Friedhof Wilsnacker Cemetery for the Victims of War and Tyranny

The Cemetery Wilsnacker Cemetery for the Victims of War and Tyranny is located in the Berlin-Moabit district. Originally, it belonged to the church cemetery of the St. Johannis Church, which was liquidated back in 1935 and used as a school garden. During the Battle of Berlin, the area was severely bombed and suffered from Soviet artillery fire. Many civilians and soldiers died during fighting or in the air raid shelters. Around 300 people, among them women and children, were buried at an initially improvised cemetery, of which 86 soldiers and 35 civilians remain unknown.

Among the identified persons were 15 political prisoners and members of resistance from the nearby prison in the Lehrter Straße. They were murdered by the SS squads in the park near the former Lehrter Station (now Berlin Central Station). One of them was Albrecht Haushofer, who was an activist of the resistance and the son of Karl Haushofer, whose geopolitical ideas indirectly influenced the expansionist views of Adolf Hitler. His grave remains the only marked grave, which survived the war and still can be found on the premises. Originally organised as an emergency cemetery, it was re-organised into an honour cemetery by the West Berlin authorities in 1955.