Eternal Peace Cemetery (Herford)

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The main cemetery Eternal Peace of the city of Herford is the largest cemetery in the city. It was inaugurated on June 29, 1924, as the only existing municipal cemetery on Friedhofstrasse / Hermannstrasse was no longer sufficient.

Eternal Peace entrance area

Cemetery complex

The cemetery has 6 parts of the cemetery, some of which are separated from each other by larger forest and meadow areas. Because of the park-like structure, it fulfills the function of a public green area and also serves to a considerable extent to relax the population. Many Herford residents therefore use the cemetery for walks.

It is located in the Neustädter Feldmark in the north of the city and extends over a length of about 900 meters between Mindener Straße and Eimterstraße. It can be reached from both streets via avenues that meet at the large high cross at the center of the cemetery.

The spacious chapel was built in 1955.

Burial facilities

In the cemetery there are elective graves , row graves, turf row graves with grave slab, care row graves, anonymous row graves, urn chambers in urn steles, a dead and miscarriage grave field , an Islamic grave field with row graves, an ash litter field and an ash grave field in a burial forest. In May 2018, the third Alevi grave field in Germany with space for 70 graves was inaugurated in the cemetery . Since June 15, 2019 there has been a Yazidi grave field with 84 grave sites.

War cemeteries

There are a total of four communal war cemeteries on the very large area of ​​the cemetery . Including a grave complex for German war victims with individual graves, a communal grave for Polish forced laborers with 35 buried victims who died in an Allied air raid on January 27, 1945, a communal grave for Russian prisoners of war with an undisclosed number of buried victims and a burial complex with Individual graves for 58 forced laborers of various nationalities who perished in Herford between 1941 and 1945.

History of the Herford cemeteries

Until 1808 the citizens of the old town , the Radewig , the abbey and the peasantry belonging to Herford were buried on the Münsterkirchplatz. There were also cemeteries at the other churches. Against the resistance of the population, the inner-city burial grounds were closed during the time of the Kingdom of Westphalia (1807-1813) and a new, rationally planned cemetery on Eisgraben (today Friedhofstrasse) was opened.

The so-called " Old Cemetery ", which was created around 1800 after the relocation of the Herford churches' cemeteries, was the first communal cemetery. In 1873 this was expanded to the south. There have been no burials on the old part since 1874. Funerals are still carried out on the expansion area to this day. In addition to the old stock of trees, both complexes impress with their old character and the numerous old monuments, some of which date from the Renaissance and Baroque. A high war memorial, which was built in 1879 on the Alter Markt and moved to the cemetery in 1964, today commemorates those who fell in the Prussian wars against Denmark and Austria as well as the Franco-German War. The old cemetery is also very popular today for strollers who are looking for a place to rest due to the old trees and the other structures, some of which are listed.

To relieve the old cemetery, the cemetery Eternal Peace was created in 1924 .

The cemeteries of the Evangelical-Lutheran Marienkirchengemeinde Stiftberg are the Erika-Friedhof on Vlothoer Straße, the Marien-Friedhof on Marienstraße and the Schwarzenmoor / Falkendiek cemetery on Mindener Straße.

The Jewish cemetery is located on Friedhofstrasse and has served as a burial place for the Jewish community since the 17th century .

The following municipal cemeteries are located in the districts incorporated in 1969:

Diebrock Cemetery on Hausheider Strasse, Eickum Cemetery on Diebrocker Strasse, Elverdissen Cemetery on Hillewalser Strasse, Laar Cemetery on Laarer Strasse and Stedefreund Cemetery on Bielefelder Strasse.

From a cultural and historical point of view, the cemeteries are of particular importance as places of the present and history. This is underlined by the entry in the Herford city monuments list .

The total area of ​​all cemeteries in Herford is currently around 507,000 m². This means that approx. 7.8 m² are available per inhabitant.

The private Schwarzenmoor animal cemetery is located near the Herford Ost motorway junction .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ralf Bittner: First Alevi grave field opened in North Rhine-Westphalia In: Neue Westfälische, May 14, 2018
  2. ↑ Frank-Michael Kiel-Steinkamp: Ezidische community gets its own grave field in the Herford district In: Neue Westfälische, June 9, 2019
  3. ↑ Cemeteries of the Marien parish
  4. ↑ List of architectural monuments in the city of Herford (PDF; 78 kB)

Coordinates: 52 ° 8 '14.7 "  N , 8 ° 41' 8.1"  E