Sennefriedhof
The Sennefriedhof is a cemetery in the city of Bielefeld . The facility, located in the Senne district , is one of the largest cemeteries in Germany with almost 100 hectares .
history
Due to the increasing population of the city of Bielefeld, the three previous cemeteries were no longer sufficient in 1900. The then Lord Mayor of the city, Rudolf Stapenhorst, decided, together with city planning officer Friedrich Schulz and horticultural director Paul Meyerkamp, to build a new cemetery at the gates of the city.
From 1902, the city began to buy the land for the planned 61.6 hectare area in the south of the city, about six kilometers from the city center.
Decisive for the location were the scenic location in the Teutoburg Forest and the very cheap land prices in the sandy and less fertile Senne . The possibility of continuing the tram line to Brackwede and the cemetery , which opened in 1908 , was also taken into account. From 1910 on, the first 32 hectare part of the cemetery was built and finally opened on August 15, 1912. The extended tram line was opened a short time later.
In the course of the First World War , an 8,000 m² war cemetery was laid out; the first expansion of the facility took place in the 1920s. The administration building at the main entrance was opened in 1936. In 1940 another war cemetery was laid, this time for the fallen soldiers of World War II . Immediately after the end of the war, the reminder and honorary system was opened for the victims of the Nazi tyranny , reminding of 15 resistance fighters from Bielefeld.
A further expansion of the cemetery area took place as part of the reconstruction; the cemetery was given its current size of 98 hectares in 1955. The New Chapel in the southwest was completed in 1960, the Old Chapel was extensively renovated from 1969 onwards.
The cemetery received numerous new paths and gates at the beginning of the 1980s after the renovation of Brackweder Strasse, the then B 68 . The Sennefriedhof has been the leading cemetery for the city of Bielefeld since 1986. The establishment of Islamic grave fields took place in 1995, and in 1998 the new crematorium was built .
The cemetery today
The Sennefriedhof is now open to citizens outside Bielefeld upon request. There are special grave fields for Muslim , Yezidi and Orthodox religious communities, and there is a field for littered ash. Elective and row graves are offered for burial and urn burials, and parts of the cemetery are set aside for anonymous burials and deceased children.
System architecture
The complex, which extends over 2,000 meters from north to south, was laid out as a forest cemetery within the heathland of the Senne . The multi-layered and special planting - about 20% of the 98 moss species are on the red list of endangered mosses - represents the cemetery as a biotope of urban ecology . In the south of the complex there is a dune populated with vegetation typical of sandy areas, one for the sandy one and not very fertile Senne typical heathland .
After the Munich forest cemetery, the cemetery became the second facility in Germany, which followed the reform efforts towards a new cemetery culture after 1900 and aimed for the focus on closeness to nature and at the same time simplicity in the design of the tombs, but with high artistic and formal demands. The architect Emil Högg commented on the result of the previous competition of the city of Bielefeld: “ In this way, our cemetery trade will gradually get solid artistic ground under its feet and free itself from the overwhelming preponderance of stereotyped mass industry driven out by trade. "
The reform style, 24 meter high cemetery chapel was opened on June 17, 1913 in the northern part of the complex. The gable field designed by Hans Perathoner shows, among other things, a naked male body, which caused a sensation, especially in earlier years. The dome includes a frieze of 16 glass windows by the Bielefeld glass painter Karl Muggly with depictions of the four evangelists and floating angels. The two entrance buildings at the Brackweder Straße entrance form an architectural ensemble and are also under monument protection.
In the Sennefriedhof there are numerous tombs designed by well-known artists such as Käthe Kollwitz , Georg Kolbe and Peter August Böckstiegel . The professional assessment of the gravestones was guaranteed by the professor of the Bielefeld School of Applied Arts, Arnold Rickert . Even after Rickert's death in 1974, this unique attempt to keep the grave design at a high level was continued.
Graves of famous people
- Werner Bock (1898–1964), union chairman (GTB)
- Gustav Engel (1893–1989), historian
- Carl Severing (1875–1952), social democratic politician
Others
- The Sennefriedhof received the Bestattungen.de award in 2015 as the most beautiful cemetery in Germany.
See also
Web links
References
- ^ Gerhard Richter: 75 years Sennefriedhof City of Bielefeld ; "The Garden Department", July 1987
- ↑ bielefeld.de Sennefriedhof , accessed on May 3, 2007 ( Memento of the original from May 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Helmut Schönfeld: Reform graves of the early 20th century. In: Grave Culture in Germany. Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-496-02824-6 , p. 164.
- ^ Emil Högg: In: Friedhofskunst with regard to the design of Bielefeld cemeteries. City of Bielefeld Magistrate (Ed.), 1912, p. 8
- ↑ Sennefriedhof in Bielefeld is the most beautiful German cemetery. WDR, archived from the original on December 8, 2015 ; accessed on October 21, 2015 .
- ↑ The Bestattungen.de Award 2015 - The ten most beautiful cemeteries. Retrieved October 21, 2015 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 58 ′ 31 ″ N , 8 ° 31 ′ 39 ″ E