Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde

The Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery (German: Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde) is a cemetery in the borough of Lichtenberg in Berlin. It was the cemetery used for many of Berlin's Socialists, Communists, and anti-fascist fighters.^[1]

Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde (Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery)

1881

Lichtenberg, Berlin, Germany

78.25 acres

Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde

History[edit]

When the cemetery was founded in 1881 it was called the Friedrichsfelde Municipal Cemetery Berlin (German: Berliner Gemeindefriedhof Friedrichsfelde). The cemetery was modelled on Hamburg's Ohlsdorf Cemetery.^[2] In 1900, with the burial of Wilhelm Liebknecht, founder of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the cemetery became the resting place for many of the leaders and activists of Germany's social democratic, socialist and communist movements.^[1] In 1919, the coffins of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, co-founders of the Communist Party of Germany were buried in a mass grave in a remote section of the cemetery. A 2009 Charité autopsy report however cast doubt on whether Rosa Luxemberg's remains were ever buried there.^[3]

The division of Berlin following the Second World War caused the cemetery to be within the borders of East Berlin, where it was used to bury East German (GDR) leaders, such as Walter Ulbricht and Wilhelm Pieck, the first President of the GDR.

In 2006 a monument to the victims of Stalinism was erected.^[4]

(1901–1964)

Willi Bredel

(1874–1944) (cenotaph, body buried in the Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery)

Rudolf Breitscheid

(1926–1973)

Georg Ewald

(1894–1964)

Otto Grotewohl

(1863–1919)

Hugo Haase

(1900–1985)

Katharina Kern

(1888–1942) (cenotaph, body buried in Friedhof Baumschulenweg)

Franz Künstler (politician)

(1861–1920)

Carl Legien

(1867–1947)

Theodor Leipart

(1826–1900)

Wilhelm Liebknecht

(1871–1919) (cenotaph, body buried in different part of the cemetery)

Karl Liebknecht

(1871–1919) (cenotaph, body not identified)

Rosa Luxemburg

(1846–1919)

Franz Mehring

(1899–1961)

Heinrich Rau

(1896–1934)

John Schehr

(1904–1934)

Rudolf Schwarz

(1844–1911)

Paul Singer

(1886–1944) (cenotaph, body cremated at KZ Buchenwald)

Ernst Thälmann

(1893–1973)

Walter Ulbricht

(1890–1953)

Erich Weinert

(1888–1953)

Friedrich Wolf

Élise Julien, Elsa Vonau: "The Friedrichsfelde Cemetery: the Construction of a Socialist Space (from the 1880s to the 1970s)", in Le Mouvement Social Volume 237, Issue 4, 2011 ()

Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde