From ornamental square to municipal cemetery
The municipality of Friedenau established its cemetery in 1881 on the former Hamburger Platz. Part of Johann Anton Wilhelm von Carstenn’s urban plan, the space had been intended as an ornamental square. Cemetery use was initially considered provisional, but the promised conversion to a green square never took place.
As Friedenau expanded, the grounds grew in 1894, during 1904–1910 and again in 1912. A rendered wall enclosed the site. The tall three-part gate on Stubenrauchstraße was added around 1912 and still terminates the central east–west axis.
Chapel and garden structure
W. Spieß built the chapel in 1888/89 at the western end of the main axis. The three-bay brick building uses Gothic forms, with a projecting pointed arch and terracotta decoration at the entrance. Repairs and alterations followed between 1913 and 1917.
Rows of lime trees, mature beeches and oaks and clipped hedges define the burial plots. Several later closure and redesign plans were never carried out, leaving the sequence from the founding period to around 1920 particularly easy to read.
The exceptional columbarium
The urn hall was built in 1914–1916. The monument record names Hans Altmann as designer, while its architectural account also notes an attribution to M. Scherler under Altmann’s influence. That tension in the record is part of the building’s history and should not be reduced to a single unqualified name.
A two-storey rotunda under a cupola links asymmetrical wings and open arcades. Eight niche chambers occupy each of the lower and ground levels; the round hall itself was used for assembly. A phoenix above flames and an “Eye of God” mark the entrance. The building is an unusual work of Berlin funerary architecture.
War memory and grave art
North of the chapel, the First World War memorial centres on an octagonal shell-limestone column bearing a dying soldier. Near the main entrance, Second World War burial grounds use lawn, birch trees and flat terracotta markers.
Major monuments include Ferruccio Busoni’s grave crowned by Georg Kolbe’s bronze Genius, the Art Nouveau Hirt grave with a Carrara-marble angel and the Prowe monument with a sculpture by Valentino Casal. The oldest surviving grave is associated with the Roenneberg family and dated 1888.
The nearby Wilmersdorf artists’ colony helped give the site its reputation as an artists’ cemetery. The cemetery tour links the principal buildings and memorials, while notable graves maps eight people precisely.