Südfriedhof () is, with an area of 82 hectares, the largest cemetery in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

. It is located in the south of Leipzig in the immediate vicinity of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal. The Südfriedhof is one of the largest

rural cemeteries A rural cemetery or garden cemetery is a style of cemetery that became popular in the United States and Europe in the mid-19th century due to the overcrowding and health concerns of urban cemeteries, which tended to be churchyards. Rural cemeter ...

in Germany, along with the

Ohlsdorf Cemetery Ohlsdorf Cemetery ( or (former) ) in the Ohlsdorf, Hamburg, Ohlsdorf quarter of the city of Hamburg, Germany, is the biggest rural cemetery in the world and the fourth-largest cemetery in the world. Most of the people buried at the cemetery are c ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

and the Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

History

The plans for the cemetery began in 1879. Initially it was created on an area of 54 hectares under the direction of horticultural director of Leipzig, Otto Wittenberg and the architect Hugh Licht. The conduct of ways is in form of a linden leaf, which reflects the Slavic name of

"The Town of the Linden", and fulfil the aims of

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

as a

Gesamtkunstwerk A ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' (, 'total work of art', 'ideal work of art', 'universal artwork', 'synthesis of the arts', 'comprehensive artwork', or 'all-embracing art form') is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so. ...

. With the rapid development of the city during its industrialisation, incorporation of nearby settlements and the consequent steady population growth, a new cemetery was needed. After the opening of Nordfriedhof (North Cemetery) firstly in 1881, the Southern-Cemetery was inaugurated on 1 June 1886 by the mayor of Leipzig, Dr. Otto Georgi and the governor Dr. H. A. Platzmann, and later the burial ground was consecrated by the Lutheran provost Superintendent Wilhelm Hölscher. Shortly after, the first burial was made, the grave is still preserved in the I. Division. However, this burial ground was very unpopular at first. Many citizens of Leipzig chose to be buried at the Neuer Johannisfriedhof (New St. John's Cemetery) but this changed when it began to fill up and the trees on the Südfriedhof became greater and the proposed park character was recognisable. Visitors to the nearby Völkerschlachtdenkmal notice at first the chapel with its 60 meter high bell tower, which was opened in 1910. The Neo-Romanesque building ensemble, was built on a filled-up plateau and under the direction of Leipzig's building director Otto Wilhelm Scharenberg. It had the Romanesque Maria Laach Abbey in the

Eifel The Eifel (; , ) is a low mountain range in western Germany, eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Com ...

region as a model and is the largest cemetery monument in Germany. The symmetrical complex of chapel facilities,

crematorium A crematorium, crematory or cremation center is a venue for the cremation of the Death, dead. Modern crematoria contain at least one cremator (also known as a crematory, retort or cremation chamber), a purpose-built furnace. In some countries a ...

and

columbarium A columbarium (; pl. columbaria), also called a cinerarium, is a structure for the reverential and usually public storage of funerary urns holding cremated remains of the dead. The term comes from the Latin ''columba'' (dove) and originally solel ...

blends inconspicuously into the overall picture and is justified to the main north–south axis of the cemetery. Until 1924 the cemetery was enlarged to 63 hectares. During World War II the most recent cemetery extension was made to the present area of 82 hectares. They buried the 3474 victims of the World War II bombing of Leipzig in today's XXVIII. Division. Particularly noteworthy are the historical monuments, some of which were by artists such as

Max Klinger Max Klinger (18 February 1857 – 5 July 1920) was a German artist who produced significant work in painting, sculpture, prints and graphics, as well as writing a treatise articulating his ideas on art and the role of graphic arts and printmakin ...

, Fritz Behn, Max Lange or Carl Seffner created in various styles. File:Christian Behrens - Relief von dem Erbbegräbnis Najork-Leipzig (1).jpg, Detail on a grave, Südfriedhof, Leipzig File:GrabstätteGeorgThieme.JPG, Grave of the founder of

Thieme Medical Publishers Thieme Medical Publishers is a German academic publishing, medical and science publisher in the Thieme Publishing Group. It produces professional journals, textbooks, atlases, monographs and reference books in both German and English covering ...

File:L-SüdfriedhofWi3.JPG, Chapel at the Südfriedhof File:Leipzig Südfriedhof.jpg, Leipzig Südfriedhof File:Grab Oelssner.jpg, Grave of the Oelssner family with statue File:Leipzig (6099877973).jpg,

Monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical ...

for the victims of

Fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

, Südfriedhof, Leipzig File:WernerSteinGrabmalWilhelmAdamSchmidt.JPG, Statue on the grave of Werner Stein

Flora and fauna

Due to the park-like character of the cemetery you find several kinds of trees, such as

sweetgum ''Liquidambar'', commonly called sweetgum (star gum in the UK), gum, redgum, satin-walnut, styrax or American storax, is the only genus in the flowering plant family Altingiaceae and has 15 species. They were formerly often treated as a part of ...

, '' Mahonia'', '' Metasequoia'', Kentucky coffeetree,

ginkgo ''Ginkgo'' is a genus of non-flowering seed plants, assigned to the gymnosperms. The scientific name is also used as the English common name. The order to which the genus belongs, Ginkgoales, first appeared in the Permian, , and ''Ginkgo'' is n ...

and several kinds of ''

Tilia ''Tilia'' is a genus of about 30 species of trees or bushes, native throughout most of the temperateness, temperate Northern Hemisphere. The tree is known as linden for the European species, and basswood for North American species. In Great Bri ...

''. Furthermore, you can find about 9,000 ''

Rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; : ''rhododendra'') is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the Ericaceae, heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are native to eastern Asia and the Himalayan ...

s'', which are up to four meters high. At the cemetery 60 nesting bird species are listed. There are numerous

red squirrel The red squirrel (''Sciurus vulgaris''), also called Eurasian red squirrel, is a species of tree squirrel in the genus ''Sciurus''. It is an arboreal and primarily herbivorous rodent and common throughout Eurasia. Taxonomy There have been ...

and in the quiet morning and evening hours

rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

s or foxes can be seen.

Notable persons

* Albrecht Alt, theologian * Fritz Baedeker, publisher * Julius Blüthner, piano maker, entrepreneur * Max Bürger, medical doctor *

Franz Delitzsch Franz Delitzsch (23 February 1813, in Leipzig – 4 March 1890, in Leipzig) was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist. Delitzsch wrote many commentaries on books of the Bible, Jewish antiquities, Biblical psychology, as well as a history of J ...

, theologian and Hebraist * Fred Delmare, actor * Paul Flechsig, neuroanatomist, psychiatrist and neuropathologist * Christian Fürchtegott Gellert, poet * Samuel Heinicke, originator in Germany of systematic education for the deaf * Johannes Hertel, Indologist * Arthur Hoffmann, politician and resistance fighter * Sigfrid Karg-Elert, composer * Alfred Kästner, politician and resistance fighter * Oskar Kellner, agricultural scientist, chemist, animal psychologist * Rudolf Kittel, theologist and editor of the Biblia Hebraica * Hugo Licht, architect of numerous buildings in

* Julius Lips, ethnologist * Kurt Masur, conductor * Hans Meyer, geographer and first man on

Mount Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro () is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world, at above sea level and above its plateau base. It is also the highest volcano i ...

* Herrmann Julius Meyer, publisher * Arthur von Oettingen, physicist and music theorist * Erwin Payr, surgeon * Carl Reinecke, composer, conductor, pianist, and composition professor * Max Robitzsch, meteorological scientist and arctic researcher * Renate and Roger Rössing, photographers * Carl Seffner, sculptor, (e.g. statue of J. S. Bach in front of

thomaskirche The St. Thomas Church () is a Lutheran church in Leipzig, Germany, located at the western part of the inner city ring road in Leipzig's central district. Martin Luther preached in the church in 1539. It is associated with several well-known ...

) * Georg Schumann, politician and resistance fighter *

Karl Straube Montgomery Rufus Karl Siegfried Straube (6 January 1873 – 27 April 1950) was a German church musician, organist, and choral conductor, famous above all for championing the abundant organ music of Max Reger. Career Born in Berlin, Straube stu ...

Thomaskantor (Cantor at St. Thomas) is the common name for the musical director of the , now an internationally known boys' choir founded in Leipzig in 1212. The official historic title of the Thomaskantor in Latin, ', describes the two functions of Cantor ( ...

and organist * Karl Sudhoff, historian on medicine * Georg Thieme, publisher and founder of

* Stanislaw Trabalski, politician *

Werner Tübke Werner Tübke (30 July 1929 in Schönebeck, Germany – 27 May 2004 in Leipzig, Germany) was a German painter, best known for his monumental Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany, Peasants' War Panorama located in Bad Frankenhausen. Associated wi ...

, painter *

Marinus van der Lubbe Marinus van der Lubbe (; 13 January 1909 – 10 January 1934) was a Dutch communist who was tried, convicted, and executed by the government of Nazi Germany for setting fire to the Reichstag building—the national parliament of Germany—on ...

, Dutch council communist accused of, and eventually executed for, setting fire to the German Reichstag building on 27 February 1933, an event known as the Reichstag fire. *

Wilhelm Wundt Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (; ; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was t ...

, medical doctor, psychologist, physiologist, philosopher, known today as one of the founding figures of modern psychology * Erich Zeigner, politician

References

External links

Website (German)

Map with prominent graves on Südfriedhof (German)

(German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Sudfriedhof (Leipzig) Cemeteries in Leipzig Tourist attractions in Leipzig Protected areas of Saxony Art Nouveau architecture in Germany Rural cemeteries Art Nouveau cemeteries Lutheran cemeteries in Germany

History

Flora and fauna

See also

Notable persons

References

External links