Grunewald-Forst cemetery

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The Berlin Grunewald-Forst cemetery is located in Jagen 135 des Grunewald on Schildhornweg and is one of the most idyllic cemeteries in Berlin. For historical reasons it is also called the “cemetery of the nameless” or “suicide cemetery”.

Entrance portal of the Grunewald-Forst cemetery

Plant used as a suicide cemetery

Entrance to the suicide cemetery
Graves of suicides of the Orthodox faith

The Havel bends not far from the cemetery, with the result that every now and then water corpses drift onto the shore at this point. There are sometimes suicides among those who drowned . Her burial was still associated with difficulties up into the 19th century, as the Christian churches refused to allow suicides to be buried in their cemeteries as " deadly sinners ". So the problem of their burial remained with the Grunewald forest administration.

In 1878/79 she decided to bury the dead in a forest clearing close to where they were found. The oldest surviving entry, which reported on the funeral of a 22-year-old locksmith, dates from January 22nd, 1900. Word got around and led to the fact that relatives of suicides from the wider area turned to the chief forester or simply buried their dead themselves in the forest. Some suicides, too, who, to make matters worse, did not want to put their families in trouble with ungracious cemetery administrators, then chose the vicinity of the cemetery as the place to say goodbye.

In 1911 a simple brick morgue with a rectangular base was built on the site, but it no longer exists today. At the end of the First World War, victims of the war were also buried here, including soldiers, civilians and some Russian prisoners of war. The five wooden Russian crosses with Cyrillic inscriptions commemorate the burial of five Russians who were loyal to the Tsar and who had killed themselves out of grief over the victory of the Bolsheviks and then recovered from the Havel.

Municipal cemetery

Grave of the chief forester Willi Schulz

After the formation of Greater Berlin in 1920, the Grunewald and with it the “wild” burial ground belonged to the city of Berlin. She made sure that each district had its own church-independent cemetery. In this way the funeral problem was solved.

The Grunewald-Forst cemetery was used as a suicide cemetery until 1927. In 1928/29 he got a solid wall that delimited the 4980 m² area, as well as a stone entrance gate with iron wings, which were laid out by Richard Thieme . From this point on, the complex was looked after and made attractive to non-suicides as well.

After the end of the Second World War , civilians who had died in the last days of the war in 1945 and were temporarily buried in Berlin's parks were reburied in this cemetery. They lie in over 60 individual graves and a collective grave on the site.

The Berlin grave researcher Willi Wohlberedt , who knew his way around the 250 cemeteries in the Berlin area like no other, liked this hidden place with its birdsong best. He had a burial place reserved here long before his death and is now a grave. The second former honorary grave of the cemetery was dedicated to the chief forester of the Grunewald, Willi Schulz (1881–1928). Other well-known personalities are the writer Clemens Laar , who committed suicide in 1960, and the singer Nico , known among other things for her work with the rock band The Velvet Underground .

The state of Berlin decided in 2018 not to allow any new burials, so the cemetery will not be de-dedicated until 2038 at the earliest.

Graves of famous personalities

Tomb of Nico and her mother

Note

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Grunewald-Forst cemetery  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Suicide cemetery . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 4, 2018.
  2. ↑ portrait photo

Coordinates: 52 ° 29 ′ 31 ″  N , 13 ° 12 ′ 38 ″  E