the Ehrenfriedhof.
Until the 2010s to found Memorial on the memorial cemetery wreaths in memory of the war dead of both world wars instead. Representatives of the German Armed Forces , the US Army , the city of Heidelberg and the Association of Victims of War and Military Service took part in the ceremony. The memorial event for the day of national mourning has now been moved to the Heidelberg Bergfriedhof .
literature
- Hans Christoph Schöll: The Heidelberg Cemetery of Honor. In: Badische Heimat . 26th vol., 1939, ISSN 0930-7001 , pp. 362-372.
- Claudia Dutzi: Deployment of the Dead. The cemetery of honor on the Heidelberg ant hump. In: Monument Preservation in Baden-Württemberg , 29th year 2000, issue 2, p. 132. ( PDF; 6.6 MB )
Web links
- The Ehrenfriedhof on the website of the city of Heidelberg
- The Ehrenfriedhof on the website of Via Monumentum, Association for the Preservation of Monuments in Heidelberg Cemeteries
Individual evidence
- ^ Commemorative event on the day of national mourning on November 19 at the Bergfriedhof heidelberg.de
Coordinates: 49 ° 23 '37 " N , 8 ° 41' 51" E