An ''Ehrengrab'' ( English: 'grave of honor') is a distinction granted by certain German, Swiss and Austrian cities to some of their citizens for extraordinary services or achievements in their lifetimes. If there are no descendants or institutions to care for the gravesites, the communities or cities will take responsibility for the graves and for financing their care. Many ''Ehrengräber'' (honor graves) also serve to document cultural history; for example, when a cemetery containing artistically notable graves is closed and the graves are moved at public expense. The basic details of the awarding, financing and care of honorary graves are similarly handled in all German-speaking countries. Berlin and Vienna maintain the largest number of such sites.

Cities

Berlin

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

about 200 cemeteries contain approximately 740 tombs of honor with about 800 ''Ehrengräber'' (some tombs honor several members of the same family). Berlin public memorial graves are under the legislation of the Berlin Senate dating to 1952, labeled as "General Instructions for the recognition, transfer and maintenance ..." regarding tombs subject to benefits. The current basis is §12, Paragraph 6 of the "Law on the state-owned and non-state-owned cemeteries in Berlin" (Cemeteries Act) of 1 November 1995. As such, Berlin provides at public expense honorary graves, available to: # the dead, for whom the federal government or the government of a country has given a state funeral; # the deceased, where the honorary title of ''Stadtältester'' has been granted to honorees and their spouses; and # the deceased who were recipients of honorary pensions or awarded by Berlin for a particular service or have achieved excellence and whose memory lives on in public, as well as their spouses.Edition Luisenstadt honorary graves in Berlin
Among those who have such tombs of honor in Berlin are

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer (; 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti- Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world h ...

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a ...

, Aleksander Brückner, Wilhelm Busch,

Theodor Fontane Theodor Fontane (; 30 December 1819 – 20 September 1898) was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language realist author. He published the first of his novels, for which he is best known tod ...

, Valeska Gert, the brothers Grimm, Georg Ludwig Hartig, Heinrich von Kleist, Hildegard Knef,

Otto Lilienthal Karl Wilhelm Otto Lilienthal (23 May 1848 – 10 August 1896) was a German pioneer of aviation who became known as the "flying man". He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful flights with gliders, therefore making ...

Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse (; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German-American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt Universi ...

, Felix Mendelssohn,

Marg Moll Marg Moll (born Margarethe Haeffner; 2 August 1884 – 15 March 1977) was a German sculptor, painter and author. Moll was strongly influenced by Henri Matisse as a young artist and spent her life contributing to his form of art, although at time ...

, Helmut Newton, Ernst Reuter, Joachim Ringelnatz, Heinrich Zille, and Arnold Zweig. The Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery contains a socialist monument with graves of honor, among them are the socialists Karl Liebknecht, and

Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg (; ; pl, Róża Luksemburg or ; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialism, revolutionary socialist, Marxism, Marxist philosopher and anti-war movement, anti-war activist. Succ ...

Vienna

Graves of honor are called ''Gewidmete Gräber der Stadt Wien'' (Dedicated tombs of the City of Vienna). The name ''Ehrengräber'' is reserved for tombs in the Central Cemetery of Vienna. To make the cemetery more attractive, famous citizens such as

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

and

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

were exhumed and transferred to the cemetery. Funerary monuments were built for others, such as

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

. Hundreds of graves of honor are found in cemeteries in Vienna.

Zurich

The city of Zurich maintains an anonymous tomb of honor near the . It is a common tomb for people who have donated their bodies to the Anatomical Institute of the

University of Zurich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 ...

for the needs of science and wished that their urn would be stored there. Some graves originate from the medical faculties of universities in other cities of Switzerland, Germany and Austria, and the maintenance costs for the graves are generally borne by the responsible institutions.

References

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