Rathenau family tomb, cemetery Oberschöneweide, Berlin. Memorial grave of Berlin

Historic Monument 1902-1904, architect Alfred Messel, sculptor Hermann Hahn

Client: Municipality Treptow-Koepenick

Members of the Rathenau family buried here: Walther Rathenau (1867-1922), who was murdered shortly after he took office as Foreign Minister of Germany, his deceased younger brother, Erich (1871-1903), who died during a journey to egypt,  their father, Emil Rathenau (1831-1915), founder of the AEG enterprise and their mother Mathilde Rathenau (b. Nachmann 1845-1926).

Client: Municipality Treptow-Koepenick

Funding: City of Berlin, Reemtsma Foundation, German Foundation for Monument Protection, Federal Government Commission for Culture and the Media and the Federal Foreign Office.

Planning: Damage assessment, historic preservation and historical reports, repair and restoration of the monument 2009-2012.

History: In 1895, the AEG-company purchased a 92.000 square meter area for a big cable plant at the Spree river, followed by the establishment of numerous other factories. The construction of the family tomb was closely associated with the development of this new industrial site. In 1902 Emil Rathenau  bought a piece of land in the nearby forest, erected the cemetery and a chapel, donated the area to the community and startet the construction of the family tomb designed by the famous Berlin architect Alfred Messel. The sculptural decoration was made by the sculptor Hermann Hahn, a friend of the Rathenau family and one of the most important representative of the Munich school of sculpture and funerary art of reformers in 1900. 

Project participants: engineers Ruediger Jockwer

Team NM: Lutz Heilmann, Johannes Bausch