Südfriedhof (german: South Cemetery) is, with an area of 82 hectares, the largest cemetery in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

. It is located in the south of Leipzig in the immediate vicinity of the

Völkerschlachtdenkmal The Monument to the Battle of the Nations (german: Völkerschlachtdenkmal, sometimes shortened to ''Völki'' or ''Schlachti'') is a monument in Leipzig, Germany, to the 1813 Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations. Paid for mo ...

. The Südfriedhof is, along with the

Ohlsdorf Cemetery Ohlsdorf Cemetery (german: Ohlsdorfer Friedhof or (former) ) in the 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 cemete ...

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

and the Südwestkirchfriedhof Stahnsdorf in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, the largest park-like cemetery in Germany.

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 (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

as a

Gesamtkunstwerk A ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' (, literally 'total artwork', translated as '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 al ...

. 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. On 1 June 1886 the Südfriedhof was opened by Mayor Otto Robert Georgi after the Nordfriedhof (North Cemetery) was opened in 1881. Shortly after, the first burial was made and 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

notice at first the chapel with its 60 meter high bell tower, which was opened in 1910. The

Neo-Romanesque Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

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 Maria Laach Abbey (in German: ''Abtei Maria Laach'', in Latin: ''Abbatia Maria Lacensis'' or ''Abbatia Maria ad Lacum'') is a Benedictine abbey situated on the southwestern shore of the Laacher See (Lake Laach), near Andernach, in the Eifel re ...

in the

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

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

crematorium A crematorium or crematory is a venue for the cremation of the 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 crematorium can also be ...

and

columbarium A columbarium (; pl. columbaria) is a structure for the reverential and usually public storage of funerary urns, holding cremated remains of the deceased. The term can also mean the nesting boxes of pigeons. The term comes from the Latin "'' colu ...

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 printmak ...

Fritz Behn Fritz originated as a German nickname for Friedrich, or Frederick (''Der Alte Fritz'', and ''Stary Fryc'' were common nicknames for King Frederick II of Prussia and Frederick III, German Emperor) as well as for similar names including Fridoli ...

, Max Lange or

Carl Seffner Carl Ludwig Seffner (19 June 1861 – 2 October 1932) was a German sculptor. He is best remembered for his statue of Johann Sebastian Bach at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig. Early life and work Born in 1861, Seffner studied at the Hochschule für Gra ...

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 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 a variety of medical ...

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, his ...

for the victims of

Fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...

, 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, or American storax, is the only genus in the flowering plant family Altingiaceae and has 15 species. They were formerly often treated in Hamamelidaceae ...

, ''

Mahonia ''Mahonia'' is a genus of approximately 70 species of evergreen shrubs and, rarely, small trees in the family Berberidaceae, native to eastern Asia, the Himalaya, North and Central America. They are closely related to the genus ''Berberis'' and ...

'', ''

Metasequoia ''Metasequoia'', or dawn redwoods, is a genus of fast-growing deciduous trees, one of three species of pinophyta, conifers known as redwoods. The living species ''Metasequoia glyptostroboides'' is native to Lichuan, Hubei, Lichuan county in Hube ...

'',

Kentucky coffeetree The Kentucky coffeetree (''Gymnocladus dioicus''), also known as American coffee berry, Kentucky mahogany, nicker tree, and stump tree, is a tree in the subfamily Caesalpinioideae of the legume family Fabaceae, native to the Midwest, Upper South, ...

ginkgo ''Ginkgo'' is a genus of non-flowering seed plants. The scientific name is also used as the English name. The order to which it belongs, Ginkgoales, first appeared in the Permian, 270 million years ago, and is now the only living genus within ...

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 Britain a ...

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

Rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; from Ancient Greek ''rhódon'' "rose" and ''déndron'' "tree") is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are nati ...

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'') is a species of tree squirrel in the genus ''Sciurus'' common throughout Europe and Asia. The red squirrel is an arboreal, primarily herbivorous rodent. In Great Britain, Ireland, and in Italy numbers ...

and in the quiet morning and evening hours

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

s or

fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

es can be seen.

Notable Persons

* Albrecht Alt, theologian * Fritz Baedeker, publisher *

Julius Blüthner Julius Ferdinand Blüthner (11 March 1824 - 13 April 1910) was a German piano maker and founder of the Blüthner piano factory. Biography Blüthner was born in Falkenhain (now Meuselwitz), Thuringia. In 1853 he founded a piano-manufacturing ...

, 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 ...

, theologian and Hebraist *

Fred Delmare Werner Vorndran (24 April 1922 – 1 May 2009), known professionally as Fred Delmare, was a German actor. Life and work Werner Vorndran was the son of a carpenter and a seamstress and grew up in Hüttensteinach at Sonneberg in Thuringia, wh ...

, actor *

Paul Flechsig Paul Emil Flechsig (29 June 1847, Zwickau, Kingdom of Saxony – 22 July 1929, Leipzig) was a German neuroanatomist, psychiatrist and neuropathologist. He is mainly remembered today for his research of myelinogenesis. Biography Born in Zwickau, h ...

, neuroanatomist, psychiatrist and neuropathologist *

Christian Fürchtegott Gellert Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (4 July 171513 December 1769) was a German poet, one of the forerunners of the golden age of German literature that was ushered in by Lessing. Biography Gellert was born at Hainichen in Saxony, at the foot of the ...

, poet * Samuel Heinicke, originator in Germany of systematic education for the deaf *

Johannes Hertel Johannes Hertel (13 March 1872, Zwickau – 27 October 1955, Leipzig) was a German Indologist. Hertel wrote numerous essays and books on Indological topics. His research focus was Indian narrative literature and the Vedas. Above all, he is kno ...

, Indologist * Arthur Hoffmann, politician and resistance fighter *

Sigfrid Karg-Elert Sigfrid Karg-Elert (November 21, 1877April 9, 1933) was a German composer in the early twentieth century, best known for his compositions for pipe organ and reed organ. Biography Karg-Elert was born Siegfried Theodor Karg in Oberndorf am Neckar, ...

, composer * Alfred Kästner, politician and resistance fighter *

Oskar Kellner Oskar (Oscar) Johann Kellner (13 May 1851 - 12 September 1911) was a German agricultural scientist (''Agrikulturchemiker, Tierphysiologe''). Biography Kellner was invited to teach in Japan as a foreign advisor by the Meiji government of the Emp ...

, agricultural scientist, chemist, animal psychologist *

Rudolf Kittel Rudolf Kittel (28 March 1853, in Eningen, Württemberg – 20 October 1929, in Leipzig) was a German Old Testament scholar. Kittel studied at University of Tübingen (1871–76). He was a professor of Old Testament studies at the universities of ...

, theologist and editor of the Biblia Hebraica *

Hugo Licht Hugo Georg Licht (21 February 1841 in Nieder-Zedlitz (today Siedlnica, Poland) – 28 February 1923 in Leipzig, Germany) was a German architect. Life Licht was the son of the landholder Georg Hugo Licht. In the years 1862 and 1863 he was mason ...

, architect of numerous buildings in

* Julius Lips, ethnologist *

Kurt Masur Kurt Masur (18 July 1927 – 19 December 2015) was a German conductor. Called "one of the last old-style maestros", he directed many of the principal orchestras of his era. He had a long career as the Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Or ...

, conductor * Hans Meyer, geographer and first man on

Mount Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro () is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It has three volcanic cones: Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world: above sea level and ab ...

Herrmann Julius Meyer Herrmann Julius Meyer (April 4, 1826 – March 12, 1909) was a German publisher born in Gotha. He was the son of publisher Joseph Meyer (1796-1856). After his father's death in 1856, Herrmann Meyer took charge of ''Bibliographisches Institut'', a ...

, publisher *

Arthur von Oettingen Arthur Joachim von Oettingen ( – 5 September 1920) was a Baltic German physicist and music theorist. He was the brother of theologian Alexander von Oettingen (1827–1905) and ophthalmologist Georg von Oettingen (1824–1916). Biography ...

, physicist and music theorist * Erwin Payr, surgeon * Max Robitzsch, meteorological scientist and arctic researcher * Renate and Roger Rössing, photographers * Carl Seffner, sculptor, (e.g.

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...

monument in front of

thomaskirche , native_name_lang = , image = Leipzig Thomaskirche.jpg , imagelink = , imagealt = , caption = , pushpin map = , pushpin label position = , pushpin map alt ...

) * 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 a ...

and organist *

Karl Sudhoff Karl Sudhoff (26 November 1853, Frankfurt am Main – 8 October 1938, Salzwedel) was a German historian of medicine, helping establish that field as a legitimate discipline for research and teaching within faculties of medicine. Sudhoff taught f ...

, 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 '' Peasants' War Panorama'' located in Bad Frankenhausen Bad Frankenhausen (officially: Bad Frankenhaus ...

, 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 Nazis for setting fire to the German Reichstag building on 27 February 1933. During his trial, the prosecution a ...

, Dutch council communist accused of, and eventually executed for, setting fire to the German Reichstag building on February 27, 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, known today as one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and ...

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

External links

Website (German)

Map with prominent graves on Südfriedhof (German)

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