Nordfriedhof (Munich)

View of the cemetery buildings looking towards the burial ground, 1901 (from G A Horst, *Die neuen Friedhof-Anlagen Münchens*)

The Nordfriedhof ("Northern Cemetery"), with 34,000 burial plots, is one of the largest cemeteries in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is situated in the suburb of Schwabing-Freimann. It was established by the former community of Schwabing in 1884. It is not to be confused with the Alter Nordfriedhof in Munich, which was set up only a short time previously within the then territory of the city of Munich.

A station on the Munich U-Bahn is also called Nordfriedhof after the cemetery, and the surrounding area is also known locally as "Nordfriedhof" from the station.

The imposing cemetery buildings include a chapel, a mortuary and a burial wall, which was designed between 1896 and 1899 by the municipal architect Hans Grässel. In 1962 a columbarium was added to the north by the architect Eugen Jacoby.

The chapel is described, slightly altered, in Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice, when the sight of it precipitates a foreboding of death in the protagonist.

Selected burials[edit]

Peter Paul Althaus, poet of Schwabing
Herb Andress, actor
Annette von Aretin, first female announcer of Bayerischer Rundfunk
August Arnold, film producer and director
Karl Arnold, caricaturist in the journal Simplicissimus
Philip Arp, actor, cabaret performer, author and theatre director
Gert Bastian, brigadier-general, symbolic figure of the peace movement
Fritz Benscher, actor and quiz master
Otto Bezold, politician
Franziska Bilek, caricaturist and artist
Louis Braun, professor and historical painter
Beppo Brem, folk actor
Georg Britting, writer
Christine Buchegger, actress
Franz von Defregger, artist
Hans Dölle, legal academic
Sammy Drechsel, sports reporter and cabaret performer, and his wife Irene Koss, actress and the first television announcer in Germany
Constanze Engelbrecht, actress
Oskar Eversbusch, professor of ophthalmology
Theodore Feucht, painter
Josef Flossmann, sculptor
Leonhard Frank, writer
Hermann Frieb, resistance fighter against the Nazi regime
Marie Amelie von Godin, writer, supporter of women's rights and Albanologist
Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth, lawyer
Klaus Havenstein, cabaret performer and actor
Johannes Heesters, actor and singer
Trude Hesterberg (Schönherr), cabaret performer
Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler's official photographer, with his daughter Henriette von Schirach
Kurt Horwitz, actor, director at the Munich Kammerspiele, director of the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel
Peter Igelhoff, musician, composer of pop music and jazz
Günther Kaufmann, actor
Eduard von Keyserling, writer (grave 25-4-1)
Kathi Kobus, landlady of the Alter Simpl
Wolfgang Koeppen, writer
Oskar Körner, killed during the Munich Putsch, Second Chairman of the NSDAP
Otto Kurth, actor and director
Inge Latz, composer and musical healer
Hermann Lenz, writer
Ernst Mach, physicist and philosopher
Ferdinand Marian, actor (grave now removed)
Georg Marischka, actor and director
Anton Neuhäusler, Bavarian dialect poet
Peter Pasetti, actor
Ludwig Petuel senior and junior, industrialists
Toni Pfülf, SPD politician
Bally Prell, performance artist
Sebastian Osterrieder, sculptor, Krippenwastl
Theodor von der Pfordten, killed during the Munich Putsch (in family grave)
Hans Pössenbacher, actor
Mady Rahl, actress (grave 178-U-66)
Anton Riemerschmid, founder of the first German business school for girls
Barbara Rudnik, actress
Wilhelm von Rümann, sculptor, formerly in the Alten Vereins-Urnenhalle (urn now secured)
Beatrix, Countess of Schönburg-Glauchau, socialite
Arnulf Schröder, actor
Carl-Heinz Schroth, actor
Oswald Spengler, political philosopher
Heinz-Günter Stamm, actor, radio and theatre director
Fedor Stepun, philosopher and sociologist
Karlheinz Summerer, Roman Catholic chaplain for the Munich Olympics, 1972
Siegbert Tarrasch, chess player, theoretician and writer
Paul Troost, architect
Kurt Weinzierl, actor, cabaret performer and director
Frederic Vester, biochemist, environmental expert and writer
Albert Weisgerber, painter
Annemarie Wendl, actress
Otto Wernicke, actor (grave now removed)
Josef Wittmann, church painter
Karoline Wittmann, painter
Paul Wittmann, sculptor
Eduard Zimmermann, journalist and television presenter
Traudl Junge, secretary to Adolf Hitler, 1942-1945
A mass grave for 2,099 victims of aerial bombardment during World War II has been converted to form a "grove of honour for air raid victims" (Ehrenhain für Luftkriegsopfer), with a monument by Hans Wimmer.

Sources[edit]

Gretzschel, M., 1996: Historische Friedhöfe in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Das Reiselexikon. Munich: Callwey ISBN 3-7667-1233-0
Scheibmayr, E., 1985: Letzte Heimat. Persönlichkeiten in Münchner Friedhöfen 1784–1984 (1st edition). Munich: Edition Scheibmayr ^[1]
Continued by:
Wer? Wann? Wo? Persönlichkeiten in Münchner Friedhöfen. (Teil 1/3, Ergänzung zum Grundwerk und Fortschreibung bis 1989). Munich: Edition Scheibmayr 1989 ISBN 3-9802211-1-3
Wer? Wann? Wo? Persönlichkeiten in Münchner Friedhöfen. (Teil 2/3, Ergänzung zum Grundwerk und Fortschreibung bis 1996). Munich: Edition Scheibmayr 1997 ISBN 3-9802211-3-X
Wer? Wann? Wo? Persönlichkeiten in Münchner Friedhöfen. (Teil 3/3, Ergänzung zum Grundwerk und Fortschreibung bis 2002). Munich: Edition Scheibmayr 2002 ISBN 3-9802211-4-8