Grunewald cemetery

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Departments in the Grunewald cemetery

The Grunewald cemetery was laid out in 1891/92 for the Berlin villa colony Grunewald . It is located at the Bornstedter Road 11/12 in the district Halensee the district Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf . Because of its isolated location between train tracks, the cemetery is also called the island of the dead .

history

From Pyramid oak -lined main road

For the villa colony Grunewald founded in the 1880s, the 11,686 m² site northwest of Bornstedter Straße was selected as a cemetery in 1891. Even at this point in time, the site was surrounded by railroad tracks, so that access could only be established by means of a bridge over a railroad track. This remote location gave the cemetery the popular name of the island of the dead .

Cemetery 1907


Neo-Gothic cemetery chapel

On May 19, 1892, the cemetery, laid out according to plans by the royal garden inspector Roer, was opened. From the entrance, the main path leads through an avenue of pyramid oaks straight to the cemetery chapel, built in 1897 in neo-Gothic style . According to designs by Carl Zaar and Rudolf Vahl , the chapel was extended by a vestibule in 1902/03.

The path network of the cemetery still has the structure that was laid out when it was opened. The cemetery stands as a garden monument under monument protection .

Well-known personalities buried

The villa colony of Grunewald, one of the noblest residential areas in Berlin, led to numerous successful scientists, entrepreneurs and artists being buried in the Grunewald cemetery. Well-known personalities among them are (sorted alphabetically):

Burial place of the Sudermanns . The bust shows Hera , protector of women. She comes from the Schlosspark Blankensee and was one of the favorite characters of Clara, who was the first to die.
Sarcophagus designed by Lessing for his funeral, on which there was a sculpture

(* = Honorary grave of the state of Berlin, ° = former honorary grave of the state of Berlin)

Funerary artworks

Angel mosaic on Therese Möbius' tomb

The grave of Ernst von Möllers was designed by Fritz Schumacher , a founding member of the Deutscher Werkbund . A square wall made of shell limestone is divided into three fields with protruding pillars for the names of the deceased. The pillars are adorned with vine tendrils and at the head of the name fields there are allegorical motifs.

Mosaic on the tomb of the Dernburgs
Modern designed urn grave for Jan van Dijk

The colorful glass mosaic for Fritz Dernburg's tomb is particularly unusual for a cemetery . This died in childhood. Max Seliger, the brother of the mother of the deceased child, designed the mosaic, which shows two women dressed in white at an altar. The altar bears the often used funeral motto "Love never ceases" ( Corinthians 13 : 8). One of the women places vases of red tulips on the altar, while the other plays a harp , which a putti with brightly colored wings embraces, lost in thought. Contemporary sources report that the facial features of women are said to be modeled on those of their mother, Emma Dernburg, and her sister. The background is decorated with numerous white lilies against a dark blue. After Fritz Dernburg, other family members were buried in this tomb.

Not far from this tomb is another tomb with a mosaic that shows an angel with two palm fronds in front of a city fortification on a golden background. The mosaic shows considerable damage. This tomb was created for Therese Möbius, who died in 1896.

Meanwhile, there are also some newer, modern graves in the cemetery.

See also

literature

  • Klaus Konrad Weber, Peter Güttler, Ditta Ahmadi (eds.): Funeral services . (= Berlin and its buildings , part X, volume A (systems and buildings for supply), part volume 3.) Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-433-00890-6 .
  • A shadow's dream is man. Berlin cemeteries. Part 1. (CD-ROM) GBBB e. V. , Berlin 1997.
  • Wolf-Rüdiger Bonk: 125 years of the Grunewald villa colony ., Berlin 2016.

Web links

Commons : Grunewald cemetery  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Entry in the Berlin State Monument List
  2. Honorary graves of the State of Berlin (as of July 2012) (PDF; 566 kB)
  3. according to the personal article in the family grave together u. a. with Gustav

Coordinates: 52 ° 29 ′ 56 ″  N , 13 ° 17 ′ 6 ″  E