Turkish cemetery Berlin

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Entrance to the Turkish cemetery

The Turkish Cemetery in Berlin is the oldest Islamic burial place in Germany. It was built in 1866 and borders the area of ​​the New Garrison Cemetery on Columbiadamm in the Berlin district of Neukölln .

Burial place on the Tempelhofer Feldmark 1798–1866

Berlin memorial plaque on Urbanstrasse 15 in Berlin-Kreuzberg

In 1798, the permanent Ottoman envoy to the Berlin court, Ali Aziz Efendi, died in the Ephraim Palais in Berlin . Thereupon King Friedrich Wilhelm III. an area in the Tempelhofer Feldmark is available for an Islamic burial. Friedrich Wilhelm III. arranged a burial according to Islamic rite, the funeral ceremony and convoy with an unusual exoticism attracted a crowd that lined the roadsides. In 1804 Mehmet Esad Efendi , another envoy of the Ottoman Empire , was buried here according to the customs of the Islamic faith. During the French period from 1806 to 1812, however, the burial place at Schlächtergraben was forgotten and was no longer marked in the city map from 1834. In 1836 the graves were found by a local farmer and then restored.

The Tempelhofer Feld was regularly the scene of military maneuvers and visits by the Prussian Guard Corps , during which commanders often had the course of combat exercises carefully rehearsed beforehand in order to deceive about the actual level of training of their soldiers. The Turkish tombs thus possibly gave the name of the term “ Turks ” in the sense of “ fooling someone during visits”, which later generalized to “fooling someone”.

Islamic cemetery next to the garrison cemetery from 1866

The old burial place had to give way to the construction of a barracks for the Kaiser Franz-Garde-Grenadier-Regiment No. 2 on Blücherstraße as a result of Roon's army reform and the accompanying enlargement of the army in 1854 . For the relocation of the grave sites, King Wilhelm I gave the Ottoman Empire the area on the later Columbiadamm, which is now used as a cemetery. On December 19, 1866, after a religious ceremony, the remains of the deceased were buried in what is now the cemetery. In 1867, Wilhelm I, together with the Turkish Sultan Abdülaziz , had the builder Gustav Voigtel erect an obelisk , on the top of which a golden crescent moon was attached and whose sides are adorned with tombstones inscribed in Arabic.

Şehitlik Friedhof - Turkish war cemetery in Berlin

Islamic gravestones in the garrison cemetery in the snow

With the end of the Ottoman Empire, the cemetery was transferred to the Turkish Embassy in Berlin and has been the property of the Turkish Ministry of Defense ever since. The name Şehitlik Friedhof or Turkish War Cemetery in Berlin is based on the fact that Turkish soldiers who fought alongside the so-called Central Powers (Germany, Austria) during the First World War were buried here ( şehit is Turkish for ' martyrs ').

In 1921 a 700 m² property was bought and the cemetery was enlarged. In 1921/1922 the architect Eisfelder built a building in the oriental style on behalf of the Turkish embassy, ​​which was to serve as a guard and living quarters for the embassy simam and cemetery keeper Hafız Şükrü Bey, who died in 1924 and is also buried here. It was a relatively simple plastered building with turquoise walls and curved window sections on a floor area of ​​10.58 m × 9.35 m. When the expansion of Tempelhof Airport began in 1938, this led to the removal of the Moorish-style entrance gate to the cemetery.

After the Second World War or towards the end of the 1960s, the house in the cemetery was occasionally used as a prayer room, according to contemporary witnesses, and in 1984/85 the architect Deniz Baykal converted it into a small mosque with an attached dome.

Turkish cemetery and Şehitlik mosque

In the post-war period , the space in the cemetery was largely exhausted with around 220 graves, of which only around 150 have survived. In 1963 the city of Berlin made an Islamic burial ground about 2000 m² in size available in the neighboring garrison cemetery, which has been used since then. In the Turkish cemetery itself, there has been a ban on burial since the 1980s due to the lack of space. Another Islamic burial ground has existed in Berlin since 1988 on the rear part of the Gatow landscape cemetery , but this is far from the districts in which most of Berlin's Muslims live and is difficult to reach. Although the Turkish cemetery is closed for burials, burial ceremonies, ritual ablutions, prayers and memorial services for burials in Berlin or transfers to Turkey still take place here.

Between 1999 and 2004 the Şehitlik Mosque , one of the largest mosques in Berlin , was built on the site . It was built according to plans by the architect Hilmi Şenalp in the classic Ottoman style by the client, the Turkish-Islamic Union of the Institute for Religion (DITIB).

With reference to an independent development concept, the DITIB has submitted an application for a cemetery expansion at the adjacent former Tempelhof Airport .

Honorary graves for those responsible for the Armenian genocide

Honorary graves for those responsible for the Armenian genocide, Cemal Azmi and Bahaeddin Şakir , at the Turkish Cemetery in Berlin

In the Turkish cemetery of the Şehitlik Mosque, there are marble graves of honor for two people responsible for the Armenian genocide . Cemal Azmi , known as "The Butcher of Trabzon", was responsible for the Armenian genocide in the province of Trebizond and is buried in one of the graves of honor. The other grave of honor belongs to Bahaettin Şakir , founding member of the Young Turkish government of the Ottoman Empire, the Committee for Unity and Progress , which organized the genocide of the Armenians.

Talaat Pasha, one of the main people responsible for the genocide, was also buried in the Turkish cemetery. In 1943, however, his body was transferred to Istanbul by the Nazi regime in a pompous state act. Cemal Azmi, Bahaettin Şakir and Talaat Pascha were sentenced to death for their crimes against the Armenians, but fled to Germany, where Talaat Pascha in 1921 and Azmi and Şakir in 1922 as part of the secret operation Nemesis in Berlin.

Personalities

Graves in the Turkish cemetery

The Islamic cemetery in Neukölln has many other graves as well as the graves of some well-known personalities. Particularly noteworthy are:

  • Giritli Ali Aziz Efendi (1798, Ottoman ambassador)
  • Mehmet Esad Efendi (1804, Ottoman ambassador)
  • Hafız Şükrü Bey (1924, Imam of the Turkish Embassy in Berlin)
  • Talaat Pasha (1921, Turkish Grand Vizier; transferred to Istanbul in 1943 and reburied)
  • Ziya Hilmi Bey (1929, physicist)
  • Mehmed Bey (1870-1912, medic)
  • Izzet Bey (professor)
  • Mohammed Bach Hamba (1920, Tunisian freedom fighter and national hero)
  • Yunus Abd al-Wahhab (1922, member of the Bukhara trade delegation )
  • 'Azzam Shah Muhammad Shah (1922, member of the Bukhara Trade Delegation )
  • Cemal Azmi (1922, Turkish politician)
  • Bahaettin Şakir (1922, Turkish politician)

See also

literature

  • Leonie Glabau, Nicola Vösgen, Jörg Kuhn: Ruhuna Fatiha - your soul is a Fatiha. The Turkish cemetery on Columbiadamm in Berlin-Neuköln (with many color pictures). In: Susanne Kähler , Wolfgang Krogel (Ed.): The Bear of Berlin. Yearbook of the Association for the History of Berlin . 65th year, Berlin 2016, pp. 41–68.
  • Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin tombs. Haude & Spenersche Verlagbuchhandlung, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-7759-0476-X .
  • Klaus Hammer: Historic cemeteries & tombs in Berlin. Stattbuch Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-922778-32-1 .
  • Senate Department for Urban Development and Environmental Protection Berlin (Hrsg.): Friedhöfe in Berlin with consideration of the garden monument maintenance. Garden monument maintenance booklet 7, Berlin 1992.
  • Klaus Konrad Weber, Peter Güttler, Ditta Ahmadi (eds.): Berlin and its buildings. Part X Volume A: Facilities and structures for supply (3) Funeral services. Verlag von Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-433-00890-6 .
  • Karl-Robert Schütze: From the Wars of Liberation to the End of the Wehrmacht - The History of the Garrison Cemetery on the edge of the Hasenheide in Berlin-Neukölln , Berlin 1986.

Web links

Commons : Islamischer Friedhof am Columbiadamm (Berlin)  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c H. Achmed Schmiede : 190 years ago ... death of the Turkish ambassador Ali Aziz Efendi. In: Communications from the Association for the History of Berlin. Issue 4, October 1988, p. 101 ( zlb.de PDF ).
  2. ^ A b Ingeborg Böer, Ruth Haerkötter, Petra Kappert (eds.): Turks in Berlin 1871–1945. A metropolis in the memories of Ottoman and Turkish contemporary witnesses. Walter de Gruyter, 2002, ISBN 3-11-017465-0 , p. 3.
  3. ↑ a b c d The story of the cemetery. ( Memento of the original from July 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sehitlik-camii.de 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. Homepage of the Şehitlik Mosque
  4. ↑ Christoph Gutknecht: From stairs joke to pickled cucumber time. 1st ed., Beck, 2008, ISBN 3-406-56833-5 , pp. 45-46.
  5. ↑ History of Muslims in Germany  ( 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. German Islam Conference Editor, December 8, 2008.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.deutsche-islam-konferenz.de  
  6. ↑ a b c Neukölln Garden Culture Path. ( PDF )
  7. ^ A b Jürgen Schulz: The Islamic cemetery in Berlin. A piece of Turkey on the Spree. In: Die Zeit No. 2, January 2, 1987.
  8. ↑ Islamic Cemetery on Columbiadamm, Turkish War Cemetery in Berlin ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the city of Berlin @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.berlin.de
  9. ↑ Islam in Germany - New Beginnings for Muslim Community Life in Berlin after the War A lecture by Mohammad Aman Hobohm from the lecture series of the Islamic University Association at the University of Cologne in the winter semester 99/00
  10. ↑ Bärbel Beinhauer-Koehler, Claus Leggewie, Alen Jasarevic CH Beck: Mosques in Germany. Religious home and social challenge. Beck Juristischer Verlag, 2009, ISBN 3-406-58423-3 , p. 13.
  11. ↑ a b Martin Greve, Kalbiye Nur Orhan; The Commissioner of the Senate of Berlin for Integration and Migration (Ed.): Berlin German-Turkish. Insights into the new diversity. May 2008, ISBN 978-3-938352-26-7 , berlin.de ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2011 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. (PDF). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.berlin.de
  12. ^ A b Andreas Morgenroth: Islamic cemetery for Berlin.
  13. ↑ Brigitte Schulz: In foreign earth - intercultural burials in Germany. In: Radio broadcast God and the world. rbb , November 21, 2010 ( PDF )
  14. ↑ a b Eva Dorothée Schmid: A grave for eternity . In: Berliner Zeitung , February 18, 2010.
  15. ↑ Mechthild Küpper: Coffin compulsion. Where the ancestors are buried. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 6, 2010.
  16. ↑ Julius Stucke: The dead of Berlin. Funeral and farewell in a multicultural city. In: Deutschlandradio Kultur , November 25, 2009.
  17. ^ A b Graves of honor for genocide in Berlin mosque . In: Die Welt , April 20, 2015; accessed on May 10, 2016.
  18. ↑ We call it genocide . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 20, 2015; accessed on May 10, 2016.
  19. ↑ Eric Friedler: Aghet - A genocide . NDR documentation, 2010.
  20. ↑ Gravestones of contention. In: Die Tageszeitung , April 24, 2012; accessed on May 10, 2016.
  21. ↑ Dear the perpetrators, honored. In: Die Tageszeitung , April 23, 2005; accessed on May 10, 2016.

Coordinates: 52 ° 28 ′ 53 ″  N , 13 ° 24 ′ 34 ″  E