New St. Marien-St. Nikolai

The former entrance at Prenzlauer Allee 7 has been covered with a residential and commercial building since 2017

Memorial to the Fallen of the Marian Congregation by Robert Saake , 1927

The New Cemetery St. Marien-St. Nikolai (also St. Marien- and St. Nikolai-Friedhof II , also Neuer Kirchhof von St.-Nikolai and St.-Marien ) is a cemetery in the Prenzlauer Berg district of the Berlin district of Pankow . In 1802 the St. Marien and St. Nikolai cemetery I (or the old cemetery St. Nikolai and St. Marien ) had already been opened nearby .

history

The cemetery was opened in 1857 as the second cemetery for the Protestant parishes of the Marienkirche and the Nikolaikirche . The site had previously been used as a vineyard . St. Marien / St. Nikolai took over 31,248 m² at that time and became neighbors of Cemetery I of the Georgen Parochial community, which had existed since 1814 . Prenzlauer Allee No. 7 was designated as the main entrance . Most of the cemetery was hidden behind the row of houses on Prenzlauer Allee up to the corner of Heinrich-Roller-Straße. The cemetery was closed in 1970, only to be opened briefly after German reunification in 1991 (and to close again in 1995).

From around 2005 the church tried to sell the land that was no longer needed to a housing association. After years of quarreling with protesting residents, a compromise was found. About a third of the site (with the property at Prenzlauer Strasse 7 as well as the cemetery administration building and the small morgue) was bought by a housing association, the second third was bought by the Berlin Senate . It was converted into a quiet park for the population (entrance Heinrich-Roller-Straße). In the third third, the funeral business was resumed. The mourning hall from Cemetery I of the Georgen Parochial Congregation is now used for this purpose. Funeral procession and visitors now reach the new burial site through a breakthrough in the cemetery wall of the Georgen cemetery . The cemetery administration of the Georgen cemetery in Greifswalder Straße 229–234 is now also responsible for the New Cemetery St. Marien-St. Nikolai is responsible.

Robert Saake's 1927 war memorial for the fallen soldiers of Mary's Congregation has survived the changing times unscathed and is still in the same place.