Cemeteries in front of Hallesches Tor

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Cemetery with the Holy Cross Church on Zossener Strasse

The cemeteries at Halleschen Tor are in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg between Mehringdamm and Zossener Straße .

Overall system

Map of the cemeteries
Memorial plaque of the cemeteries in front of Hallesches Tor
Commemorative plaque of the Trinity Cemetery I

There are six cemeteries that have been laid out since the beginning of the 18th century, at that time still outside the city gates, outside the Berlin customs wall :

With the construction of the America Memorial Library in the mid-1950s, the north entrance of the cemeteries was initially relocated from Hallescher Tor ; the entrances are today at Mehringdamm 21 and Zossener Straße 1 (opposite No. 65). The relocation of Blücherstrasse away from the Halleschen-Tor-Brücke in the direction of Obentrautstrasse led to the leveling of many graves in the northern part. For this reason, only the entrance gate and a handful of graves remain of the Bohemian church , while the Bohemian church in Böhmisch-Rixdorf (today: Neukölln ) is intact to this day.

On November 3, 2013, the Berlin Mendelssohn Society invited to the ceremonial opening of the permanent exhibition on the history of the Mendelssohn family in the funeral chapel built in 1881 on the new part of Trinity Cemetery I. A total of 28 members of the family are buried in the cemeteries in front of Hallesches Tor.

Cemetery I of the Jerusalem and New Church Congregation

Graves of famous personalities

Honor graves

Other preserved graves

Not preserved graves

Trinity Cemetery I

Heinrich von Stephan tomb with sculpture by Joseph Uphues

A permanent exhibition on the Mendelssohn family has been in the cemetery 's former cemetery chapel since the beginning of November 2013 .

Graves of famous personalities

Honor graves

Other preserved graves

Not preserved graves

Cemetery of the Bethlehem or Bohemian Parish

Since the end of the 1720s, Protestant exiles from Bohemia came to Berlin in several waves , where, with the permission of King Friedrich Wilhelm I , they settled primarily in Friedrichstadt. Most of them were members of the artisan class, many of whom only knew the Czech language . They were due to the re-Catholicization policy, the Emperor Charles VI. operated as King of Bohemia, fled from there. In Berlin they were given the right to practice their religion freely, which from the beginning, not least because of the language barriers, also implied holding their own services. At first these took place in halls and in private houses, then the Bohemian colony was allowed to use the Petrikirche . In 1732 a separate parish was founded, the Bethlehem parish, for which a small round church was built from 1735 to 1737 on today's Bethlehemkirchplatz . The name was chosen after the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague , where Jan Hus had served as a preacher.

Burials of Bohemian immigrants have taken place here since the construction of the Jerusalem and New Church cemetery in 1735. Probably because they felt harassed by the grave digger who worked there, the Bethlehem community soon pushed for permission to set up their own “Bohemian burial” at the “Friedrichstadt cemeteries” - including their own grave digger. This right was granted to it in 1736, but it is uncertain whether the opening took place immediately or not until the beginning of the 1740s. The smallest of the then three cemeteries in front of Hallesches Tor also ceded the northern third of its area in 1746 in order to enable the construction of a "God's sack of the Brethren" for some of the Bohemian immigrants. However, both cemeteries remained jointly owned.

Field 3 of the cemetery with the wall grave of the theologian and missionary Johannes Evangelista Goßner on the east wall on the right

In 1827 the cemetery area was expanded to the west, of which today's field 3 has been preserved. Until the reductions in area in the 1950s and 1960s, the cemetery extended north to close to the current location of the America Memorial Library on Blücherplatz in a strip that was only about 32 m wide . As a result of the leveling in this area, the Bethlehem cemetery lost its north wall, which had already been damaged by the war, and the main entrance there. Today the burial place can only be reached via the adjacent cemeteries. In addition, the north-south orientation of the path system is obsolete for the same reason.

The cemetery of the Bethlehem parish is an avenue district cemetery and today has an area of ​​only 4924 m², which is spread over three grave fields. It is bounded by Blücherstrasse (north), the churchyard of the Brethren (north and east), Trinity Cemetery I (east and south) and cemetery III of the Jerusalem and New Churches (south and west). The border to the oldest part of the Holy Trinity Cemetery is only marked by an avenue, while to the west and south rise to walls on which wall graves are laid. In the interior of the cemetery area, other hereditary burials dominate, often in the form of lattice graves.

Most of the wall graves in the Bethlehem cemetery were created before 1850 and are kept rather simple in keeping with the times, especially in contrast to the richly decorated specimens from the imperial era in the neighboring cemeteries. One example is the large wall grave made of plastered sandstone, which was laid out in 1796 and which was used as a burial place for the Mosisch, Tamnau and Stechow families . It is crowned by a late-baroque putto that clasps an urn, one of the oldest sculptures in the cemeteries in front of the Hallesches Tor. The grave field with the crypt below is framed by a grid. The only surviving mausoleum of the Bethlehem cemetery can be found in field 3, a mighty classicist tomb that was built around 1825 for the A. Herrmann family. Two uniformly designed wall surfaces to the left and right of the mausoleum emphasize its effect.

Overall, there are fewer art-historically remarkable tombs to be discovered in the Bethlehem cemetery than in the neighboring cemeteries. The 2.20 m high sandstone stele on the grave of the manufacturer Gottfried Fröhlich (1747–1816), which is crowned by an ornamental vase with a wavy ribbon ornament, is a rare example of the Empire style in Berlin . The grave stele is generously provided with cursive inscriptions - dedications by the widow and daughter for the deceased and his son of the same name, who was also buried here, who died at the age of five. The massive zippus made of black granite, which Franz Schwechten designed for the military historian Max Jähns (1837–1900), is also striking . On the front is a bronze relief with the portrait of the deceased in profile, a work by the sculptor Fritz Heinemann .

Grave complex for members of the Mühlenhaupt family, designed by Kurt Mühlenhaupt

From 1978 onwards , the Kreuzberg “painter poet” Kurt Mühlenhaupt (1921–2006) designed the most unusual grave complex on the Bethlehem cemetery for himself and other members of his family. Originally, there were four stainless steel steles to which enamel portraits of the family members were attached. After the portraits were stolen in the mid-1980s, Mühlenhaupt developed the current version of the grave complex with four concrete steles on which the naive-style likenesses with inscriptions underneath are applied. Mühlenhaupt's own grave has been the first honorary grave in the State of Berlin since 2018 , which was dedicated at the Bethlehem cemetery.

The Landesdenkmalamt Berlin lists the Bethlehem cemetery and the remaining remains of the Church of the Brethren together as a garden monument (object number 09046171).

Graves of famous personalities

Honor grave

Other preserved graves

Not preserved graves

  • Johannes Jaenicke (1748–1827), preacher, missionary school founder
  • Martin Meyer-Pyritz (1870–1942), sculptor (his grave slab was repositioned in a memorial in the cemetery after being found in a tomb-like memorial)

Church of the Brethren

Preserved southern entrance gate to the "Church of the Brethren"

Not all religious refugees from Bohemia who had settled in Friedrichstadt joined the Bethlehem community. Rather, some of them remained under the umbrella of the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine (also known as the 'Herrnhuter Brüder-Unität'), an independent Protestant free church that had its seat in Herrnhut in Upper Lusatia . Since these believers also needed a burial place, the cemetery of the Bethlehem Congregation was divided up for this purpose as early as 1746 and the northern third was left to the Brethren. However, both cemeteries remained in common ownership. The main entrance of the new Gottesackers of the Brethren was on the north side on Pionierweg (from 1813: Pionierstraße , from 1864: Blücherstraße), where an entrance portal was built in 1767. In 1827 the cemetery was expanded to the west.

The Brethren did not allow any individual design of grave sites, so all graves were laid out in the same way as ivy-covered hills, on which pillow stones were laid , based on the model of the cemetery in Herrnhut . The churchyard was divided into two areas, where the burial of “brothers” and “sisters” took place separately according to sex.

The cemetery was closed in 1952. Afterwards it was largely leveled in several steps. Only a narrow strip of land of 200 m² remained at the very northern edge of the cemetery district in front of the Hallesches Tor. The largest part of the Gottesackers of the Brethren was lost in order to enable the construction of Blücherstraße to Mehringdamm, which was carried out from 1967 to 1973. Only four graves remain at the original location. A further 33 graves have been preserved as a result of reburial operations, although the traditional gender segregation and the original direction of occupation were not taken into account. The north wall and main portal of the cemetery were demolished. Some of the oldest grave monuments, 15 grave slabs made of sandstone, which were attached to the north wall, some of them still in Czech, are now on the Bohemian church in Rixdorf , where they are attached to the eastern wall of the cemetery. In the cemetery area in front of Hallesches Tor, part of the wrought-iron lattice that separated the churchyard of the Brethren from the adjacent cemeteries, as well as the southern entrance gate with a broad triangular gable , which was built around 1880.

The remainder of the Church of God is bordered by the Trinity Cemetery I (east and south), the Bethlehem cemetery (south and west) and the extended Blücherstraße (north). The Landesdenkmalamt Berlin lists it and the Bethlehem cemetery together as a garden monument (property number 09046171).

Cemetery II of the Jerusalem and New Church Congregation

Just four decades after the burial site of the congregation of Jerusalem and New Church was first expanded in 1755, there was again insufficient space in the cemetery. Therefore, in 1796 the land adjacent to the south was acquired up to Baruther Strasse, which was only laid out in 1863. The new part of the cemetery in the form of a rectangle was given its own surrounding wall in 1799/1800, which was covered all around with hereditary burials in the form of wall graves or - a few - mausoleums in the course of the 19th century . When the grave sites on the edge of the cemetery were occupied, inner areas were also provided for hereditary burials and mostly lattice graves were built on them. It is not possible to read exactly from the sources when this came about, but the extension part ultimately operated as a separate cemetery II of the two communities. From Berlin Monument Authority both cemeteries but are together listed as a garden monument.

The avenue quarter cemetery with an area of ​​7034 m² is bordered in the south by Baruther Strasse, in the east by Zossener Strasse, in the north by Cemetery I of the Jerusalem and New Church communities and in the west by Trinity Cemetery I. The smallest of the five Berlin cemeteries Both communities do not have their own entrance, but can only be reached from Cemetery I via the entrances from Zossener Strasse or from Mehringdamm.

David Gilly's wall grave is one of the oldest preserved graves in the cemetery; he probably designed it himself

The oldest preserved graves in Cemetery II date from the early 19th century. These are the wall graves of the architect David Gilly (1748–1808), the actor and theater director August Wilhelm Iffland (1759–1814) and the Unzelmann family (1815) as well as the classicist pedestal grave with a large decorative urn for the actor Ferdinand Fleck (1757 -1801), designed by Johann Gottfried Schadow . The latter is also considered to be one of the outstanding works of sepulchral culture in the cemetery.

Grave monument for Else von Falkenberg, a work by Walter Schott

The artistically and art-historically noteworthy grave monuments also include: two Art Nouveau grave pillars for members of the Bennewitz von Loefen family of painters (around 1900, probably both by Ignatius Taschner ); the neo-renaissance mausoleum of the von Caro family (1901 by Kayser & von Großheim ); the Collani family grave with the sculpture of a seated mourning woman (by Hugo Cauer ); the wall grave for Paul Collani with the marble figure of a mourning woman in the form of a half-sculpture (1903 by Collani's son-in-law Albert Manthe ); the tomb for Else von Falkenberg (1880–1907) in the form of a free-standing, open aedicula with a female figure lying on a sarcophagus (around 1907 by Walter Schott ); the classical grave temple for Karl von Graefe and his wife Auguste geb. of old people with portrait busts of the deceased on double pillars (around 1842, probably by Heinrich Strack ); the cast-iron grave cross for Henriette Herz with neo-Gothic elements (based on a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel ); the grave monument for Heinrich Albert Hofmann and his wife Emma, ​​geb. Knauth with the crowning figure of an angel comforting a mourning woman (around 1880 by Erdmann Encke ); the antique grave wall made of sandstone for the family of Franz Riedel (1848–1897) with a central putti head medallion; the wall grave with aedicula for the family of Georg Stöckel (1853–1929) with the head of Christ as a marble medallion; and the large, multi-part sandstone wall grave for the Weydinger family with a gable designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.

Like all historical cemeteries in Berlin, Cemetery II of the Jerusalem and New Churches has been affected by the theft or other loss of artifacts such as sculptures and portrait reliefs. A painful loss is a bronze portrait relief created by the sculptor Otto Lessing on the tombstone of the theologian Adolf Sydow , which was probably lost after 1945 due to metal theft . The tondo relief with a double portrait of the married couple Albert Heinrich and Emma Hofmann, which has also been lost, has now been replaced by a copy made on the basis of old photographs. Because of its location on the south side of the cemetery district in front of Hallesches Tor, Cemetery II of the Jerusalem and New Churches was not affected by the area reductions and leveling that took place in the other cemeteries in the area in the 1950s and 1960s.

There are nine tombs in the cemetery that are dedicated to the State of Berlin as graves of honor (as of March 2019). The dedication has now expired for another four graves .

Graves of famous personalities

Honorary grave of August Wilhelm Iffland
Art Nouveau grave monument for Emy Bennewitz von Loefen (1853–1899), probably by Ignatius Taschner
Mausoleum of the von Caro family based on a design by Kayser & von Großheim
Lattice graves for Heinrich Albert and Emma Hofmann with the grave monument created by Erdmann Encke
Honorary grave for Albrecht von Graefe and his wife Anna. He was the founder of scientific ophthalmology.

Honor graves

Other preserved graves

Not preserved graves

Cemetery III of the Jerusalem and New Church Congregation

Mourning bronze figure in Cemetery III of the Jerusalem and New Church Congregation
Mourners and grave of the Schering family of pharmacists and industrialists
Grave of Carl von Siemens

Graves of famous personalities

Honor graves

Other preserved graves

Not preserved graves

Other graves of important personalities

In some cases, lost graves can no longer be assigned to a specific dead field in the cemetery area in front of Hallesches Tor. This applies to the graves of:

See also

literature

  • Peter Bloch, Ludwig Scherhag: Tombs in Berlin III. Example: The 18th century churchyards in front of the Hallesches Tor. Berlin 1980, DNB 810633841 .
  • Christoph Fischer, Renate Schein (ed.): "O ewich is so long". The historic cemeteries in Berlin-Kreuzberg. A workshop report. Exhibition catalog 6 of the Landesarchiv Berlin. Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-87584-204-9 .
  • Klaus Hammer: Cemeteries in Berlin. An art and cultural history guide. Jaron Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89773-132-0 , pp. 76-86.
  • Jörg Haspel, Klaus von Krosigk (Ed.): Garden monuments in Berlin - cemeteries. edited by Katrin Lesser, Jörg Kuhn and Detlev Pietzsch (= contributions to monument preservation. 27). Imhof, Petersberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-86568-293-2 .
  • Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin tombs . Haude and Spener, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-7759-0476-X , pp. 85–89, 106–117, 127–128.

Web links

Commons : Friedhöfe vor dem Hallesches Tor  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Permanent exhibition on the history of the Mendelssohn family at the Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof in front of Hallesches Tor , www.mendelssohn-gesellschaft.de, accessed online on May 17, 2013.
  2. Gerhard Kruschke Eichendorf: The Bohemian Brethren Congregation for 240 years in Berlin . In: The Church. Evangelical weekly newspaper. Vol. 25, No. 1, January 4, 1970, accessed April 8, 2019.
  3. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 220. Cemetery of the exiles. The Bethlehem cemetery and the Bohemian churchyard . Description of the cemeteries on the website "Save Berlin Tombs" of the State Monuments Office Berlin, accessed on April 8, 2019.
  4. Bethlehem cemetery and churchyard of the Brethren . Description of the cemeteries in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on April 7, 2019.
  5. ^ HJ Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places. 2018, p. 220. Cemetery of the exiles. The Bethlehem cemetery and the Bohemian churchyard . Description of the cemeteries on the website "Save Berlin Tombs" of the State Monuments Office Berlin, accessed on April 8, 2019.
  6. ^ HJ Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places. 2018, p. 220.
  7. Bethlehem cemetery and churchyard of the Brethren . Description of the cemeteries in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on April 7, 2019.
  8. ^ HJ Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places. 2018, pp. 221–222. Bethlehem Cemetery and Church of the Brethren . Description of the cemeteries in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on April 7, 2019.
  9. Weeping for wife and child. Gustav Fröhlich's tomb . Description of the tomb on the website "Berliner Denkmale Retten" of the Landesdenkmalamt Berlin, accessed on April 8, 2019.
  10. Bethlehem cemetery and churchyard of the Brethren . Description of the cemeteries in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on April 7, 2019.
  11. Bethlehem cemetery and churchyard of the Brethren . Description of the cemeteries in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office (accessed April 7, 2019). Debora Paffen, Hans-Jürgen Mende: The cemeteries in front of the Hallesches Tor. A cemetery guide . Part 1. Edition Luisenstadt, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89542-132-4 , p. 78.
  12. Bethlehem cemetery and churchyard of the Brethren . Description of the cemeteries in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on April 7, 2019.
  13. ^ HJ Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places. 2018, p. 229.Bethlehem Cemetery and Church of the Brethren . Description of the cemetery in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on April 7, 2019.
  14. Bethlehem cemetery and churchyard of the Brethren . Description of the cemetery in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on April 7, 2019.
  15. ^ HJ Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places. 2018, p. 229.Bethlehem Cemetery and Church of the Brethren . Description of the cemeteries in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on April 7, 2019. Cemetery of the exiles. The Bethlehem cemetery and the Bohemian churchyard . Description of the cemeteries on the website "Save Berlin Tombs" of the State Monuments Office Berlin, accessed on April 8, 2019.
  16. ^ HJ Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places. 2018, p. 229.Bethlehem Cemetery and Church of the Brethren . Description of the cemeteries in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on April 7, 2019.
  17. ^ HJ Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places. 2018, pp. 230-236. Cemetery I and II of the Jerusalem and New Churches . Description of the cemetery in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on March 26, 2019.
  18. ^ HJ Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places. 2018, pp. 210, 230, 238, 287, 821. Cemetery I and II of the Jerusalem and New Church . Description of the cemetery in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on March 26, 2019.
  19. ^ HJ Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places. 2018, pp. 230-236. Cemetery I and II of the Jerusalem and New Churches . Description of the cemetery in the database of the Berlin State Monuments Office, accessed on March 26, 2019.
  20. ^ HJ Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places. 2018, p. 235.
  21. Witty political strolling. Albert Hofmann tomb . Brief biography of Hofmann and description of the tomb on the website "Berliner Grabmale Retten" of the Landesdenkmalamt Berlin, accessed on March 26, 2019.
  22. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places. 2018, pp. 210, 218, 220, 223, 229-230.
  23. Honorary graves of the State of Berlin (as of November 2018) . (PDF, 413 kB) Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, pp. 19, 26–27, 33, 35, 39, 47, 55, 88; accessed on March 26, 2019.

Coordinates: 52 ° 29 ′ 43 ″  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 31 ″  E