Bronze erzählt Geschichte

Epitaphien auf den Nürnberger Friedhöfen

Abstract

Although the city of Nuremberg was largely destroyed by allied forces during the Second World War, there are some places of historic interest which remain. The cemeteries of St. Johannis and St. Rochus, both close to the city centre, survived nearly complete. Used for burials since the early 16th century, they are of great interest to genealogists and other researchers.
Nuremberg craftsmen producing arms and armour are among the dead with details of their names, dates, and what they made. Sometimes, their marks are shown on the epitaphs as well. Unfortunately, these two cemeteries have not been given the attention they deserve or introduced in arms and armour literature; recent publications mainly focus on genealogy or heraldry.
This is the reason why a few epitaphs of craftsmen producing arms and armour are shown as examples in this paper. In the future it should be an aim for historians to investigate all the names and dates in combination with the existing church registers to find out more about the men and the fact: bronze preserves history.
This short paper had discovered some makers not mentioned in the (Støckel l, the great compilation of makers´ marks. It has been possible to identify some previous unrecorded marks with the help of these epitaphs. Further research into these epitaphs would no doubt be a helpful tool identifying the large numbers of unidentified marks on arms and armour. In 2013, the cemetery of St. Johannis was elected as the “Prettiest Cemetery in Germany”. One year later, around 40 epitaphs were stolen – although the thief was kept and some of the bronze plates were found, some ones are lost forever.
For planning a visit, use the literature mentioned below for the locations of various burials; a full inventory is published by Dietz. Even there exist some information on the website of the cemeteries. Both cemeteries can be reached on foot from the city centre and a summertime visit is recommended to these beautiful places.