Nordfriedhof (Munich)

The Nordfriedhof ("Northern Cemetery"), with 34,000 burial plots, is one of the largest cemeteries in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is situated in the suburb of Schwabing-Freimann. It was established by the former community of Schwabing in 1884. It is not to be confused with the Alter Nordfriedhof in Munich, which was set up only a short time previously within the then territory of the city of Munich.

Chapel (centre), mortuary (left)

View of the cemetery buildings looking towards the burial ground, 1901 (from G A Horst, Die neuen Friedhof-Anlagen Münchens)

Mourner on the monument of Julius Braeutigam (d. 1905) (electrotype by Fidel Binz, WMF, Geislingen

A station on the Munich U-Bahn is also called Nordfriedhof after the cemetery, and the surrounding area is also known locally as "Nordfriedhof" from the station.

The imposing cemetery buildings include a chapel, a mortuary and a burial wall, which was designed between 1896 and 1899 by the municipal architect Hans Grässel. In 1962 a columbarium was added to the north by the architect Eugen Jacoby.

The chapel is described, slightly altered, in Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice, when the sight of it precipitates a foreboding of death in the protagonist.