Guided tours are probably the most popular instrument for mediating the exhibition contents, both in the permanent presentation and at special exhibitions. There are also special theme tours on various aspects of the sepulchral culture. In addition, the academic staff will be happy to inform you about other sepulchral sites in Kassel and accompany you to the artists' necropolis, to the new crematorium on the main cemetery or to special memorial sites.
The Museum for Sepulchral Culture is a place whose contents are concerned with diverse occupational groups and educational paths, because in dealing with people, the topics of dying and mourning are also omnipresent. Aspects of sepulchral culture also come to bear in various fields of study. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedhof und Denkmal e. V. (Study Group Cemetery and Memorial) also offers counselling, further training and seminars for cemetery leaders, grave designers and other occupational groups working in the fields of burial and cemetery. Nursing staff, hospice staff and members of the helping professions can also receive further training in the museum about their everyday work. For educators and teachers, there are various further training courses on dealing with children and death.
In order to take better account of individual interests, employees prefer to communicate their knowledge in dialogue with visitors. The team leading through the exhibitions is interdisciplinary. For this reason, the various programmes can be individually adapted to your visit. If you have any scientific questions, you can also use our library with over 55,000 specialist publications, articles and workstations.
Telefon: 0561 / 918 93 15
Fax: 0561 / 918 93 10
Weinbergstraße 25-27
34117 Kassel
Many events can also be booked in further languages s. Just ask us!
General guided tours are possible by appointment. The tour fees are not included in the entrance fees, from 10 persons reduced. The Guided tours take about 90min.
The cemetery teaches most people horror at night. It is the place where the dead are very close to us. Also other places and things we associate with death often arouse special feelings of insecurity and fear. But where these fears come from and what ideas are behind them is illuminated by a nightly walk through the museum. Our midnight tour is a special event that takes place best when the full moon shimmers outside through the countless glass panels of the museum. After a champagne reception to set the mood, the visitors will learn exciting things about vampires, werewolves and other cretaures of the night. When you meet the magic things and stories in the special atmosphere of the night, you can experience their special fascination.
Champagne reception inclusive!
450€
Black, the colour of mourning and the unknown and the unseen, is still a colour of special symbolic power. Within the framework of a guided tour on the colour black, the reasons for the establishment of this colour of death and mourning are traced by means of examples from popular belief and various exhibits from the burial area. In the process, the question will also be explored to what extent and why death knows other colours and why black fades, especially in the present and in multiculturalism, as a signal and characteristic of mourning and death.
In order to take individual interests into account, the employees prefer to communicate their knowledge in dialogue with the visitors. This also includes the fact that individual topic wishes can be jointly adapted in advance.
The artists' necropolis is located on the outskirts of Kassel, in the Habichtswald, surrounded by hills, gorges and valleys. In the early 1980s, the artist Harry Kramer had the idea of enabling selected artists to lay their own grave there during their lifetime. This was also seen by him as the only way to create a work of art of and for him- or herself and thus to create a completely authentic work away from any kind of commission or patronage. In 1992 the artists' necropolis was opened. In the meantime, nine grave markers stand in the wild and romantic woodland around the Blue Lake. Some of them already house the urns of their creators and some are waiting, abandoned to themselves and nature, for their arrival. This project, probably the most artistically demanding in the current burial culture, could only be realized after years of discussions with authorities and nature conservationists and still polarizes.
On the hiking trail from the car park to the artists' necropolis around the Blue Lake, visitors will have the opportunity to hear about this special project, to exchange views and to enjoy the wonderful landscape of the Kassel area.
The meeting point can be arranged individually, so that the duration varies.
Regular: 120€
Weekend: 150€
In the northern part of Kassel the main cemetery is situated as probably one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the area. With its wide avenues, the (for a cemetery unusual) fountains and all kinds of references to botanical features, it is obviously not only a place of mourning and remembrance, but also a lively part of Kassel's leisure and recreational culture.
The cemetery was opened on July 2, 1843 on the occasion of the funeral of the widow Susanne Martius (née Weimar). From the mid-1920s onwards, it was extensively planted and developed and thus increasingly became a park-like complex and a recreational and meeting place for the citizens of the city of Kassel. The value of the cemetery for the population is also reflected in its rapid reconstruction after its destruction during the Second World War. Within a few years, little remains of the devastation, but since the 1950s, new sections have borne witness to the war. It is also an impressive mirror of the history of the city of Kassel.
Regular: 120€
Weekend: 150€
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedhof und Denkmal e.V.
Zentralinstitut für Sepulkralkultur
Museum für Sepulkralkultur
Weinbergstraße 25–27
D-34117 Kassel | Germany
Tel. +49 (0)561 918 93-0
info@sepulkralmuseum.de