Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery

The Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery (German: Invalids' Cemetery) is one of the oldest cemeteries in Berlin. The cemetery was the traditional resting place of the Prussian military, and is regarded as particularly important as a memorial to the German Wars of Liberation of 1813-15.

History of the Cemetery

The cemetery was established in 1748 to provide burial grounds for those wounded in the War of the Austrian Succession, who inhabited a nearby hostel built on the orders of Frederick II of Prussia. A royal decree of 1824 declared that the Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery should become the burial grounds for all distinguished Prussian military personnel. One of the most notable tombs from this period is that of Gerhard von Scharnhorst (a hero of the Napoleonic Wars), designed by Schinkel with a sculpture of a slumbering lion cast out of captured cannon by Rauch. The cemetery was also the resting place of the soldiers killed during the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states of 1848. By 1872, approximately 18,000 funerals had taken place in the cemetery.

Numerous commanders and officers who fought in World War I, such as Helmuth von Moltke and Ludwig von Falkenhausen, were buried in the cemetery, along with several high ranking members of the Freikorps. The body of Manfred von Richthofen (the 'Red Baron') was transferred to the cemetery in 1925 from his original grave in France. During the Weimar Republic, high-ranking military personnel such as Hans von Seekt continued to be buried in the cemetery, but approximately half the graves were gardened over in this period.

During the Nazi regime, a number of senior figures were buried in the Invalidenfriedhof, including former Army commander Werner von Fritsch, air ace Werner Mölders, Luftwaffe commander Ernst Udet, Munitions Minister Fritz Todt, Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich and General Rudolf Schmundt, who was killed in the July 20 plot by the bomb intended for Adolf Hitler. After World War II, the Allies ordered that all Nazi monuments (including those in cemeteries) should be removed, and this resulted in the removal of the grave-markers of Heydrich and Todt, although their remains were not disinterred.

In May 1951, the Berlin city council closed the cemetery off to the public so that repairs and restoration could be carried out, and to prevent any further damage of the graves. With the division of Berlin in 1961, the cemetery became part of East Berlin. Since it lay close to the Berlin Wall, in the 1960s over a third of the cemetery was destroyed to make way for watch towers, troop barracks, roads and parking lots. The degradation of the cemetery continued in the 1970s, when soldiers stationed nearby began to use abandoned or damaged gravestones to build shelters in case of bad weather. It was probably only the fact that the cemetery contained the graves of German freedom fighters like Scharnhorst, regarded by the East German National People's Army as its forerunners, that prevented its total destruction.

After German reunification in 1990 the cemetery was placed under the monument protection scheme and restoration work began. There is now a memorial to Berliners killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall in the cemetery. The cemetery also contains a mass grave of Berliners killed in Allied air raids, but this grave is not marked.

Notable Burials

In chronological order:
* Hans Karl von Winterfeldt
* Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst
* Job von Witzleben
* Karl Friedrich Friesen
* Hermann von Boyen
* August Hiller von Gaertringen
* Julius von Groß genannt Schwarzhoff
* Count Alfred von Schlieffen
* Karl von Schönberg
* Helmuth Johannes Ludwig von Moltke
* Moritz von Bissing
* Hans Joachim Buddecke
* Maximilian von Prittwitz
* Hermann von Eichhorn
* Olivier Freiherr von Beaulieu-Marconnay
* Robert von Klüber
* Rudolf Berthold
* Hans Hartwig von Beseler
* Friedrich von Baudissin
* Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen
* Josias von Heeringen
* Ludwig von Schröder
* Werner von Frankenberg zu Proschlitz
* Ludwig von Falkenhausen
* Hans von Seeckt
* Hans Maikowski
* Adolf Karl von Oven
* Rochus Schmidt
* Oskar von Watter
* Werner Freiherr von Fritsch
* Wolff von Stutterheim
* Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière
* Friedrich-Carl Cranz
* Ernst Udet
* Werner Mölders
* Walter von Reichenau
* Herbert Geitner
* Fritz Todt
* Reinhard Heydrich
* Curt Haase
* Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen
* Carl August von Gablenz
* Hans Fuß
* Hans Valentin Hube
* Rudolf Schmundt
* Walter Marienfeld

References

* Thoms, Robert, "Invalidenfriedhof Berlin" Hamburg, 1999 ISBN 3-89811-048-6