The Sudfriedhof

 Last week, I ended up at an odd Wiesbaden site....the south graveyard of the city.  It's called the Sudfriedhof.

It's a historical site to some degree.

Gravestones tend to go from the simple to the absolute extreme.

This one to the right?  Almost six foot tall and steel lettering.  Probably into thirty-thousand range.  It's a family plot that covers three or four generations in the Wiesbaden area.

 The gravestone for Leopold Exner?  He was a junior officer in the German military for WW I....dying in mid-November of 1917.  The stone was used for his mother and father who later passed.  It's in a place of prominence and one has to imagine that the family held a significant business or professional standing in the community.

There's a lot of military folks buried around the cemetary....from both wars.

This other stone to the right is of Josef Huber....a WW I participant.  I stood there looking at a long row of these Wiesbaden residents who passed on in the war.

If you look at the date.....he dies on Christmas day of 1916.....probably in some hospital from wounds suffered in the war.

There's a couple hundred of these stones from WW I in a very prominent part of the Sudfriedhof.

Access to the cemetery?  You can get over there by bus, or just park along the main street out front.

I'd take a guess that you'd really need four hours to see the area and have an appreciation of the history told.

The gravestones go from one extreme to another.  Some would have required a stonemason to spend not just weeks, but probably months working on one particular stone.  A significant amount of capital was put into the work done.

It is a curious thing....no grave spot is permanently guaranteed.  You go in...put your money down, and get a thirty-year lease on the spot.  At the end of thirty years...you either pay again (or your relatives pay), or you lose your spot.  This tends to mean that the stone is removed, the wood coffin is removed and burned in a dignified fashion (so I am told).

I came to note a number of stones red-tagged.....meaning their thirty years has come up.  It may be that relatives have passed on, and no one wants to continue paying on a spot thats been there since the 1960s.

The last picture?  This is the entry to the graveyard.  You'd almost think it was a train station or such.  Huge brick and concrete building....very dignified.  

An odd spot to recommend to an American living in Wiesbaden.  But I'd say that it tells a historical piece about the local society and culture.  Somewhere.....hidden amongst all the stones.....was a Jewish family....father, mother and daughter.  The daughter died in the 1920s, and the parents passed on in the 1950s and 1960s.  They'd probably had left Germany, and ended up returning after the war.  You'd like to hear the entire story.....but the stone is the only thing there....to tell of anything.