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| Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde (Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery) | |
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| Details | |
| Established | 1881 |
| Location | Lichtenberg, Berlin, Germany |
| Size | 78.25 acres |
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]
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]
Unveiled in 1926, the Monument to the Revolution was erected in front of the mass grave where the coffins of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had been interred in 1919. Designed by architect and future Bauhaus director, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, it was a 12 m (39 ft) wide and 6 m (20 ft) high red brick monument which the National Socialists destroyed in January 1935. [5] [6]
The current Memorial to the Socialists (German : Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten) stands close to the cemetery's main gate and was inaugurated by Wilhelm Pieck in 1951. Although constructed at a significant distance from the site once occupied by the 1926 Monument to the Revolution, the 1951 memorial was planned as its "moral successor" and as central memorial site for East Germany's Socialists, Communists and anti-fascist fighters. Until 1989, decisions whether a person should be buried in the Memorial to the Socialists or the adjacent Pergolenweg section of the cemetery rested solely with the Politburo of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, and many honoured this way were also given a state funeral.
The 1951 Memorial to the Socialists consists of a central garden roundel surrounded by a semi-circular brick wall. The central garden roundel is dominated by a porphyry stele or obelisk with the words Die Toten mahnen uns (English: The dead remind us), which is surrounded by 10 graves commemorating foremost socialist leaders, namely: Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Ernst Thälmann, Wilhelm Pieck, Walter Ulbricht, Franz Mehring, John Schehr, Rudolf Breitscheid, Franz Künstler (politician) , and Otto Grotewohl. Into the semi-circular brick wall are set gravestones and niches containing the urns of distinguished Socialists and Communists. Also in the semi-circular brick wall is a large red marble tablet recording the names of 327 men and women who gave their lives in the cause of fighting Fascism between 1933 and 1945. Included in the list are Hans Coppi, Hilde Coppi, Heinrich Koenen, Arvid Harnack, Harro Schulze-Boysen, John Sieg, and Ilse Stöbe.
Immediately behind the semi-circular brick wall of the Memorial to the Socialists lies the Pergolenweg Ehrengrab section of the cemetery. Here are buried the urns of Socialists, Communists and anti-fascist fighters of merit who were considered distinguished enough by the Politburo of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany to rest in the vicinity of the foremost party leaders yet not as eminent as to entitle them to a grave in the Memorial to the Socialists itself. People buried in the Pergolenweg section could also have the urns of up to three family members buried with them.
Rosa Luxemburg was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, orthodox Marxist, and anti-War activist during the First World War. She became a key figure of the revolutionary socialist movements of Poland and Germany during the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly the Spartacist uprising.
The Communist Party of Germany was a major far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West Germany during the postwar period until it was banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956.
Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German communist politician who served as the chairman of the Socialist Unity Party from 1946 to 1950 and as president of the German Democratic Republic from 1949 to 1960.
Otto Emil Franz Grotewohl was a German politician who served as the first prime minister of the German Democratic Republic from its foundation in October 1949 until his death in September 1964.
Leon "Leo" Jogiches, also commonly known by the party name Jan Tyszka, was a Polish Marxist revolutionary and politician, active in Poland, Lithuania, and Germany.
Franz Erdmann Mehring was a German communist historian, literary and art critic, philosopher, and revolutionary socialist politician who was a senior member of the Spartacus League during the German Revolution of 1918–1919.
![<i>Ernst Thälmann</i> (film) 1954 [[East Germany]] film](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Fotothek_df_roe-neg_0006580_014_Bild_Litfa%C3%9Fs%C3%A4ule_mit_Filmplakaten_f%C3%BCr_%22Ernst_Th%C3%A4.jpg/320px-Fotothek_df_roe-neg_0006580_014_Bild_Litfa%C3%9Fs%C3%A4ule_mit_Filmplakaten_f%C3%BCr_%22Ernst_Th%C3%A4.jpg)
Ernst Thälmann is an East German propaganda film in two parts about the life of Ernst Thälmann, leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic, directed by Kurt Maetzig and starring Günther Simon in the title role. The first part, Ernst Thälmann - Sohn seiner Klasse, was released in 1954. It was followed by the 1955 sequel. Ernst Thälmann - Führer seiner Klasse.
Karl Liebknecht is a two-part East German film series directed by Günter Reisch, about the German communist leader Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919), starring Horst Schulze in the part as Liebknecht, and Lyudmila Kasyanova as Sophie Liebknecht.
Die Rote Fahne was a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's Party leader Wilhelm Hasselmann, and which has been since published on and off, at times underground, by German Socialists and Communists. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg famously published it in 1918 as organ of the Spartacus League.
An Ehrengrab 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.
Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht was a German revolutionary socialist and anti-militarist. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) beginning in 1900, he was one of its deputies in the Reichstag from 1912 to 1916, where he represented the left-revolutionary wing of the party. In 1916 he was expelled from the SPD's parliamentary group for his opposition to the Burgfriedenspolitik, the political truce between all parties in the Reichstag while the war lasted. He twice spent time in prison, first for writing an anti-militarism pamphlet in 1907 and then for his role in a 1916 antiwar demonstration. He was released from the second under a general amnesty three weeks before the end of the First World War.
The Spartacist uprising, also known as the January uprising or, more rarely, Bloody Week, was an armed uprising that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the German revolution that broke out just before the end of World War I. The uprising was primarily a power struggle between the supporters of the provisional government led by Friedrich Ebert of the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which favored a social democracy, and those who backed the position of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, which wanted to set up a council republic similar to the one established by the Bolsheviks in Russia. The government's forces were victorious in the fighting.
The Spartacus League was a Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. It was founded in August 1914 as the International Group by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, and other members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who were dissatisfied with the party's official policies in support of the war. In 1916 it renamed itself the Spartacus Group and in 1917 joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which had split off from the SPD as its left wing faction.
Wilhelm Florin was a German Communist Party (KPD) politician and a campaigner in opposition to National Socialism.
Margarete "Grete" Fuchs-Keilson was a German politician and official in the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).
Kurt Vogel was a German officer in World War I and member of the Prussian Army unit Garde-Kavallerie-Schützen-Division. He was involved in the murder of the revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg, although according to the most current research he was not the one who shot her.
Arthur Pieck was a German politician, typesetter and translator. He was a committed political activist who became a stage and movie actor and, later, a Communist party official. He topped off his unusually varied career, between 1955 and 1960, as a senior director - ultimately General Director - of Interflug, the East German national airline. After this he served, between 1960 and 1965, as a junior Transport Minister.
John Schehr was a German political activist who became a Communist Party politician and ultimately, chairman (leader) of the Communist Party of Germany, following the arrest on 3 March 1933 of Ernst Thälmann. By this time the country was very rapidly being transformed into a one-party dictatorship, meaning that the party John Schehr led was outlawed, with those members of the leadership team who had not escaped abroad now living "underground" (unregistered) and in hiding. Schehr was nevertheless arrested on 13 November 1933 and taken to a Berlin concentration camp. He died when he was one of four men shot by Gestapo officials, reportedly "while escaping" during an overnight transport, following arrest.
The November Revolution Monument was a memorial erected in 1926 at the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery in Berlin, in memory of the KPD leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg and of other militants, who were murdered in 1919 and 1920 during the repression of the leftist riots through paramilitary troops loyal to the government. The building was demolished by the Nazis in 1935 to its foundations and was not restored after the end of the Second World War.
Media related to Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde at Wikimedia Commons
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