Cemetery (St. Leon)

The cemetery of St. Leon, a suburb of the municipality of St. Leon-Rot in the Rhein-Neckar district in Baden-Württemberg , was laid out in 1840 and later renovated several times.

history

The original cemetery of the place was around the old church of St. Leo . When the population increased in the 19th century, the space around the church was no longer sufficient, so that in 1840 a new cemetery was created on the outskirts of the village on Pfalzstrasse . The master mason Wendelin Seiband not only received the order to build the wall of the new cemetery, but also to demolish the gate and part of the wall of the old cemetery. The old gate was to be used again at the new cemetery.

The first gravedigger was Johann Georg Bopp, who also grew clover in the cemetery , which was initially little occupied, from which the name Bopp's clover field for the cemetery comes. The first burial took place in October 1840 when the boy Konrad Zang, son of the angel host Franz Josef Zang (1806–1865), who was only a few weeks old, was buried.

The cemetery was expanded for the first time in 1868 when the community acquired 18 ares of adjacent land for 150 guilders and laid the third field on it. The local chaplains in particular were buried there and there was once a large crucifix. A stone Pietà from the grave of Pastor Weindel, who died in 1882, has been preserved in this field. When the cemetery was expanded, the gate beam was (re) dated 1840.

In 1902 there was another extension of 34 ares for the fourth and fifth field. In the fourth field, graves were reserved for the participants in the Franco-German war. Although there were no dead among the warriors from St. Leon in 1870/71, those who took part in the war were also honored with a memorial erected in 1900 in Markstrasse, which was later moved to the cemetery. In 1911 the cemetery was given a Lourdes grotto. During the First World War , graves were again reserved for fallen sons of the place, but very few of these were then also buried in the homeland.

In 1920 the cemetery was enlarged by 21 ares. The large gate was moved and an additional small gate was installed at the nursery.

During the Second World War , there were several burials of war victims, including an American aviator, six BASF employees burned in their shelled car, and several German soldiers who were shot in captivity towards the end of the war. The American and one of the German soldiers were later reburied in other cemeteries.

In 1968 the cemetery was modernized. It was given a cemetery chapel, parking spaces along Wallgrabenstrasse, paved paths and an evergreen hedge as a boundary in addition to the old walling of the oldest part. The other partial enclosures made up of brick walls and fences were dismantled, and the old gate was also dismantled.

literature

• Antje Buhtz and Karl Frischauer: The church, center of the community , in: Community St. Leon-Rot (Ed.): St. Leon-Rot then and now , St. Leon-Rot 1994, pp. 315–381.

Coordinates: 49 ° 16 ′ 13.5 "  N , 8 ° 35 ′ 48.1"  E