City cemetery St. Maximi (Merseburg)

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Cemetery chapel

The St. Maximi city cemetery is the oldest preserved cemetery in the city of Merseburg . It is listed as a monument with registration number 094 20225 in the monument register.

Location and history

The burial place between Naumburger Strasse, Leunaer Strasse, Freiligrathstrasse, Abbestrasse and Weißenfelser Strasse was laid out in 1581 as a plague cemetery in front of what was then Sixtitor and later enlarged several times. It was named after the main church of the city, which seems unusual because the church of St. Sixti is right next to the cemetery. But this expresses its function as a city cemetery. In addition, shortly before the Thirty Years War , the cemetery was given its own cemetery chapel.

The cemetery was enlarged at least three times, namely in 1726, 1838 and 1908. After the First World War , a memorial was created for the dead in the POW camp, mainly English, French and Russian, and then one for those killed in the March fighting (1921). After the Second World War , a memorial complex for the war and bomb victims was added, which was expanded to include a memorial stone in 1994.

In 1971 the cemetery was closed by the city administration and taken back into use two years after the fall of the Wall in 1991. The older parts are under monument protection . Despite the partial clearing, numerous historical grave monuments from the Baroque period, among others by the Merseburg sculptors Hoppenhaupt, Trothe and Agner, have been preserved. The best known are the sculptures Death and Gravedigger , which Christian Trothe created in 1727, which are located on the gate next to the cemetery chapel. Nearby there is also the Entombment of Christ by Georg Busch, which was created in 1913. Since the cemetery fell victim to a major raid in 2012 and to protect the sculptures from the weather, the most valuable tombs and sculptures can only be found here as copies.

Cemetery chapel

In the northern part of the cemetery grounds feature the built 1613-1614 cemetery chapel . An altar from the Church of St. Sixti was later housed in it. It is also known as the Gottesackerkirche.

Monuments

Commemorative stele of the POW camp First World War

Entombment of Christ

The monument Entombment is a plastic made of bronze , which shows a group of people on a journey on foot. The group of people are the disciples who carry Jesus to the grave. The memorial shows the pain over the loss of Jesus. The base bears an inscription on three sides that can hardly be recognized. It is a biblical quote and reads Nobody has greater love than that, That he gives his life for his friends Joh.XV XIII . The memorial was created in 1913 by the sculptor Georg Busch and is located on the north side of the cemetery chapel.

Prisoner of War Memorial

In addition to other memorials for various wars, there is also a memorial for soldiers who died in captivity . It is located in the south-eastern part, near the eastern cemetery wall of the cemetery complex. According to the information board at the north entrance, the memorial was inaugurated in 1919 for the English, French and Russian prisoners who died in the Merseburg POW camp during the First World War . An inscription in Russian is indistinctly visible in the lower area on the left and in English on the right. The English inscription is damaged. Translated, the inscriptions read Our comrades who died in captivity . It is believed that there was also an inscription in French on the obverse.

Victims of war and tyranny

In the southwest of the cemetery there is a memorial for the victims of war and tyranny, originally a memorial for war and bomb victims. The memorial complex consists of a depression in the ground, in the slopes of which 7 memorial plaques with the names of the dead were placed. The plaque includes a total of 400 deaths known by name and 29 unknown victims from the 23 bombings of the Merseburg / Leuna region during the Second World War . In 1994 another memorial stone with the inscription THE VICTIMS OF WAR AND VIOLENCE was erected in the middle of the memorial complex and the memorial complex was renamed.

Gravesites

Gallery

  • Crucifixion relief at the north gate

  • Tomb of the Weber family of merchants and traders (around 1730)

  • Entombment of Christ (Georg Busch, 1913)

  • Gravedigger (Christian Trothe, 1727)

  • Death (Christian Trothe, 1727)

  • Grave stele Carl von Basedow (around 1905, memorial tomb with re-use of a classical column)

  • Pest nun (around 1585, tomb Magdalena Tamendorf)

  • Renaissance portal cemetery church (1613)

  • Tomb

  • Tomb of General de Broglie-Revel

  • Gravestone Margarete Bothe

  • Memorial stone for 8 killed in the civil war March 1920 (Kapp-Putsch)

  • World War II memorial stone

  • Memorial stone for the victims of war and tyranny (1994)

literature

  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Saxony Anhalt II. Administrative districts Dessau and Halle. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-422-03065-4 , pp. 564-566.
  • Peter Ramm: The "Pestnonne" from the Merseburg city cemetery . In: Merseburger Kreiskalender 2013, pp. 48–50.

Web links

Commons : Stadtfriedhof St. Maximi  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of monuments of the state of Saxony-Anhalt (pdf) - answer of the state government to a small question for written answer (the MPs Olaf Meister and Prof. Dr. Claudia Dalbert; Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen) - printed matter 6/3905 from March 19, 2015 (KA 6/8670)
  2. ^ Dirk Skrzypczak: Art theft. Is there a gang behind the robbery? In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung (online edition), May 22, 2012, accessed on November 14, 2018.
  3. ↑ Gottesackerkirche , Merseburg in the picture, accessed on November 16, 2018
  4. ↑ Entombment of Christ , Merseburg im Bild, accessed on November 16, 2018
  5. ^ First World War (prisoners) , Merseburg in the picture, accessed on November 16, 2018
  6. ^ War and bomb victims , Merseburg in the picture, accessed on November 16, 2018

Coordinates: 51 ° 21 ′ 1.4 "  N , 11 ° 59 ′ 48.3"  E