Grave area Revolutionsgefallene at Friedhof Ohlsdorf

The monument to the fallen of the revolution of 1918–1920 stands in Hamburg’s Ohlsdorf Cemetery, a vast burial ground in the city’s north. It consists of a gravesite and a tall structure of two columns supporting a plain entablature. The graves hold those killed during the November Revolution of 1918, the Sülze riots of 1919, the Kapp Putsch of 1920 and the March fighting of 1921. The site was first opened in 1920 and rebuilt after the Second World War in 1945.

The monument’s design came from city building director Fritz Schumacher, who created the two columns crowned by a straight architrave. Each column bears a carved wreath with ribbon and a lowered torch, symbols of mourning. The inscription reads simply DEN GEFALLENEN DER REVOLUTIONS JAHRE 1918–1920, avoiding any political alignment. Forty-seven pillow-shaped stones mark individual graves, and twelve more stones record victims of the Harburg Blood Monday in March 1920.

Visitors find the monument at the front of the gravesite, facing the cemetery museum. The graves stretch behind it in ordered rows, each marked by a small stone. A plaque placed by the youth working group of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge explains the history of the field. The quiet paths of Ohlsdorf lead past other war memorials, making the site part of a larger landscape of remembrance.