Main cemetery (Heilbronn)

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The morgue of the main cemetery in Heilbronn

The main cemetery (also new cemetery ) of Heilbronn was opened in 1882, is the largest cemetery in the city and occupied until today. The oldest crematorium in Württemberg and numerous historical grave monuments are located on the approximately 15-hectare site with a lot of old trees . The cemetery is a listed cultural monument.

history

Crematorium, built in 1905 by Emil Beutinger
Mourning hall of the crematorium

The old Heilbronner Friedhof on Weinsberger Straße in Heilbronn, established in 1530, was overcrowded again after several extensions in the second half of the 19th century, so that in 1877 there was a need for a new cemetery. In view of the prevailing wind situation, the cemetery should only be created in the north or east of the city. Reinhard Baumeister's town planning from 1873 had already planned the area "on the stage" on the Heilbronn Lerchenberg east of the city center for the construction of a new cemetery, which the town had to acquire by acquiring several parcels for around 50,000 marks. In 1880 there was a planning competition for the new cemetery, which the landscape gardener Robert Wagner from Stuttgart won. In January 1881 the order was given to measure the paths, in August 1881 to plant the green areas. The new cemetery was officially opened on December 1, 1882, and the old cemetery was closed at the same time. The first burial in a row grave took place on December 3, 1882, the 19-year-old engraver Johann Martin Schweikert was buried. The first burial in a family grave was on December 8, 1882 that of the district court president and Reichstag member Gottlieb von Huber . Some important personalities who had previously been buried in the old cemetery were later reburied in the main cemetery.

The main entrance to the cemetery is in the north of the complex on the extreme east of Wollhaustraße. In 1882 and 1885, two neoclassical buildings with pillars at the entrance were built according to plans by the city architect Philipp Sulzberg (1829–1889), which serve as a mortuary , funeral hall and administration building. The crematorium , planned by the later Mayor of Heilbronn, Emil Beutinger (1875–1957) and built by 1905 , was one of the most modern of its kind at the time. The temple-like building, also in the neoclassical style, with decorations including fire bowls and a Phoenix bird, was the first Crematorium in Württemberg. To date, around 54,000 cremations have been carried out in this crematorium.

Landscaping and grave types

The core of the cemetery is an area of ​​four by five almost square fields with mostly row graves. The fields are accessed by a right-angled network of paths. To the south of these grave fields there are rows of family graves on a slight hill. To the south of this, the cemetery was later expanded to include loosely grouped grave fields with curved paths.

There are several types of graves in the cemetery:

  • Row graves (for burial and cremation of one coffin or one urn each, rest period 18 years, afterwards conversion to elective grave possible)
  • Children's row graves (for children up to the age of 6, rest period 10 years, rest period can be extended by 10 years)
  • Elective graves (single or multi-digit graves, right of use 25 years, subsequent burials possible if the remaining period of use is at least equal to the rest period)
  • Urn graves at historical burial sites (right of use can be acquired during lifetime, no individual design possible)
  • Urn graves for anonymous burial
  • Butterfly burial (for premature babies weighing less than 500 grams)

Personalities who found their final resting place there

The graves of Heilbronn mayors Karl Wüst , Paul Göbel , Emil Beutinger and Paul Meyle as well as honorary citizens Georg Härle , Gustav Binder , Wilhelm Happel and Friedrich Niethammer are located in the cemetery . There are also graves of the well-known industrial families Knorr , Cluss , Ackermann , Rauch and Dittmar as well as the Kraemer publishing family and the Rümelin banking family .

Other well-known people buried in Heilbronn's main cemetery include the town doctors Adolf Schliz , Alfred Schliz and Ludwig Heuss , Knorr general manager Gustav Pielenz , the innkeeper Louis Hentges , the manufacturer Andreas Faißt , the salt works founder Theodor Lichtenberger , and the manufacturer Louis Link , the teacher Christian Leichtle and the composer Robert Edler .

Numerous grave complexes from the period of classicism and art nouveau are now considered to be artistically valuable and were designed by well-known artists. Emil Kiemlen created the Knorr tomb , Daniel Stocker the Gutbrod tomb , Ernst Yelin the Ackermann tomb , Adolf von Donndorf the Faißt tomb , Ludwig Eisenlohr the Karl Wüst tomb and Hermann Hahn the monumental tomb for the fallen merchant Rudolf Sparrow .

At the central crossroads of the main field there is a memorial stone for the 13 Heilbronn teachers and students killed in the Heilbronn tragedy on the Dachstein on Good Friday 1954, with 11 of the 13 victims also being buried there. In the main cemetery there are also graves of soldiers from the First and Second World Wars, a burial ground for former Polish and Lithuanian forced laborers and a “euthanasia” memorial.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Christhard Schrenk (ed.): Heilbronn in early color photographs, small series of publications of the Heilbronn archive, vol. 55, Heilbronn 2008, p. 57.
  2. Detailed description of the crematorium with floor plans for buildings by the architects Beutinger & Steiner, BDA, Darmstadt-Heilbronn . In: Profanbau. Magazine for commercial, industrial and transport buildings. No. 19, October 1, 1907, pp. 285ff.
  3. Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stille-zeitzeugen.de
  4. Page no longer available , search in web archives:@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / Redaktion.tag-des-offenen-denkmals.de

Web links

Commons : Hauptfriedhof (Heilbronn)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 49 ° 8 ′ 10 ″  N , 9 ° 14 ′ 13 ″  E