With almost 390 hectares, this cemetery is the largest park cemetery in the world. Among the…read morecemeteries known as touristic sights, the Ohlsdorf cemetery does not really play a prominent role. Père Lachaise or the Viennese Central Cemetery are just as important as the Cementerio Cristóbal Colón in Havana. This is a good thing, because in contrast to the mentioned ones, there are rather few tourists. But this does not mean that the cemetery is not of interest. This is on the one hand the architecture, which is reflected in the two important designers, and on the other hand the fact that the cemetery represents Hamburg's cosmopolitan culture and not only crosses the borders of faith, but also offers humans and animals the possibility to find eternal peace together.
Nearly a quarter of a million active gravesites, mausoleums and columbaria are home to the deceased. The drivable road network covers 17 kilometres, the entire road network 80 kilometres. In addition, two bus lines currently serve 22 bus stops.
As already mentioned this cemetery is divided into two main parts. The older one is the part created by Johan Wilhelm Cordes between 1877 and 1917 which is based on English landscape gardens and was awarded the Grand Prix at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900.
The more modern part of the Linne, named after the director of the cemetery, Otto Linne, was created from around 1920 and reflects the greatly changed world view after the First World War. The cemetery reform movement of the time led to a move away from the upper middle-class burial system and attempted to place greater emphasis on the community orientation of society. The modern architectural ideas of the time, such as the Bauhaus, shaped the functional layout of the expanded complex.
Fritz Schuhmacher's New Crematorium, which opened in 1933 and has since been shut down, is probably one of the most influential buildings from this period.
The cemetery has its own museum, interested visitors can book various guided tours, which not only take into account the countless architectural monuments, chapels, fountains, etc. but also include the graves of famous personalities or the animal life in the park (deer, hares, foxes, various bird species, etc.).
