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Invalidenfriedhof (Invalids' Cemetery)

(Germany - Berlin - Berlin)

The Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in Berlin.

During the Nazi regime, a number of important people were buried in the Invalidenfriedhof, including field marshall Walter von Reichenau, former Army commander Werner von Fritsch, air ace Werner Mölders, Luftwaffe commander Ernst Udet, Munitions Minister Fritz Todt, Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich, and General Rudolf Schmundt, who was killed in the July 20, 1944 plot by the bomb intended for Adolf Hitler.

The cemetery also contains a mass grave of inhabitants of Berlin killed in Allied air raids, but this grave is not marked.

After World War II, the Allies ordered that all Nazi monuments (including those in cemeteries) should be removed, and this resulted in the removal of the grave-markers of Heydrich and Todt, although their remains were not disinterred.

Since it lay close to the Berlin Wall, in the 1960s over a third of the cemetery was destroyed to make way for watch towers, troop barracks, roads and parking lots. The degradation of the cemetery continued in the following years.

After German reunification in 1990, the cemetery was placed under the monument protection scheme and restoration work began. There is now a memorial to people who were killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall in the cemetery.

Click for more information on the overview at the bottom of the page.