The Invalids' Cemetery (german: Invalidenfriedhof) is one of the oldest

cemeteries A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

in Berlin. It was the traditional resting place of the

Prussian Army The Royal Prussian Army (1701–1919, german: Königlich Preußische Armee) served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power. The Prussian Army had its roots in the co ...

, and is regarded as particularly important as a memorial to the German Wars of Liberation of 1813–15.

History

The cemetery was established in 1748 to provide burial grounds for those veterans wounded in the War of the Austrian Succession, who inhabited a nearby hostel (''Invalidenhaus'') built on the orders of King Frederick the Great. A royal decree of 1824 declared that the ''Invalidenfriedhof'' should become the burial ground for all distinguished Prussian military personnel, including Bogislav Count Tauentzien von Wittenberg. 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. By 1872, approximately 18,000 funerals had taken place in the cemetery. Numerous commanders and officers who fought in World War I, such as Max Hoffmann, Helmuth von Moltke, Ludwig von Falkenhausen and Karl von Bülow, 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 Seeckt 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 Invalid's Cemetery, including former Army Supreme Commander Werner von Fritsch, fighter ace Werner Mölders, Luftwaffe commander

Ernst Udet Ernst Udet (26 April 1896 – 17 November 1941) was a German pilot during World War I and a ''Luftwaffe'' Colonel-General (''Generaloberst'') during World War II. Udet joined the Imperial German Air Service at the age of 19, and eventually ...

, Munitions Minister Fritz Todt, ''Reichsprotector'' of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich, Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau, Colonel General Curt Haase and General Rudolf Schmundt, who was an adjutant to Adolf Hitler killed in the

20 July plot On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. The ...

by the bomb intended for Hitler. After World War II, the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

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

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

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. Since it lay close to the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...

, in the 1960s over a third of the cemetery was destroyed to make way for watch towers, troop barracks, roads and parking lots. Some of the graves were damaged by gunfire from soldiers guarding the wall. 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. Invalidenfriedhof (3)

After

German reunification German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

in 1990 the cemetery came 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 an unmarked mass grave of Berliners killed in allied Air Raids. In December 2019 the unmarked grave of Reinhard Heydrich in the cemetery was opened, with police launching an investigation after a cemetery employee made the discovery. Stating that no remains had been removed, the police believe that whoever violated Heydrich's grave is thought to have had inside knowledge of its location.

Notable individuals

In chronological order (a fuller alpha-list is at :Burials at the Invalids' Cemetery): * 1757 -

Hans Karl von Winterfeldt Hans Karl von Winterfeldt (4 April 1707 – 8 September 1757), a Prussian general, served in the War of the Polish Succession, the War of Austrian Succession, Frederick the Great's Silesian wars and the Seven Years' War. One of Frederick's ...

* 1813 - Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst * 1824 - Bogislav Friedrich Emanuel Graf Tauentzien von Wittenberg * 1837 - Job von Witzleben *1841 - Gustav von Rauch * 1843 (d.1814) - Karl Friedrich Friesen * 1848 -

Karl Friedrich von dem Knesebeck Karl Friedrich von dem Knesebeck (5 May 1768– 12 January 1848) was a Prussian field marshal and military adviser in the Napoleonic Wars, best known for designing the campaign plan of the Battle of the Nations and the subsequent invasion of Fran ...

* 1848 - Hermann von Boyen *1850 - Friedrich Wilhelm von Rauch * 1856 - August Hiller von Gaertringen * 1878 - Therese Elssler (later Therese von Barnim) * 1881 - Karl Julius von Groß (later von Groß von Schwarzhoff) *1892 - Fedor von Rauch *1899 - Friedrich Wilhelm von Rauch *1890 -

Gustav Waldemar von Rauch Gustav Waldemar von Rauch (30 January 1819 in Berlin - 7 May 1890 in Berlin) was a general of the cavalry in the Prussian Army. He was born and died in Berlin. He was the son of Gustav von Rauch. External links

1819 births 1890 deaths ...

*1900 - Alfred Bonaventura von Rauch *1901 -

Albert von Rauch Born into an aristocratic Prussian family, Albert Gustav Guido von Rauch (21 August 1829 – 28 January 1901) was a general of the infantry in the Prussian Army who fought in the Austro-Prussian War and Franco-Prussian War. Life He was born ...

* 1909 -

Friedrich von Holstein Friedrich August Karl Ferdinand Julius von Holstein (24 April 1837 – 8 May 1909) Brockhaus Geschichte Second Edition was a civil servant of the German Empire and served as the head of the political department of the German Foreign Office for more ...

* 1910 - Julius von Verdy du Vernois * 1913 - Alfred von Schlieffen * 1914 - Karl von Schönberg * 1916 - Helmuth Johannes Ludwig von Moltke * 1917 - Moritz von Bissing * 1917 - Maximilian von Prittwitz und Gaffron * 1918 -

Hans-Joachim Buddecke Hans-Joachim Buddecke (22 August 1890 – 10 March 1918) was a German flying ace in World War I, credited with thirteen victories. He was the third ace, after Max Immelmann and Oswald Boelcke, to earn the Blue Max (Pour le Mérite). He saw ...

* 1918 -

Hermann von Eichhorn (13 February 1848 – 30 July 1918) was a Prussian officer, later during World War I. He was a recipient of with Oak Leaves, one of the highest orders of merit in the Kingdom of Prussia and, subsequently, Imperial Germany. Biography was born ...

* 1918 - Olivier Freiherr von Beaulieu-Marconnay * 1919 - Robert von Klüber * 1920 - Rudolf Berthold * 1921 - Hans Hartwig von Beseler * 1921 - Karl von Bülow * 1923 - Ernst Troeltsch * 1925-1975 (d.1918) -

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (; 2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918), known in English as Baron von Richthofen or the Red Baron, was a fighter pilot with the German Air Force during World War I. He is considered the ace-of-aces of t ...

* 1926 - Wolf Wilhelm Friedrich von Baudissin * 1926 - Josias von Heeringen * 1927 - Max Hoffmann * 1928 - Ulrich Neckel * 1933 - Hans Maikowski * 1933 - Werner von Frankenberg und Proschlitz * 1933 - Ludwig von Schröder *1935 - Friedrich von Rauch * 1936 - Ludwig von Falkenhausen * 1936 - Hans von Seeckt * 1937 - Adolf Karl von Oven * 1938 - Rochus Schmidt * 1939 - Oskar von Watter * 1939 - Werner von Fritsch * 1940 -

Wolff von Stutterheim Wolff von Stutterheim (17 February 1893 – 3 December 1940) was a German people, German ''Generalmajor''. Stutterheim was born in Königsberg, Germany. He came from an old military family which produced several generals and seven knights of the o ...

* 1941 -

Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière ''Vizeadmiral'' Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière (; March 18, 1886 – February 24, 1941), born in Posen, Prussia, and of French-German descent, was a German U-boat commander during World War I. With 194 ships and sunk, he is the most successfu ...

* 1941 -

Friedrich-Carl Cranz __NOTOC__ Friedrich-Carl Cranz (14 November 1886 – 24 March 1941) was a German general during World War II who commanded 18th Infantry Division. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Cranz was killed 24 March 1941 in a tr ...

* 1941 -

* 1941 - Werner Mölders * 1942 - Walter von Reichenau * 1942 - Herbert Geitner * 1942 - Fritz Todt * 1942 - Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen * 1942 - Reinhard Heydrich * 1942 - Carl August von Gablenz * 1943 - Curt Haase * 1944 - Hans-Valentin Hube * 1944 - Rudolf Schmundt * 1945 - Walter Marienfeld

External links

3d art project "Ghost - Memory Deconstructed" on the Invalid's Cemetery in Berlin

References

* Thoms, Robert, ''Invalidenfriedhof Berlin'' Hamburg, 1999 * Laurenz Demps, C. Scheer, H.-J. Mende, ''Invalidenfriedhof. Ein Friedhofsführer''. Simon, Berlin 2007, . {{Authority control Cemeteries in Berlin Prussian Army