Main cemetery (Pforzheim)
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The main cemetery in Pforzheim was laid out in the Gewann Auf der Schanz in 1877 and expanded into the main cemetery from 1914 to 1917. There are also numerous relocated historical tombstones in the cemetery .
history
The original burial places in Pforzheim were the cemeteries around the historic churches. The oldest of these burial places was probably around the Church of St. Martin. In 1587/88 the Altenstädter Gottesacker (today's Oststadtpark ) was laid out outside the city , which was expanded several times and occupied until 1863. From 1863 the burials took place in an extension of the Altenstadt Gottesackers. This extension (today's Old Cemetery ) quickly proved to be much too small during the strong growth of Pforzheim at that time, so that in 1877 a new cemetery on the Schanz , an elevation north outside the city, was established. What was new about this cemetery was that it was designed to be non-denominational from the beginning and also provided for a Jewish cemetery section, after which the burials in the old Jewish cemetery also ended. From the beginning of 20 grave fields in the Auf der Schanz cemetery, several extensions to the west were made by the turn of the century. Access to the cemetery was from Eisinger Gässle (today Bernhardstraße ) from the east, where the original cemetery chapel (today's columbarium ) was. The cemetery area, which was opened up until 1900, was traditionally enclosed with a stone wall. From the cemetery chapel, the main avenue and two curved circular paths of the cemetery, which is otherwise accessible by a right-angled network of paths, lead to the west.
Because of the sustained strong population growth, it was decided in 1910 to expand to the west and north, which was carried out between 1914 and 1917. The design was based on plans by Pforzheim's horticultural director, Hans Hoffmann, and essentially envisaged a right-angled network of avenues planted with different types of trees with squares lined with fountains. In the west, a new main entrance with the building ensemble called Campo Santo , consisting of administration building, crematorium and funeral hall, was built. The buildings in the style of the Florentine or Venetian Renaissance based on plans by Alfred Roepert are connected by arcades and enclose a shared garden courtyard. Historical grave monuments from older Pforzheim burial grounds have been set up in the arcade. With the inauguration of the extension on December 1, 1917, the Auf der Schanz cemetery became the city's main cemetery.
Generous graves of honor for the fallen of the First World War, which was still ongoing at the time, were laid at Campo Santo during the construction . From 1938 further honorary graves followed on Hauptallee, later also for those who fell in World War II in the older part of the cemetery. In 1945, mass graves for the victims of the air raid on Pforzheim on February 23, 1945 were laid in the northeastern cemetery area . The cemetery survived the destruction of Pforzheim largely unscathed and is one of the few still intact ensembles from the pre-war period in Pforzheim. The old cemetery chapel in the southeast of the complex was partially demolished around 1970 and transformed into a columbarium. More recently, a burial ground for burials according to Muslim rites has also been designated, and in 2003 another Jewish cemetery area was designated.
Monument value
The cemetery is a cultural monument whose horticultural and structural facilities and the graves form a whole. The garden architecture, which dates back to the Wilhelmine era, has artistic significance, while the diverse tombs represent the diversity of urban society. The rest period in the cemetery (excluding the Jewish part) is 25 years. Gravestones worth preserving will be relocated to Hauptallee when the grave fields are repopulated; larger grave structures worth preserving will also be preserved at the original location. A list of graves worth preserving has been kept since 1980; the Jewish gravestones were comprehensively documented from 1989 to 1994.
Tombs
In the arcade of Campo Santo there are numerous translocated historical tombs from older Pforzheim burial sites, including stone wall epitaphs for the Pforzheim mayors Hans Veit Breitschwert and Georg Eberlin (1633–1693), an important Renaissance wall epitaph for the margravial councilor Hans Jörg Schmid around 1577 Shows the deceased with his wife and a daughter kneeling in front of the resurrected one, and a baroque wall epitaph for the "famous pharmacist" Johann Michael Salzer (around 1698).
Graves of honor exist for the Lord Mayors Ferdinand Habermehl (1854–1938), Hermann Kurz (1892–1941) and Johann Peter Brandenburg (1905–1977), the First Mayor Karl Schweikert (1877–1917), the City Planning Director and Acting Lord Mayor Ludwig Seibel (1880 –1945), the architect and archivist Alfons Kern (1859–1941), the politician Fritz Erler (1913–1967) and the writer Emil Strauss (1866–1960). In addition, the grave fields for those who fell in World War I (fields 86, 87, 87a, 90), those who fell in World War II (field 91) and the bomb victims of February 23, 1945 (field 40b) are shown as graves of honor.
Other prominent people buried in Pforzheim's main cemetery include the writer Ludwig Auerbach (1840–1882), the manufacturers Theodor Fahrner (1823–1883), Adolf Richter (1839–1914) and Moritz Müller (1816–1895), members of the Manufacturing families Benckiser , Ehrismann, Hepp, Jourdan, Kammerer, Rau, Speidel and Witzenmann, the banker August Kayser , the dialect poet Fritz Höhn (1859–1934), the musician Friedrich Tilegant (1910–1968), the painter Adolf Armbruster (1864–1924) ), the sculptor and honorary citizen Else Bach (1899–1951), the Pforzheim honorary citizen Julius Moser (1882–1970), the architect Ernst Maler (1849–1930), the author Johanna Wittum (1870–1903), the manufacturer and politician Albert Wittum (1844–1923), the politician Wilhelm Compter (1890–1966), the aeronaut Rudi Bialas (1914–1937), the actor Franz Otto (1887–1960), the painter Karl Abt (1899–1985) and the publicist Alfons Kirchenmaier (1889–1954).
Among the older tombs in the cemetery are numerous tombs designed by the Pforzheim artists Emil Dittler , Wilhelm Gerstel , Julius Müller-Salem , Emil Salm , Paul Peter Pfeiffer , Adolf Sautter , Max Kassube and Fritz Wolber . Foreign artists who designed tombs in Pforzheim include Heinrich Bauser , Fidel Binz , Julius Seidler , Wilhelm Vögele and Hans Dammann . In addition to the outstanding artistically designed tombs, the majority of the older tombs were created by regional cemetery sculptors, above all Karl Simmel , Julius Wielandt , Gustav Schultheiss and Wilhelm binder . The outstanding post-war tombstone artists include Karl Schollmayer , Gisela Bär , Oskar Theodor Loos , Helmut Roller , Fritz Theilmann , Eilli Zanger and Erich Appenzeller .
- Old Jewish part of the cemetery
from the entrance, back of the graves
from the east, front of the tombs
Family graves
Fallen of the First World War
the newest graves
Stones on a tombstone
- New part of the Jewish cemetery
Orthodox department
Liberal Department
literature
- Emil Lacroix, Peter Hirschfeld, Wilhelm Paeseler: The art monuments of the city of Pforzheim (Karlsruhe district) , Karlsruhe 1939, pp. 238–242 (description of the translocated historical gravestones).
- Christoph Timm: The Pforzheim main cemetery. A guide to the historical grave monuments , Ubstadt-Weiher 1995.
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 54 ′ 6.5 ″ N , 8 ° 41 ′ 43.4 ″ E