Burial ground X

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General view of burial ground X (2011)

Grave field X was a burial place of the anatomical institute of the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in the city ​​cemetery of Tübingen, laid out in 1849 and used until 1963 . In the second half of the 1980s, it was converted into a memorial .

history

Corpses or parts of them were regularly buried on cemetery X from 1849 to 1963 . The scientific and practical training of medical students requires courses in anatomy , preparation and surgery and the production of specimens as objects of illustration within the medical training. The parts of the corpses that were no longer required by the body donation were buried in cemetery X. The cemetery was given its designation "X" after the First World War as a result of the cemetery being numbered. It is the Roman number 10.

Until 1945, the dead that were made available to the anatomical institute were mostly so-called social corpses, i.e. the mortal remains of people who were accorded less dignity even in death. These were, for example, suicides, executed criminals or destitute people whose funeral costs had been covered by a community or monastery fund.

Nazi era

Three stone crosses and commemorative plaque of the city of Tübingen (erected in 1952 and 1963)

This legal practice was even after the seizure of power retained by the Nazis on 30 January 1933rd As a result of the racist ideas that Adolf Hitler had roughly outlined in his book Mein Kampf and because of the ideological and politicized criminal justice of the National Socialists, so many corpses were made available to the Anatomical Institute in Tübingen that dead bodies were even given to other institutions during the war were submitted. Between January 30, 1933 and May 8, 1945, a total of 1077 corpses were brought into the anatomy department, 623 of them after the start of the war. Some of them were executed for political reasons, others were murdered without trial. At least two-thirds of the corpses brought into the anatomy were killed because they did not meet racist or ideological norms or were sacrificed to the war economy . The following types of death were subsequently recorded on a memorial plaque for the body donors:

156 people were Polish or Soviet prisoners of war who died of illness and exhaustion and were subsequently used as body donors by the university's anatomical institute.

Name plate 6 (attached 1980)

After 1945

After 1945, burial ground X was initially forgotten. In 1952 the city had three stone crosses erected on the burial ground. In 1963 a stone plaque for the city was added to these. After the opening of a new municipal cemetery (Bergfriedhof), the city cemetery increasingly lost its importance as a current burial place. As a result, there were several redesigns which also affected burial ground X, among other things. On February 9 and 10, 1980, members of the VVN discovered excavators and other heavy gardening equipment on the burial ground. Out of well-founded concern that the city was planning to level the cemetery, they turned to the public and sparked a far-reaching debate. Finally, the burial ground was redesigned into an "honorary grave". The previously four rows of graves were abandoned because of their severe damage and replaced in favor of two rows of green graves. A total of six bronze plaques with the names of the victims were set in the ground on both sides of the newly laid out path. For the spelling of the names the (unfortunately often incorrect) orthography from the German documents was used. In 1985 a historical analysis of the burial ground was commissioned, which was published in 1987. It was found that students at the medical faculty were still being trained on preparations that had also been made during the National Socialist era. In 1990 these preparations were buried on the grave field. The university added an artificial stone slab to the memorial complex. One week after the plaques were put up, burial ground X was desecrated with swastikas and the artificial stone slab destroyed. The artificial stone slab was replaced within a week by a bronze plaque with an identical inscription.

Eberhard Karls University memorial plaque

literature

Web links

Commons : Gräberfeld X  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual proof

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Oonagh Hayes: Toast commemoration? Why people think about burial ground X (the victims). In: On collecting, thinking and interpreting in history, art and psychoanalysis: Gerhard Fichtner to honor. LM Hermanns, & A. Hirschmüller, 2013, accessed on October 11, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Benigna Schönhagen: Das Gräberfeld X. A documentation about Nazi victims in the Tübingen city cemetery. Ed .: Kulturamt Tübingen. Small Tübingen writings. Issue 11. Tübingen 1987.
  3. ↑ Schwäbisches Tagblatt : What Tübingen monuments say about coming to terms with the Nazi era from March 26, 2010, accessed on June 10, 2010

Coordinates: 48 ° 31 '38 "  N , 9 ° 3' 26.5"  E