crematorium

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tolkewitz crematorium (Dresden), chimneys

A crematorium (from Latin cremare "to burn"), in Austria (especially in the official language) a fire hall , is a facility for the cremation of corpses instead of an earth burial or other types of burial. The cremation is called cremation or cremation ; one also speaks of the cremation or incineration of the corpse. The process of a burial involving the cremation is known as cremation .

Crematorium at the main cemetery in Heilbronn , built in 1905

History in Central Europe

prehistory

The history of the cremation of the dead goes back to the Stone Age. The band ceramists in Europe perfected the art of cremation. In the fired ceramic urns the cremation was layered from foot to head. Very often the urns were dressed in robes that were decorated with bronze needles in the Bronze Age. In Central Europe the custom of cremation gradually disappeared with the spread of Christianity .

In Europe, the first cremation of modern times took place in 1752 at Roßwald Castle in Austrian Silesia . The wife of Count Albert Joseph von Hoditz was cremated on a stake.

Development of a furnace for cremations

The Siemens furnace for cremation, contemporary illustration from 1874
Cremation furnace, depiction in the lexicon of all technology by Otto Lueger, 2nd edition (1904)

At the world exhibition in Vienna in 1873 , a cremation chamber was presented that was developed by the Italian professor Brunetti from Padua . This model did not catch on, but inspired the English doctor Henry Thompson , who propagated cremation in England from 1874.

The physician Friedrich Küchenmeister founded the association Die Urne - Association for facultative corpse cremation in Dresden in 1873 . Küchenmeister was an advocate of cremation, as he saw the risk of soil poisoning in the putrefaction and putrefaction gases that arise in an earth burial. Together with the Leipzig police doctor Carl Reclam, he won over the engineer Friedrich Siemens to develop a furnace for burning corpses in his glass factory on Freiberger Strasse. Siemens and his chief engineer Richard Schneider used the regeneration furnace technology developed by Siemens as early as 1856 . In August 1874 animal carcasses were burned on a trial basis in the regeneration furnace. The test was successful.

On October 9, 1874, the first cremation in what is now Germany and the world's first cremation in a closed fire took place in what was then Siemens-Glaswerk in Dresden, which Küchenmeister reported immediately in the magazine Deutsche Klinik . The deceased was not a German, but the English Katherine Dilke (1842–1874) alias Lady D. She had laid down this form of burial in her will. Some of their ashes are kept in the Meißen crematorium and in the Dresden City Archives.

Cremation associations

After the technical breakthrough in Dresden, cremation advocates received a boost. From the 1870s onwards, these crematists organized themselves in cremation associations, for example in Dresden, Berlin, Gotha and Hamburg. In 1874 Henry Thompson founded the Cremation Society of England in London . In the same year the New York Cremation Society emerged as a pioneer of the cremation movement in the USA and in the Netherlands the Vereeniging tot invoering der Lijkenverbranding in Nederland (literally "Association for the introduction of the cremation of corpses in the Netherlands"). The first cremation association in Switzerland was founded in Zurich in 1879.

In lectures and writings, the crematists called for the construction of crematoria and the recognition of cremation as a progressive alternative to burial. They praised cremation as a socially just, hygienic and inexpensive method of burial. They also pointed out the advantage of saving space in the cemeteries . In fact, as the cities grew, space in the cemeteries became scarce in many places. The cremation became the subject of controversial public debate.

First crematoria

Crematorium in Gotha, celebration hall from 1913
Crematorium in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The part of the building with the dome is the later added columbarium .
Chapel of the Maitland Crematorium, Cape Town ( South Africa )

The first European crematorium was inaugurated on January 22nd, 1876 at the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan . The initiator was the Swiss silk industrialist Alberto Keller, and it was designed by the architect Celeste Clericetti .

The first crematorium in German-speaking countries was the Gotha crematorium . It was built in 1878 by Julius Bertuch on the main cemetery in Gotha . The Thuringian royal seat in the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was considered liberal and progressive, so there was less resistance from Duke Ernst II and the regional church to the introduction of cremation, which is considered very modern, than in other small German states. The first cremation in the Gotha crematorium took place on December 10, 1878. It was the civil engineer Carl Heinrich Stier, who had designed the crematorium, but who had died a year before it was completed. In his will he had ordered the cremation of his body after the crematorium was opened. His body was therefore only temporarily buried in a sealed metal coffin. 17 more cremations took place in 1879. In the years that followed, more and more dead were brought to the Gotha crematorium from all over Germany.

1879 on the initiative of Henry Thompson and the Cremation Society of England in Woking in the county of Surrey set up the first crematorium in England. To check the suitability of the facility, a horse was cremated. In 1884 it was clarified in a court case that the cremation was legal. The crematorium was then able to start operating in 1885.

In 1889 the first crematorium was put into operation in Switzerland, at the Sihlfeld cemetery in Zurich . Attention was paid to structural decorations in order to show respect for the dead. The second Swiss crematorium in Basel followed about 10 years later. In 1914 there were already 12 crematoria in Switzerland. In 1916 the Swiss Cremation Association was founded, which during the first decades was particularly concerned with hygiene and ethics, but today more with business administration and ecology. Ivo Zempp lists (in the table of contents) 37 crematoria in Switzerland for 1889 to 2010, each of which has 2 places in 5 cities and 3 in Zurich.

In 1889 the first crematorium in France was built in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. This was followed by crematoria in Rouen (1899), Reims (1903), Marseille (1907), Lyon (1913) and Strasbourg (1922).

In 1891 (13 years after the Gotha crematorium went into operation ), the second German crematorium went into operation at the Bergfriedhof in Heidelberg and a year later the third in Hamburg ( Old Crematorium in Hamburg-Alsterdorf). The crematorium at the old cemetery in Offenbach am Main was built in 1891–1892, but was not approved and put into operation until 1899. It no longer exists today. In 1910 more than 20 crematoria were in operation in Germany. The neoclassical Gotha crematorium from 1878 was reminiscent of ancient temples in its formal language. The subsequent crematoria were mostly built in an oriental style because of religious concerns about cremation . It was not until 1903 that a crematorium was built in the main cemetery in Karlsruhe with the appearance of a Central European sacred building .

In 1913 the first crematorium in the Netherlands was built in the village of Driehuis (municipality of Velsen in North Holland). Although cremations were not allowed under the Dutch Funeral Act, the first cremation took place here next year - 40 years after the Dutch Cremation Society was founded. The association wanted to provoke a lawsuit to clarify the legal situation. The club was acquitted. From then on, cremations were tolerated and finally legalized in 1955.

In Austria, which was dominated by Catholicism, the first crematorium was not opened until 1922 at the Vienna Central Cemetery , against the resistance of the Church .

The crematoria in the National Socialist extermination camps

Former crematorium of Buchenwald concentration camp (2007)
Two of the cremation ovens in Auschwitz

During the Nazi era, crematoria were built or expanded in a large number of concentration camps from 1940 to 1944 in order to burn the corpses of the prisoners. In the concentration camps Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek they were part of the industrial mass murder . No crematoria were installed in the Belzec , Kulmhof , Maly Trostinez , Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps . In the other concentration camps, one of the purposes of the crematoria was to prevent the spread of epidemics and to protect the camp staff and the surrounding communities.

In the German concentration camps, at least 25 ovens with 76 muffles from the Topf & Sons company and 39 individual muffle ovens from the Kori company were installed. The Auschwitz concentration camp had the largest crematorium capacity with three double- muffle ovens in the main camp and ten three-muffle ovens and two eight-muffle ovens in the A-Birkenau concentration camp . In Auschwitz, the central construction management of the SS has the capacity determined in operation with 340 corpses for crematorium I (three double muffle ovens), 1,440 corpses each for crematorium II and III (five three muffle ovens each) and 768 corpses each for crematorium IV and V (one eight muffle oven each) numbered in a 24-hour shift. In purely mathematical terms, this results in 4756 burned corpses within 24 hours and 1.7 million with a theoretical operation over a whole year. According to the statements of several witnesses, even higher values ​​were reached at times. To achieve such high performance, several corpses were cremated at the same time. The bones of the corpses did not completely incinerate and technical equipment such as compressed air blowers were used. The Topf crematoria had a recuperator for energy recovery , which used the waste heat to heat the air supply to the furnace. In this way, the coke consumption could be minimized in continuous operation.

Due to the peculiarities, operating data from cemetery crematoria cannot be used to determine the efficiency of the concentration camp crematoria. The technical equipment and the mode of operation differ too greatly, so conclusions cannot be drawn about the operating data of the concentration camp crematoria. Since corpses were also disposed of in mass graves , the cremation capacities of the concentration camps only allow conclusions to be drawn about the minimum number of Holocaust victims. In the extermination camps of Aktion Reinhardt and in the case of the Kulmhof extermination camp , no crematoria were used to dispose of the dead; Instead, they were buried in mass graves and, from 1942, burned in open pits as part of special campaign 1005 . Kori crematoria , on the other hand, were used in Action T4 and (the manufacturer's question has not been clarified) in Action R in the Risiera di San Sabba concentration camp in Trieste.

Modern crematoria

technology

Burning a dead person
Oven in the crematorium in Frankfurt am Main , entrance side. The Frankfurt crematorium was closed in December 2013 due to insufficient occupancy.
Oven in the crematorium in Frankfurt am Main, exit page

There are several types of cremation equipment. In the flat bed oven, the coffin and corpse remain in the main combustion chamber (muffle) during the cremation. When the cremation process is complete, the remains are taken to the burnout chamber and later placed in the furnace's cooling zone. In the deck oven there are two combustion chambers one above the other (upper oven and lower oven), which are separated from each other by a rotating steel plate. The coffin is moved into the upper furnace, in which the main incineration takes place in 60–90 minutes. The bones are completely mineralized in the lower furnace. During this time, the next combustion can take place in the upper furnace.

In modern natural gas-fired crematoria, the cremation takes about an hour, depending on the technology. According to VDI guideline 3891, the temperature in the main combustion chamber should be at least 650 ° C. The ordinance on cremation facilities (27th BImSchV) prescribes 850 ° C for the afterburning or burnout chamber in Germany. The average capacity of an incinerator is five to 14 cremations per working day , also taking into account the health and safety regulations . Due to the breaks on weekends, the ovens cool down by 400 to 500 degrees, overnight by 200 degrees. Around 300 m³ of natural gas are required after weekends and 100 m³ in the morning to reach the required temperature. The average consumption per cremation is 17.5 m³ of natural gas.

Due to the demands of environmental protection, the exhaust gases from the crematoria are largely free of fine dust , dioxins and furans through cooling in heat exchangers, filters and catalytic treatment . There are also regulations for the use of environmentally friendly materials for clothing and the coffin of the deceased. So crematoria work (among other things in accordance with VDI guideline 3891) while maintaining piety in an environmentally friendly and energetically optimized way. Part of the waste heat from combustion is recovered in the heat exchangers.

A crematorium in Taipei uses the waste heat in the cremation also for the production of electrical energy and operates, among others, its air conditioners and coffee machines.

Legal requirements, standards and quality seals

In Germany, the funeral system and thus also cremation are regulated by the funeral laws of the individual federal states. In terms of content, the state laws are similar to one another. Some regulations of the funeral laws also apply to work in the crematoria. For example, cremation is regulated in Section 13 of the Hamburg State Burial Act. In paragraph 2 sentence 2 it says: "It must be determined at any time [...] whose ashes are involved." Cremation was first legally regulated in Germany by the nationwide Cremation Act of 1934. The individual cremation and the individual labeling of the ash residues were already prescribed in this law. Other regulations from the 1934 law were also incorporated into the later laws of the German federal states.

All crematoriums in Germany are subject to the 27th BImSchV (Federal Immission Control Ordinance) and are equipped with modern exhaust gas cleaning systems. The exhaust gases are subject to the immission control limit values. The VDI guideline 3891 "Emission Reduction - Systems for Human Cremation" contains instructions and recommendations for environmental protection, in particular for cleaning exhaust gases. In addition to carbon monoxide , total carbon and total dust , the exhaust gas components to be reduced also include mercury and polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans . In particular, adsorbents and catalytically active surface filters are used to eliminate the latter .

The basic ethical rules for crematoria are laid down in DIN EN 15017. This is to ensure that the deceased are treated with dignity and respect in the crematoria. Negative individual cases such as garbage incineration and removal of dental gold should be prevented. These ethical regulations are not legally binding and are recommended.

The private and public crematorium operators must declare that they are ready to comply with the quality and test regulations of the German Institute for Quality Assurance and Labeling (RAL) and the Federal Association of German Undertakers , which awards the “crematorium” trademark. In addition, a “controlled crematorium” seal is awarded by the working group of municipal crematoriums in the German Association of Cities .

number

The proportion of cremations has been increasing for decades, for example in Germany from 38% in 1997 - depending on the source - 64% or even 69% in 2016. With the demand for cremations, the number of crematoria has also increased. As of March 2017, the respective sources list:

  • 160 crematoria in Germany.
  • 10 crematoria (or 12 places with crematoria) in Austria
  • 25 crematoria in Switzerland.

In the table under cremation # cremation statistics you can find information on other countries.

Cremation of overweight corpses

The cremation of overweight people in crematoria occasionally leads to technical problems. The high percentage of fat in the body can cause significantly higher temperatures with an effect on the entire system and unpredictable fires. In addition, the duration of incineration is extended and pollutant emissions can be increased. There are now crematoria in Germany whose facilities are designed for the cremation of up to 500 kg.

  • In January 2009 there was an incident in Hameln , with flames breaking out of the ten meter high chimney. The corpse, weighing 200 kilograms, made the double-pipe stainless steel chimney partially glow.
  • In September 2009 in Kempten (Allgäu) the cremation of a 150 kg corpse resulted in the melting of pipe parts. The chimney glowed. The fire brigade fought the embers with extinguishing powder .
  • In April 2012, a fire broke out in the crematorium in Seewen in the canton of Schwyz when a body weighing 200 kilograms was cremated. The system overheated, flames came out of the furnace and triggered a short circuit.

In Switzerland, from 2009, oversized coffins were initially only accepted in Bern , where an extra-large furnace had been put into operation. Most Swiss crematoriums only accepted corpses weighing up to 150 kilograms. After the incident in the Seewen crematorium in April 2012, two crematoriums were planned in Basel and St. Gallen that can accommodate corpses weighing more than 200 kilograms. In connection with the sharp increase in the proportion of overweight people in the Swiss population, this measure was considered necessary. A more modern crematorium was due to be built in both places. The new crematorium in St. Gallen was completed in October 2016. The new crematorium in Basel was inaugurated in June 2017.

Picture gallery

  • Interiors


  • Berlin-Baumschulenweg lobby

  • Installation of the coffins for cremation (Berlin-Baumschulenweg)

  • Coffin before cremation in Japan (Shikoku-tyuo city)

literature

  • Carl Reclam: The Cremation . In: The Gazebo . 1874, p. 308-313 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
  • Stefan Fayans: Funeral home. Kröner, Stuttgart 1907 ( Handbook of Architecture. 4th part: Design, layout and furnishing of buildings. 8th half-volume: Churches, monuments and burial grounds . H. 3).
  • Johannes Heldwein: The history of cremation and German crematoria. Franzmathes, Frankfurt am Main 1931.
  • Fritz Schumacher: The cremation. 2nd Edition. Gebhardt, Leipzig 1939 ( Handbook of Architecture. 4th part: Design, layout and furnishing of buildings. 8th half-vol .: Churches, monuments and burial grounds . H. 3b).
  • Jean-Claude Pressac : The Auschwitz Crematoria. The technique of mass murder. (= Piper 2193 series ). Piper, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-492-12193-4 .
  • Annegret Schüle: Industry and the Holocaust. Topf & Sons - The furnace builders of Auschwitz. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0622-6 .
  • Norbert Fischer : From the churchyard to the crematorium. A social history of the cemeteries in Germany since the 18th century. (= Cultural Studies. Special Volume 17). Böhlau, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-412-11195-3 , (also: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 1994, online version ).
  • Henning Winter: The architecture of the crematoria in the German Empire 1878–1918. (= Kassel studies on sepulchral culture. 10). Verlag JH Röll, Dettelbach 2001, ISBN 3-89754-185-8 . (At the same time: Berlin, Techn. Univ., Diss., 1998).
  • Norbert Fischer: Between technology and grief. Cremation, crematorium, flamarium. A cultural story. NORA, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-935445-95-4 .
  • Ivo Zemp: The Architecture of Cremation: A Cultural History of the Swiss Crematoria. Hier + Jetzt, Baden 2011, ISBN 978-3-03919-195-6 .
  • Ulrich Hübner: Cultural and building history of the German crematoria . Workbook 20 of the State Office for Monument Preservation Saxony. Sandstone Communication, Dresden 2013, ISBN 978-3-95498-050-5 .
  • Max-Rainer Uhrig : "In the footsteps of the phoenix: On the cultural history of cremation", Ergon, Würzburg, 2017, ISBN 978-3-95650-268-2 .

Web links

Commons : Crematoriums  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Crematorium  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of Modern Cremation in the United Kingdom, The Cremation Society of Great Britain. See section Reawakening of interest .
  2. ↑ a b Norbert Fischer : cremation and crematorium , Section 1.2: cremation as a reform project
  3. ^ Norbert Fischer: Cremation and crematorium , Section 2.1: Gotha 1878: The first German crematorium
  4. ↑ Friedrich Küchenmeister: The first corpse cremation / (that of the corpse of Lady D.) in the Siemens regenerative oven; happened on October 9, 1874, at 7 o'clock in the evening in Dresden. In: German Clinic. No. 44 and 48. G. Reimer, Berlin 1874.
  5. ^ Johannisfriedhof Dresden-Tolkewitz dresdner-stadtteile.de
  6. ↑ Company history data of the Meißen crematorium
  7. ↑ Juliane Weigt: That is why there is ash from Lady D. Morgenpost in Dresden's safe , Dresden, June 17, 2018, accessed on June 17, 2018.
  8. ↑ a b c d Norbert Fischer: Cremation and Crematorium , Section 1.3: On the cremation movement of the late 19th century
  9. ^ History of Modern Cremation in the United Kingdom, The Cremation Society of Great Britain. See sections The declaration and Cremation Society founded .
  10. ↑ a b Koninklijke Facultatieve (Dutch)
  11. ^ Norbert Fischer: Cremation and idea of ​​progress , in: OHLSDORF - Journal for Trauerkultur , No. 133, May 2016.
  12. ↑ Werner Keyl : Reflections on the 100th anniversary of the crematorium in Gotha. In: Ernestinum. NF 64, Dec. 1978, p. 218 f.
  13. ↑ History of the Association kremation-svfb.ch, Association of crematoria in Switzerland accessed 17 March 2017th
  14. ^ Historical development of the Undertaker Guild of Saxony-Anhalt
  15. ↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Thompson, Sir Henry. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , pp. 1396 f .; here: p. 1396.
  16. ^ History of Modern Cremation in the United Kingdom, The Cremation Society of Great Britain. See section Furnace tested .
  17. ^ History of Modern Cremation in the United Kingdom, The Cremation Society of Great Britain. See sections Cremation pronounced legal and The first cremation .
  18. ↑ History of the association kremation-svfb.ch, Association of the Crematoria of Switzerland, accessed March 17, 2017. - With reference to the source: Ivo Zemp: The architecture of cremation: A cultural history of the Swiss crematoria, Hier und Jetzt Verlag, Baden, 2012. ISBN 9783039191956 . 232 p. - Based on his dissertation from 2009. - Book preview (up to page 11)
  19. ↑ State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.): Friedhofstrasse 21: Material entirety of the old cemetery In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hessen . Retrieved October 29, 2012.
  20. ↑ Volkhard Knigge: Technicians of the final solution Topf & Sons - The furnace builders of Auschwitz . Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, 2005.
  21. ↑ Francisek Piper : Review of Fridjof Meyer's article in the journal Osteuropa ( Memento from December 20, 2003 in the web archive archive.today )
  22. ^ Francisek Piper: The number of victims of Auschwitz . Verlag Staatliches Museum, Auschwitz 1993, ISBN 83-85047-17-4 .
  23. ↑ Frankfurt without crematorium: “The funeral tourism is increasing” faz.net, January 20, 2014.
  24. ↑ Low emissions on the last trip vdi-nachrichten.com, January 18, 2013.
  25. ↑ Efficient use of energy: Saving electricity with cremation ( Memento from September 5, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  26. ↑ Bestattungsgesetz bestattungen.de
  27. ↑ § 13 Funeral Act landesrecht-hamburg.de
  28. ↑ Law on cremation of May 15, 1934 (RGBl. 1, p. 3 80) ( Memento of February 12, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  29. ↑ VDI 3891: 2015-07 emission reduction; Systems for human cremation (emission control; human cremation facilities). Beuth Verlag, Berlin
  30. ↑ UmweltMagazin, September 2009.
  31. ↑ VDI 3891: 2015-07 emission reduction; Systems for human cremation (emission control; human cremation facilities). Beuth Verlag, Berlin, p. 35.
  32. ↑ Wolfgang Esser-Schmittmann, Simone Schmitz: Use of adsorption technology to reduce emissions in crematoria. In: Hazardous substances - cleanliness. Air . 72, No. 6, 2012, ISSN  0949-8036 , pp. 249-252.
  33. ↑ Ole Petzoldt: Use of catalytically working fabric filters to break down dioxins and furans in crematoria. In: Hazardous substances - cleanliness. Air. 72, No. 6, 2012, ISSN  0949-8036 , pp. 253-257.
  34. ↑ DIN EN 15017: 2006-01 Funeral services - Requirements; German version EN 15017: 2005. Beuth Verlag, Berlin
  35. ^ Austrian Society for Policy Advice and Policy Development (Ed.): Privatization and Liberalization of Public Services in the EU-15: Funeral Services (source of the data: surveys of the German Association of Cities) . Vienna 2003.
  36. ↑ Press release of the Federal Association of German Undertakers from July 3rd, 2017. Accessed on August 16th, 2018 .
  37. ↑ Survey by the RAL-Gütegemeinschaft Feuerbestattungsanlagen eV 2017. Accessed on August 16, 2018 .
  38. ↑ Overview of crematoria in Germany http://krematorien.aeternitas.de/ , accessed August 16, 2018.
  39. ↑ Statistics> Statistics European countries crematorium.eu accessed March 16, 2017.
  40. ↑ Countries> Austria> Karte Krematorien in Österreich crematorium.eu accessed March 16, 2017.
  41. ↑ Swiss Cremation Association: List of members , accessed on March 16, 2017.
  42. ↑ a b c Ulf Hanke: Fire department at the coffin . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 2012, p. 48 ( online - April 7, 2012 ).
  43. ↑ Rhein-Taunus-Krematorium : obese deceased up to a weight of 500 kg , accessed on September 20, 2019.
  44. ↑ a b Serious deaths: crematoria are at the attack nzz.ch, April 22, 2012.
  45. ↑ The new crematorium is ready tagblatt.ch, November 16, 2016.
  46. ↑ “Light cover for mourning” - this is what the new crematorium on the Hörnli looks like bzbasel.ch, June 15, 2017.