Invalids' Cemetery

The Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin-Mitte is one of the city's oldest cemeteries and the most important burial ground of Prussian military history. Laid out in 1748 for residents of the nearby Invalidenhaus, it became the resting place of generals like Gerhard von Scharnhorst and August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, and later of Reinhard Heydrich, whose grave was levelled after 1945. Karl Friedrich Schinkel designed the cast-iron Scharnhorst monument, among the finest neoclassical tombs in Germany. During the Cold War the cemetery sat inside the Berlin Wall death strip, and many graves were destroyed or repurposed for guard lanes. Today, partly reconstructed, it is a quiet site of memory between the Spandau Shipping Canal and the trace of the former Wall.