Döbling Cemetery

Döblinger Friedhof

A cross at the cemetery dating from the 19th century
Details
Established	1880
Location	Döbling, Vienna.
Country	Austria
Type	Public
Size	49,981 square metres (12.351 acres)
No. of graves	6,853

The Döbling Cemetery (Döblinger Friedhof) is a cemetery in the 19th district of Vienna, Döbling.

The cemetery lies in the south of Döbling on the border to Währing in the Katastralgemeinde of Oberdöbling, in the Hartäckerstraße. The cemetery’s limits are defined in the south by the Peter-Jordan-Straße, in the west by the Borkowskigasse and in the north by the Hartäckergasse. It thus covers an area of 49,981 m² and provides space for 6853 plots.

Traditionally, Unterdöbling’s dead were buried at the Heiligenstadt cemetery, while those from Oberdöbling were buried around the Döbling Parish Church. The latter was expanded in 1781; records exist of its use until 1783. When the church was torn down and rebuilt in 1826, the graveyard was presumably abandoned.

A new cemetery was founded to replace the graveyard in the course of the elevation of Döbling to an independent parish. This new cemetery was designed to accommodate not just Oberdöbling’s dead, but also those from Unterdöbling, which had been included in the new parish. The cemetery was created at the edge of Unterdöbling, on the road to Grinzing (today known as the Billrothstraße), but it had to be closed in 1885 as it neared capacity. The area was transformed into the Strauss-Lanner-Park in 1928.

Permission to found a new cemetery was granted to the communities of Oberdöbling and Unterdöbling by the imperial district authorities in Hernals on 28 April 1880. The site chosen for the new cemetery covered a rhomboid-shaped area 7.5 jochs in size (a Joch is an old measurement equivalent to 0.5755 hectares in Austria) on the Türkenschanze. The cemetery was designed by architects Avanzo and Lange to hold 30,000 graves. It was officially opened on 10 June 1885 by the Döbling parish priest, Dr. Hulesch.

The Döbling Cemetery was open to believers of all confessions. A Jewish section was opened in 1888, and on 13 February 1894, the city authorities approved the creation of a burial site for Muslim soldiers of the imperial territorial army. The Muslim section covered an area of 404.4 m² with space for 40 individual graves. Its use for Muslim burials was approved for a period of 20 years; it was expanded by a further 157 m² in 1900. In addition to members of these minorities and the dead from Oberdöbling and Unterdöbling, the cemetery also provided space for deceased persons from Vienna, as many did not want to be buried at the city’s main cemetery, the Zentralfriedhof and the surrounding suburbs could charge a premium price for the service.