Ohlsdorf Cemetery opened on 1 July 1877. Wilhelm Cordes initially shaped a romantic park cemetery inspired by English landscape gardens. Paths, water and planting combined burial grounds with public green space.
From landscape garden to cemetery reform
In 1900 the cemetery received a Grand Prix at the Paris World Exhibition. Otto Linne succeeded Cordes in 1919. His more geometric burial quarters, hedges and tree rows reflect the cemetery-reform movement of the early twentieth century.
A place of twentieth-century remembrance
The cemetery contains memorial grounds for victims of war and Nazi persecution, including the graves of bombing victims, the memorial for victims of Nazi persecution and international war cemeteries.
New forms of remembrance
The Cemetery Museum opened in 1996. Forum Ohlsdorf was presented in 2011 with the restored historic Schumacher building, new ceremony rooms, crematorium, columbarium and urn crypt. The Ohlsdorf 2050 programme is adapting the 389-hectare cemetery to changing burial culture.
Two landscape languages therefore remain visible today: Cordes’ picturesque park and Linne’s clearly structured reform areas.