Gravedigger (occupation)

Grave digger, from: Weigel, Christoph: Illustration of the common-useful main stalls From which regents and their servants assigned in times of peace as war, bit on all artists and craftsmen (...), Regensburg, 1698

It is incumbent on the gravedigger (north d. Kuhlengräber ) to dig and close graves , with relevant secondary activities related to the care of the dead and grave.

In the Middle Ages this was regarded as a despised " dishonest profession " that the freelancer had to take on in small church villages . Today gravedigger are mostly employees of the cemetery administration; the job title is "Friedhofswärter". In many cases, the grave digging is also carried out by a stonemason or a funeral home .

As a metaphor , the word is used often and then mostly inappropriately, for example: “ von Papen was the gravedigger of the German Republic. "

In the literature

Numerous literary works, such as Shakespeare's Hamlet , introduce grave diggers in order to put unvarnished things into their mouths about the “last things”.

In Wolfgang Borchert's short story Jesus does not take part anymore , in which soldiers from a punitive company have to dig graves en masse, the eponymous hero refuses this lowest service.

Personalities

Mario Schlembach - man of letters and gravedigger - in his autobiographical novel NEBEL he tells of his childhood in the cemetery and reports in detail about the job of the gravedigger.

Web links

Commons : Gravedigger  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Everyday death - the job of the cemetery keeper. Accessed January 30, 2018 . 
2. ^ Oe1.orf.at: writer and gravedigger | FR | 27 07 2018 | 7:52. Retrieved March 19, 2019 .