The cemetery of the March Fallen was a special place for Käthe Kollwitz. Her father and grandfather had taken part in the March Revolution in 1848/49, and Kollwitz probably visited the cemetery during her first year of study in 1886/87.
In her diary she recorded:
“I visited the cemetery of the March Fallen every year on March 18. The workers passed the graves in a slow procession from morning to evening in a long line.”
After the barricade fights of March 18 and 19, 1848, 255 victims of the March Revolution were buried here. In 1918, 33 victims of the November Revolution of 1918 also received their final resting place there, a symbolic act for the connection seen between the uprisings of 1848 and 1918.
Today, the small cemetery on the edge of Volkspark Friedrichshain is a memorial, but almost forgotten. It is tucked away on a service access road to the Klinikum im Friedrichshain on Landsberger Allee and consists of a rectangular lawn with graves on either side. An exhibition at this memorial site explains the revolution of 1848 and thus tries to bring the first German democracy back to life.
More information about this topic: Exhibition and memorial site of the Cemetery of the March Fallen.
