Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde

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Chapel of the Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde

Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde is the name for the cemetery of the Protestant parishes of the Berlin City Synodal Association opened on June 30, 1908 in the area of ​​the Brandenburg community of Ahrensfelde .

The park-like cemetery is located northeast of Berlin outside the city limits and with 25 hectares today only has a fraction of the area originally planned for it. The area on which an Art Nouveau - chapel with an Steinmeyer - organ is, stands since 2001 under monument protection .

history

Basics of planning

Main axis of the churchyard

In the second half of the 19th century, there was a shortage of available burial places in the urban areas of Berlin, which became a city ​​of millions in 1877 . As a result of the steady population growth and the provision of the increasingly scarce open spaces in the city center for residential construction, plans were made for several large, expandable cemeteries in the Berlin area. This task was entrusted to the city synodal association founded in 1895, parishes of the Evangelical Regional Church of the older provinces of Prussia in Berlin and the surrounding area, as the central economic administration.

After the Berlin community cemetery Friedrichsfelde , the first large cemetery located in front of the gates of Berlin at that time, was opened by decision and owned by the Berlin magistrate in 1881 , the Berlin City Synodal Association planned the construction of three large central cemeteries in Ahrensfelde, Stahnsdorf and Mühlenbeck . To design a uniform design for the cemeteries, a competition was held in the magazine "Die Gartenkunst", but the designs submitted did not correspond to the ideas of those responsible in the Synodal Association, which is why the architect Gustav Werner (1859-1917) was responsible for the planning and execution of the cemetery facilities. and the garden engineer of the Berlin city synod Louis Meyer (1877–1955) were commissioned. While the east cemetery in Ahrensfelde was built in 1908 and the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf in 1909 as the property of the Protestant parishes, the construction of the north cemetery in Mühlenbeck was never realized.

Emergence

On March 29, 1906, the Berlin City Synodal Association decided to purchase an area of ​​around 1800  acres (450 hectares) of land in the municipality of Ahrensfelde northwest of the Wriezener Bahn for 1.33 million marks . The decisive factor for the location was the existing railway connection with the planned establishment of suburban traffic from Berlin towards Werneuchen . The community agreed to the conditions imposed on the community in connection with the planned construction of the churchyard, the paving of the main access road to Lindenberger Weg , the regulation of the Wuhle river and the maintenance of the local sales taxes.

Wuhlegraben in the churchyard

Engineers and surveyors were already in the process of surveying and mapping the area of ​​the future central cemetery at the beginning of May 1906. The Ostkirchhof was to become a model complex of the German Empire and the second largest burial place in Germany. A similar system existed until then only with the Ohlsdorf cemetery near Hamburg . Gustav Werner and Louis Meyer created a spacious, green park cemetery in Ahrensfelde, taking into account the topographical features, the basis of which was the existing 150 acres (37.5 hectares) of forest.

The first large building was erected by August 1907, which not only housed apartments and equipment rooms but also the machines for the water tower. This was followed by work on the regulation of the Wuhle, the paving of the main access road, the removal of the historic Postberg, the fencing of the individual burial places, the construction of a greenhouse in the nursery and the erection of a collapsible and transportable wooden chapel planned by Gustav Werner stood in the Andreasfriedhof of the Zwingligemeinde in Berlin-Friedrichshain . The date of the first occupancy on January 1, 1908 could not be kept. From the beginning of 1908 to the middle of March of that year, work even ceased. Also in March 1908, areas not required for churchyard purposes, around 435 acres (around 109 hectares), were offered for lease for longer years.

development

"Enchanted" fountain on the Lazarus field

With the consecration speech for the inauguration of the chapel by the General-Superintendent Probst D. Faber on June 30, 1908 at 5 p.m., the Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde was opened. The opening liturgy was given by Pastor Koch ( Samaritan community in Berlin ), and the festive sermon by Pastor Köster (Lazarus community in Berlin). When it opened, the cemetery covered an area of ​​1200 acres (300 hectares), according to other sources, 285 hectares, with an area of ​​1700 × 1800 meters. The burial site, temporarily used by 20 communities, was later to serve 30 communities with a total of 30,000 grave sites. On July 4, 1908 at 4 p.m. Pastor Koch held the first funeral, a woman named Anna Schwarzenberg from the Samaritan community, who was taken from the Ahrensfelde train station on July 2 with a hearse to the cold rooms of the mortuary. Her resting place is preserved in the churchyard as a grave of honor. The Berlin city synod covered the costs of the first burial. Another four funerals followed on the same day, three in the Samaritan cemetery and one in the Lazarus cemetery.

Entrance and east gatehouse
Main axis with chapel
Chapel consecrated in 1913

The east cemetery, which was divided into individual grave fields of 30 acres per community, crisscrossed wide promenades between the individual graves, called streets. The buried were placed head to head, the space between the individual graves was 40 centimeters. In contrast to the urban row graves customary up to now , which were jointly closed shaft graves after the burial , only individual burials took place in the cemeteries of the east cemetery. The grave fields, on which only 3 acres each were temporarily set up for burials at the time the churchyard was opened, were calculated to last 30 years until the second occupancy. In addition to the row graves, places were also provided for so-called garden graves surrounded by hedges. In the middle of the grave fields, jewelry places were created, benches were set up all over the site and two protective halls provided shelter in adverse weather. At the main entrance a flower hall offered wreaths and potted plants for sale.

In the long run, the daily transport of corpses from the corpse collection point in Berlin at the old Ostbahnhof with freight trains to Ahrensfelde station and from there to the morgue of the Ostkirchhof was impractical. Therefore, after the opening of the churchyard, work was intensified on the construction of the station on the Wriezener Bahn, which was built on the area of ​​the demolished historical Lehmann'schen Postberg. On November 16, 1908, the Ahrensfelde Friedhof station at the Ostkirchhof was opened in a provisional design for the traffic of people and corpses. Initially, ten trains stopped here a day.

On the morning of June 21, 1912, the wooden chapel of the Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde burned down completely. Only the five coffins laid out in the hall could still be carried outside. The volunteer fire brigades from Ahrensfelde, Blumberg , Mehrow , Falkenberg and Eiche had to do with extinguishing and cleaning up until the afternoon of the day of the fire. The necessary replacement construction began in the same year. For reasons of time, it was likely that existing plans were used, which may have been based on the designs submitted by the architect Paul Korff for the 1908 competition for the Stahnsdorf churchyard. In 1913 the new chapel, still largely preserved in its original state, was consecrated. The large celebration hall of the chapel offers space for up to 100 visitors, the small hall behind it is designed for up to 40 visitors.

The capacity utilization of the cemetery remained far below expectations. For the Protestant communities, the main reason for this was the tariff on the Wriezener Bahn. In contrast to the cemetery railway to Stahnsdorf, there was no suburban tariff on the Wriezen railway, so the journey to the Ostkirchhof was more expensive. The funeral costs in Ahrensfelde in 1913 were 20 marks compared to an average of 43 marks in Berlin. In addition, when using a Berlin cemetery, the relatives had to pay a transfer fee to the assigned central cemetery, and a token fee was payable to these courtyards for their use. Nevertheless, the funeral directors charged the relatives the higher costs of tending a grave in Ahrensfelde in the long run, so that the Berliners preferred a burial in the immediate vicinity. The courtyards in Neukölln were particularly preferred .

The Berlin city synod therefore called for the introduction of the suburban tariff to Ahrensfelde Friedhof for the first time on June 1, 1911. The request was rejected with reference to the removal of the cemetery. The second request of this kind was borne by the town synod as well as the affected parishes and neighboring parishes of the railway. The association committee of the Greater Berlin Association agreed to this request on June 19, 1913, followed by another petition from over a thousand cemetery visitors in November 1913. The Prussian Ministry of Public Works rejected the project again on November 29, 1913. It referred to the costs of around 6.2 million marks that a two-track expansion of the railway with the removal of level crossings would bring with the introduction of the suburban tariff. In addition, after its introduction, increased settlement activity is not to be expected, since large sewage fields and the cemetery were located in the area . In July 1919, the Lazarus community suggested the alternative proposal to extend the Berlin – Hohenschönhausen tram via Falkenberg to the Ostkirchhof, which was rejected due to a lack of demand.

Due to the poor transport connections, the relatives of the deceased preferred to leave the grave maintenance to the cemetery staff. The cost of pouring the grave therefore rose to twelve marks, while the average cost in Berlin was 7.50 marks. The transfer of five other parishes to Ahrensfelde in 1919 was contested by their church councils, so that the church supervisory authority gave in to the whole thing. The number of burials continued to decline at this time. Compared to almost a thousand burials after the opening, in 1932 there were only 136 burials. Around 165 hectares of the cemetery grounds were therefore ceded as agricultural and forestry land after the Second World War. With the construction of the large housing estates in Marzahn , Hohenschönhausen and Hellersdorf in the 1970s and 1980s, those responsible expected a renewed increase in the use of the cemetery, which hardly came true. Around 40 burials are currently taking place each year, the majority of which come from the Ahrensfeld population.

Monument area

Geographic scope

“The Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde is located in the northeast of Berlin, outside the city limits, in the municipality of Ahrensfelde. The cemetery area, which tapers to the south, is bounded by the buildings at the main entrance. To the west, loose buildings border the fenced area, while in the east the railway line to Wriezen forms the boundary line. To the north is the forest-like area, which was originally also developed for burial sites.
The listed parts of the churchyard complex extend on the parcels 311, 313 and 314 of the Ahrensfelde district, corridor 2. An out of scale sketch of the protected area is attached to the expert opinion as an annex.
Excluded from the protected status is separately in the map marked, used for forestry sub-area within the fenced cemetery grounds. "
(Excerpt from the monument grounds of the decision on registration of a memorial of 13 September 2001, Monument Protection Authority of the district Barnim, file number: 04927-00- 90)

List of burial grounds

Some of the parishes mentioned here have now merged with neighboring parishes, sometimes under different names.

See also

literature

  • Jan Feustel: A cemetery with almost no graves / The Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde and the Prussian railway. In: Verkehrsgeschichtliche Blätter , 35th volume, issue 6 (November / December 2008), pp. 149–154.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde under monument protection , article in the magazine " Friedhofskultur ", January 2002 edition
  2. ↑ Die Krumme Linie: Cemetery aesthetics from the early 19th century to the Wilhelmine era, page 100  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 309 kB)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.sub.uni-hamburg.de  
  3. ↑ Purchase price of the site: Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde under monument protection , article in the magazine "Friedhofskultur", January 2002 edition
  4. ↑ Size of the area: Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt, March 4, 1908
  5. ^ Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt March 21, 1906
  6. ^ Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt May 6, 1906
  7. ^ Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt, August 11, 1907
  8. ^ Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt, October 25, 1907
  9. ^ Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt, December 20, 1907
  10. ^ Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt, March 15, 1908
  11. ^ Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt, March 4, 1908
  12. ^ Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt, June 23, 1908
  13. ↑ a b c Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt, July 3, 1908
  14. ↑ a b c Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt, July 8, 1908
  15. ^ Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt, November 13, 1908
  16. ^ Niederbarnimer Kreisblatt, June 23, 1912
  17. ↑ Notification of the registration of a monument, Lower Monument Protection Authority, District Barnim, September 13, 2001, file number: 04927-00-90, page 4
  18. ↑ 100 years Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde , weekly newspaper "Märkischer Sonntag", July 6, 2008, page 8
  19. ↑ a b c Jan Feustel: A cemetery with almost no graves. The Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde and the Prussian railway . In: Verkehrsgeschichtliche Blätter . Volume 6, 2008, pp. 150-154 .

Web links

Commons : Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 35 ′ 6 ″  N , 13 ° 34 ′ 23 ″  E