Establishment and opening
Westfriedhof was laid out in 1898. It belongs to the four large Munich cemeteries built between 1899 and 1907 to designs by municipal architect Hans Grässel. When it opened in 1902, the site still lay in the municipality of Moosach; the cemetery land was separately incorporated into Munich. Moosach followed only in 1913.
The ensemble by the forum
The cemetery buildings completed in 1902 combine a tall bell tower with the round domed funeral hall. On the cemetery side, terraces lead to a stone Mount of Olives group under a canopy. A crypt lies beneath the buildings, and a broad staircase opens the view towards the forum.
Straight and curved paths, a large lawn without graves and a small pond create varied spaces across almost 50 hectares. The cemetery and its building ensemble are protected monuments.
Expansion and later places
An expansion in 1950/51 brought the cemetery to its present scale. Eugen Jacoby’s urn hall by the pond followed in 1962. A memorial installed in 2012 commemorates 63 Bavarian police officers killed since the end of the Second World War.
The stone circle meeting place and the memorial area for children and foetuses are distinctive local places. In May 2015, Mosaikgärten opened as a communal urn burial area with eight different urn grave types.
Reading the history on site
The official cemetery map marks the historic buildings, urn hall, stone circle, police memorial, children’s memorial and Mosaikgärten. The cemetery walk deliberately uses only five stops with precise open coordinates.