Berlin-Reinickendorf, Friedhof Heiligensee

between 1908 and 1911, a municipal cemetery was built on part of the Heiligensee Baumberge and outside the village of Heiligensee and opened in 1912 after the old village churchyard was closed. The now state-owned cemetery is considered one of the most beautiful in Berlin due to its scenic location from Heiligensee to Tegeler Forst. Robert Jacquinot de Besange (1878-1946) was reburied in the cemetery. The French Jesuit established a protection zone for the civilian population in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. This was the model for the protection zone set up by John Rabe (who was buried in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Cemetery in Berlin) in Nanjing in the same year. After his return to Europe in 1940, he took care of refugees and displaced persons as a special ambassador of the Vatican. in 1944/1945, he attempted to set up protection zones for the civilian population in German-occupied France. In December 1945, he was appointed head of the Vatican delegation in Berlin for the relief of refugees and displaced persons. He died of leukemia in Berlin on September 10, 1946 and was buried in the French cemetery of honor in Berlin-Frohnau; after the cemetery was closed, he was moved to the Heiligensee cemetery. Hannah Höch (1889-1978), painter, graphic artist, co-founder of the Berlin Dada movement The Vienna Bridge in Kreuzberg, built in 1896, was blown up by soldiers of the German Wehrmacht on April 23/24, 1945, in order to slow down the advance of the Red Army. Two reliefs of the bridge survived the blast and were erected in the post-war period at the Heiligensee cemetery in Frohnau. The relief "The dying giant Alkyoneus defeated by the goddess Athena" became the main component of the memorial there for the victims of the Second World War. One fallen soldier from the First World War and more than 1,700 victims of the Second World War are buried at Heiligensee cemetery. (Martin Bayer, 23.04.2020)