| The Kommunalfriedhof is the biggest cemetery in Salzburg. It is situated in the district of Gneis and comes with some 20,000 graves in which more than 160,000 people have been buried since its opening in 1879. Currently, there are about 1,300 funerals that take place at the Kommunalfriedhof, of which a third are urns from crematorium funerals.
The Kommunalfriedhof is 25 hectares big and has some architectural or cultural gems to offer; such as an urn section for anonymous graves, several interesting graves from the Imperial period, a section for Dutch soldiers, a Muslim section and an area with tombs of honour. The Kommunalfriedhof is owned and managed by the city of Salzburg.
By the late 19th century, the central cemeteries of Salzburg could not cope with the increasing population numbers. A new cemetery was needed, and so the city purchased a property, a farm called Sandbichlgut. Opposite the area of today′s Kommunalfriedhof, there had been a cemetery between 1599 and 1810 - specifically for delinquents who were executed here since Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau had banned the gallows from outside the Linzergasse.
The Kommunalfriedhof was modelled after the Ohlsdorfer Waldfriedhof in Hamburg from 1877. The cemetery was opened in 1879 and from the beginning, it was meant to be also a recreational area. Thus the park-like trees (more than 200 of them) and greens. In 1914, the chapel was completed; in 1931, a crematory was built (until then, cremations had to take place in Linz or Steyr).
Note the main gate, made of iron by the locksmith Karl Fiedler according to designs by Josef Salb. It was made in 1885; the gate is a typical example of 19th century historicist architecture. In 2003, a fountain was made by Christoph Obermair. |