Vienna in the 19th century was growing rapidly. As the capital of a major empire and in an age of industrialization, increasing numbers of people were coming to the city to live—and to die. And so, like many other 19th-century cities, Vienna decided to create a grand and beautifully landscaped new cemetery outside the city.
As with so many other aspects of life in that era in Vienna, the move was not without controversy. City officials wanted a cemetery that would serve all of Vienna’s communities, a goal that can be seen in the sign below, showing dozens of different ethnic and religious sections. Catholic authorities were unhappy with that, and especially with the inclusion of a Jewish section.
And, as in some other cities such as Paris, it found it needed some good public relations to get people to choose the new necropolis over more traditional local or parish cemeteries. As part of the campaign, cemetery managers created a special grove for famous musicians, almost an orchestra of death. Some of them had been dead for a long time before the cemetery opened in 1874, and one—Mozart—has a monument but no actual grave.
Five musicians highlight the group, along with the elaborate tomb of a railroad magnate
The cemetery is large, second only to Hamburg’s in acreage at 620 acres. When the cemetery was planned, Vienna had just shot past the half-million population mark, and city planners predicted over 4 million by 2000. They were wrong by 2.5 million, but they hadn’t counted on the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Still, a Viennese joke says that the Central Cemetery is “half the size of Zürich, but twice as much fun.”
As it is, it did become the place to be buried, and now has over 3 million burials in 330,000 gravesites, most of which are vaults holding multiple burials. The Gridl family vault below is a larger-than-most example. The handles allow lifting lids for access and new burials.
Walking through the cemetery on a late summer day, I encountered many other strollers and families, some of whom were likely visiting family graves, but the cemetery is also a popular place for walking, and there is even a pair of cafes in the administration buildings at the principal gate.
As uncrowded as the vistas may seem in some view, it’s only a quick turn of the head to see sections that are far more crowded…
The layout of graves and paths is greener and less formal in the outer reaches of the cemetery than at its center, where the formal colonnades and the musician’s grove are to be found. The central point of the cemetery is marked by a magnificent Art Nouveau church, whose dome can be seen from quite a distance. The church will be the subject of a later article.
The circle in front of the church is the setting of a vault set aside for burial of Austrian presidents—a sort of democratic equivalent of the Imperial Crypt in the city center. Four presidents are buried there so far. The Art Nouveau lantern stands near the church.
The church is at the top of a formal avenue that begins at the cemetery’s main entrance which, for reasons known, if at all, to very few is labeled Gate #2. At the gate are the cemetery’s modern administration buildings, which are also home to the Funeral Museum, and to the impressive original entrance obelisks, which bear only the inscription that they were erected during the reign of Franz Josef I.
Just outside the gate is a stop for the #71 tram, which has followed a route from the city center to the cemetery for nearly a hundred years; during the world wars, when fuel was scarce, a hearse car was attached to the tram to bring burials to the cemetery. If you hear a Viennese say of someone that “he has taken the 71,” he may be saying that the person has died.
Among other things to be seen among the 19th century graves are indications of how society was changing; status no longer depended entirely on noble titles and feudal holdings; it was now possible for status to come with new wealth, although occasionally with a new title as well. The Weisenfeld family, above, acquired a ‘von Weisach,’ as their fortunes grew. The family of Anton Mauss dressed their tomb with a prominent ordained relative, and Karl Schlierka, a butcher and meat trader by vocation, emphasizes on his tomb that he had become a Royal and Imperial Court Councilor in Vienna.
One of the more unusual examples is Ignaz, Freiherr von Kolisch. The combination of a Hebrew inscription with the title Freiherr, or Baron caught my eye. Born without a ‘von’ to a Jewish family in Bratislava, he moved to Vienna in his teens and became known as a chess prodigy, a career that took him to sojourns in London, Paris and St Petersburg. But while he was known as a brilliant player and writer about chess, he was also building a fortune as a commission merchant and then banker. In 1881, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen made him a baron.
Those are relatively small family plots; there are larger to be found, especially near the central axis of the cemetery. If the name Thonet rings a bell, you may be sitting in a bentwood rocking chair. Yes, that’s the Thonet who invented the method for bending wood into amazing curves.
Of course, while the cemetery began in the 19th century, it continues as Vienna’s main burial site today, with an average of 25 funerals a day. Some of the most recent ones show the influence of new technology in monument-making and new tastes in this permanent form of social media.
And in the end… isn’t that a good bit of what cemeteries have always been? Social media posts sent by the survivors to the community at large—just a bit less ephemeral than Facebook.
Excellent article and photos. The sculptures are beautiful.