Munich oldest green area is roughly 450 years old, by now based in the middle of town. It was founded 1563 as cementery for the victims of the plague. In those years the cementery was outside the city, outside the city walls, created by fear and fictions about the plague.
During the Thirty Years War the entire graveyard got leveled as preventative military measure.
1705 during a time of riots, the graveyard once again served as mass grave.
Afterwards it became fashionable to be buried at this particular graveyard. Everyone serving the city of Munich or the King was buried here. Artists and architects, painters and philosophers, doctors and deans, knights and curtisanes to the king.The place got hit badly during WWII and the traces of the machine guns still can be found - on purpose, as eternal reminder of what never should have happenend and that it shall never happen again.
By now one can find the former "High Society" of Munich here, many names are well known throughout the world.Today it is a place under preservation and a nature sanctuary as well, being home to endangered birds and plants. This history is certainly partly the reason why I am drawn to this place ever so often.
But mostly these romantically overgrown tombs and graves, the mausoleums speaking for a great past which draws me there. All the moss, ivy, fern and willows who claim back what belongs to nature. The strong aged roots of trees breaking tombstones, ensuring the downfall of the man made. This longing in the song of the birds, weaving melodies into the fate & fortune of the buried, telling stories of glint and glory, hate and happiness. How about you? Do you like graveyards and the stories they may tell?
2 comments:
I'm not really drawn to graveyards but I love your pictures and the images are beautiful. So many of these photos would look lovely framed.
What an interesting history lesson you have provided here. I can't say that I am drawn to graveyards, as I find too much sadness in their history--thinking about those who loved and lost--but I do think you have captured wonderful photos and images that need to be captured to remember...
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