Munich Waldfriedhof

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Munich Waldfriedhof is a cemetery in Munich, planned by the architect Hans Grässel and opened in 1907. The cemetery is one of a large series of cemeteries planned by Grässel at about the same timepoint.

The Waldfriedhof is widely considered the first woodland cemetery, created at a time when most cemeteries were designed as beautiful city parks or recreational parks; typical themes of such cemeteries were "the City of the Dead" or "the Paradise Garden". As the new cemeteries were mostly placed in the outskirts of the cities rather than as churchyards, and due to the diminishing importance of the church, the new cemeteries were comparably profane in character. To regain some symbolic strength, Grässel used influences from early Christian and Byzantine architecture in his funeral chapels and other buildings on the cemetery. He also put the burial chapel in the forest, rather than displaying it at the side of the avenue. Grässel kept the trees growing in the area, letting the woods cover most of the tombs and created a feeling of connection between nature and death rather than letting the individual monuments be the main feature of the cemetery.

The themes and ideas from the Munich Waldfriedhof became popular in Germany in the upcoming decades and were used in several similar Waldfriedhof, woodland cemeteries. The Munich Waldfriedhof was also a very important predecessor of Skogskyrkogården, the UNESCO world heritage site outside Stockholm.

Notable World War II burials include:^[1]