Vienna Central Cemetery – Beautiful Leich Already during his lifetime

Vienna – With the BIM, as the tram is popularly called, it goes to the southeast of the city to the end station: gate 2 of the central cemetery. In front of the main entrance it smells of hearty specialties at the sausage stand. The cemetery café offers Strudel with whipped cream. Fiaker are ready for one last round through the second largest cemetery in Europe.

A city of the dead and the living – 2.5 square kilometers tall, 330,000 graves distributed over a labyrinth -like park area. Jogger pull their rounds, students attend memorials, some just come to pause. The central cemetery is a local recreation area and a place of remembrance at the same time.

Urban Gardening in the cemetery

Julia Stering from Friedhöfe Wien GmbH leads over the site. The employee shows an area with beds behind grave rows on which salad, marigolds and carrots sprout: »There is here Urban Gardening. Those who maintain a grave anyway were able to choose and plant a bed. “

Without any pesticides, because organic quality is mandatory on the 40 plots. The project brings people together – when gardening, talking, pausing, Stering says. “We have set ourselves the task of bringing people to the cemetery during his lifetime,” she explains.

In fact, the relationship between Viennese and Viennese is deeply rooted in urban culture. The “beautiful body”, the magnificent funeral with a six -congestion carriage, professional grabred and body feast, the traditional meal after the funeral, is legendary.

But time does not stop in the cemetery – this is evident in the growing interest in alternative forms of burial. “The Viennese natural grave is an example of this,” explains Stering. A fire burial was a prerequisite by 2022, now “a completely degradable coffin without metal and synthetic additives is sufficient”. This initially caused a lot of turmoil, but now the demand is great.

The desire for individuality in death is also evident in the growing interest in other forms of natural grave: the urns of the cremes are buried at the foot of selected trees or at the roots of plant perennials. The names of the deceased can be engraved at a common memorial – this eliminates the costs for grave design and care.

The cemetery has become a place of possibilities, says Stering: »He is a mirror of society. For many centuries he shows what people want. Everyone can be buried with us – regardless of religion or denomination, «emphasizes Stering. In the central cemetery, 13 to 15 funerals take place a day, especially many on Fridays and Saturdays.

On our walk we meet Stefan Riedl. With the historian it goes one of the most prominent parts of the area: over 1000 graves of honor. Sizes like Ludwig van BeethovenFranz Schubert, Johannes Brahms and Johann Strauss. But not everyone was buried here during his lifetime. Many celebrities, explains Riedl, had been exhumed by other cemeteries and embedded to the central cemetery-a posthumous VIP transfer, so to speak.

Riedl knows them all – including the scary anecdotes. Beethoven is actually located in the central cemetery, but probably with the strange skull, which was found and packed in the Honorary grave in 1888 in the rescue grave. In comparison, Johann Strauss’ son, whom the Danube Walzer made immortal, was still lucky: a grave robber is said to have only stolen the bit.

A pilgrimage is the tombstone of Udo Jürgens: The singer and entertainer, who died in 2014, is below a six -ton marble piano – designed as a death towel. The three -part tomb of Hans Hölzl alias Falco is also sparkling and extraordinary: an approximately three meter high red obelisk as a symbol of fame, a plexiglass pane in the form of a CD with its albums – and a broken stele for transience. “One of the most visited graves at the Vienna Central Cemetery,” says Riedl.

Rescue alarm clock against the app

“Vienna first have to die before they let you live up. But then lives for a long time. ”Helmut Qualtinger knew from his own experience how true this was his own bon mot. During his lifetime, Vienna’s great satirist and actor was admired and hostile, especially because of his critical, often bitter-satirical texts that the Austrian post-war society, its opportunism, its displacement of the Nazi past and its petty bourgeoisie.

Qualtinger did not want an honorary grave, but is exactly in one. Stefan Riedl is unable to decide whether because of his texts or membership in the Association for End of Endsetting – an initiative that propagated space -saving, vertical burials.

This bizarre idea for saving space could not prevail as well as the Josephine Sparsarg. Emperor Joseph II in 1784 prescribed the reusable coffin with a base flap on the underside through which the dead could be transported to the grave – and which should be used several times. But as brilliant as the invention was, the Viennese and Viennese strictly rejected them, made their indignation in protest marches and forced the emperor to take back his regulation.

Another curiosity: the so -called rescue alarm clock from the 19th century. To recognize, the deceased 48 hours were laid out. The dead were connected to a cord that led to an alarm clock – mostly in the apartment of the death graves – in order to make a return to life in the unlikely case. “But there is no evidence that someone has ever been saved,” says Riedl. “But it calmed down the rest of the soul.”

The central cemetery is estimated as a cultural heritage in Vienna not only because of the rescue artery-even if both are not yet on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Very special tombs are those of the mostly Christian Orthodox Roma community. Many of these graves are planned and designed during his lifetime.

Riedl remembers a tour: »In front of one of these graves there was a table full of dishes. Family and friends celebrated with the deceased, symbolically put a plate on the grave. Anyone who comes by was invited. ”That is a very own, very lively culture of mourning. “It is almost rude if you say no.”

“We have set ourselves the task of bringing people to the cemetery during their lifetime.”

Julia SteringFriedhöfe Wien GmbH

Nowadays, the central cemetery is one of the most famous places in Vienna, a tourist hotspot-and at the same time a memorial and memorial for Nazi victims, concentration camp prisoners, resistance fighters and the murdered children from the mirror base. “It was a so -called medical institution of the National Socialists.” There were sick, disabled and so -called non -educational children. Inhuman medical experiments were carried out on them. “Many of the murdered victims were younger than three years.”

Black humor to say goodbye

In the meantime, the tombstones throw long shadows in front of the setting sun – on this late afternoon. Stefan Riedl recommends a last detour to the cemetery shop to meet Sensenmann with a smile.

There are devotional items with black humor: an ice scraper with the inscription “You can get better with us”, on a T-shirt “cemeteries Vienna-you are right with us!”. Originally, sweets and ballpoint pens were distributed by the burial in Vienna as an advertising gift- preferably to old people’s and nursing homes. The demand was soon so great that they went over to professional merchandising.

The Vienna Central Cemetery is more than a place of recent peace. He is a mirror of society, a place of history, farewell, the encounter – and a place where death loses its horror. With a smile, with tears, with a poem – or a garden spade. Very Viennese – and sometimes with style.