Chorin monastery cemetery
The Chorin Monastery Cemetery is a small cemetery near the Chorin Monastery in Brandenburg . The cemetery has been used as a burial place since 1281 . Along with the Eberswalde forest cemetery, this cemetery is one of the most important collections of forest graves in Germany.
location
The cemetery is located immediately to the north, adjacent to the Chorin monastery church. It extends over around 50 m in an east-west direction and 40 m in a north-south direction. It houses around 50 graves, more than half of which are from foresters .
history
When the monastery was in use by the Cistercian monks from 1273 to 1542, the monastery cemetery was in the same place. The only four-lane large window from Chorin is on the gable wall of the north transept, directly facing the cemetery. This large wall opening brought the monks an abundance of light of divine presence and those buried in the cemetery an outgoing prayer effect over their graves. In the former cemetery, there were monks and conversations as well as lay people who had acquired a right to lie down through donations or bequests. Abbots, Ascanian margraves and a few nobles were buried in the abbey church itself. The cemetery chapel was roughly level with the transept. Until 1334 lay people entered the church through a portal in the fourth yoke from the west, this was and is on the cemetery grounds. In 1372 a hospital was built directly to the east of the cemetery. This was a replacement for the Barsdiner Hospital in Oderberg . The Ascanian graves in the abbey church directly to the south were discovered during excavations in 1883. The identification at that time is very likely wrong. Crypts were found both in the church choir and under the princely gallery. Even in the prince's hall, which no longer belongs to the church, tombs with the dead were uncovered. The first of the prince burials was carried out in 1281, which is not known. This year can be seen as the beginning of the burial, earlier dates in the monastery cemetery can be assumed, but have not been passed down.
The cemetery was probably used continuously in the early modern period. Electoral and royal officials and forest workers were buried on it.
The location of this cemetery in such a small community is due to the fact that in 1830 Wilhelm Pfeil obtained the relocation of the forest academy training center from Berlin to Neustadt Eberswalde . Chorin was one of the teaching forests of what was then the “Royal Prussian Higher Education Institute in Neustadt Eberswalde”. Since 1861, the forest administration was responsible for the former Chorin monastery and the abbey of the monastery became the service and residence of the Chorin chief forester. The monastery cemetery still serves as a burial place for the entire Chorin office. The educational forest ranger's office in Chorin is of outstanding importance for forest science and forestry , which is why the monastery cemetery and numerous memorial stones in the Chorin forest are visited by foresters from all over the world.
Forest graves
At the edge of the cemetery is a memorial to the forest people who died in the Franco-German War of 1870/71. This memorial was donated by her fellow students in 1872 . On the back there is the information: "Dedicated to the good forestmen who fell in the war against France for king and fatherland by the fellow students, Chorin in 1872" .
The oldest surviving evidence of individual forest graves is the grave tablet of the royal guardian Louis Bast, which was found during clearing work in the cemetery. The graves of Wilhelm Seeger , Wilhelm Raatz , Max Kienitz , Alfred Dengler , Alexis Scamoni , Albert Richter and Egon Wagenknecht can also be found in the cemetery. 28 foresters known by name rest in the monastery cemetery.
Memorial sites in the Chorin Forest
In addition to the tombs, there are numerous memorial stones for deserving foresters in the forests of the Chorin Forest. The most important of these is the original "Arrow Garden". Pfeil's garden was created in 1830 as a test camp, has a size of 600 m² and is still surrounded by a small stone wall today. In 1861/62, the Chorin forest garden was built right next to the ruins of the monastery. Pfeil's garden was used to grow forest plants until 1900. Another "Arrow Garden" in Eberswalde was the forerunner of the Eberswalde Forest Botanical Garden . Other forest memorials in the Choriner Forest are the memorial stones for Max Kienitz, Wilhelm Bando and Hugo Conwentz, as well as the Weber stone , which honors three generations of the Weber family. The Hausendorffweg in the Senftenthal district was named after Erhard Hausendorff. From Chorin, the Dengler-Weg leads about 1.5 km to the Dengler-Stein, near which is the Olberg-Weg, which leads in the direction of Plagefenn across the Choriner forest, where the Olberg-Stein is located. The Scamoni oaks are also located in the Chorin forest.
literature
- Albrecht Milnik : Forest graves in the monastery cemetery Chorin . Verlag Kessel, 2008, ISBN 978-3-941300-01-9
- Wolfgang Erdmann : Cistercian Abbey Chorin . Karl Robert Langewiesche successor to Hans Köster Verlagbuchhandlung, ISBN 3-7845-0352-7
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Albrecht Milnik: Forest graves at the Chorin monastery cemetery , p. 7
- ↑ Erdmann: Cistercian Abbey Chorin , p. 54
Coordinates: 52 ° 53 '36.3 " N , 13 ° 53' 0.3" E