Mourning Rituals in the German-Speaking World

The mourning rituals of the German-speaking world are an independent cultural tradition with a symbolism, a jewellery and a set of social practices of their own. While English Victorian court mourning with its strict phase codes counted as the international model, German-speaking mourning practice ran more strongly along confessional, regional and class lines. The Berlin iron tradition, Biedermeier hairwork, the Catholic culture of All Souls' Day, the Protestant practice of the Sunday of the Dead and the Jewish shiva tradition together shaped a many-layered fabric of mourning culture clearly distinguishable from the English or French model.

Confessional main lines

Catholic mourning rituals (Bavaria, Austria, the Rhineland, Westphalia, Silesia, southern Germany generally):

• Requiem mass with Eucharist, incense and black liturgical vestments
• Prayers for the dead (often three days before the burial, in the house of the deceased)
• Funeral procession with cross, holy water and sung antiphons
• Requiem masses for the deceased after 30 days, 6 months, 1 year
• All Saints' and All Souls' Day (1 and 2 November) as annual festivals of remembrance, with visits to the grave, candles and flowers
• Images of the Virgin and figures of saints in the visual symbolism of mourning
• Rosaries in mourning materials (jet, black wood, Berlin iron)

Protestant mourning rituals (northern Germany, central Germany, many Swiss cantons, Protestant Austria):

• The funeral sermon at the centre of the burial, often with sung chorales
• Biblical inscriptions on gravestones and pieces of mourning jewellery
• Domestic devotions in the first weeks after the death
• Sunday of the Dead (Eternity Sunday, the last Sunday of the church year in November) as the annual occasion of remembrance
• Reduced visual symbolism in mourning jewellery - inscription, angels and forget-me-nots rather than images of the Virgin
• Biblical verse inscriptions on pendants and lockets

Jewish mourning rituals (urban centres such as Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Frankfurt, Munich):

• Shiva (the seven-day period of mourning in the house of the immediate family)
• Shloshim (the extended thirty-day period of mourning)
• Avelut (eleven months of mourning for a parent)
• The Kaddish prayer as the central liturgical form
• Memorial jewellery as a distinct cultural form - mostly with the Star of David, Hebrew inscriptions or references to biblical verse
• Yahrzeit (the annual occasion of remembrance on the Hebrew date of death) with a candle and Kaddish

This confessional division leads to three distinct lines of mourning jewellery within the German-speaking region. Catholic pieces are often iconographically richer (image of the Virgin, figure of a saint, crucifix element), Protestant ones more text-based (inscription, biblical verse, initials), Jewish ones with a symbolic language of their own (Star of David, menorah element, Hebrew inscription).

Lying in state at home

Until the late nineteenth century it was usual in the German-speaking world to lay out the deceased in the family's own house. Three days in the gute Stube, the mirror covered, the clocks stopped, black crape at windows and doors. This practice had several functions:

• Confirmation of death (in an age without modern medical certification)
• A community of mourning (relatives, neighbours and friends visit the deceased)
• Preparation for remembrance (taking a last lock of hair, a photograph, a death mask)

For the culture of mourning jewellery, the lying in state was a central moment. It was here that the lock of the deceased's hair was cut which would later be worked into a mourning locket or a hair-mosaic piece. It was here that the death mask was made which served as the model for a subsequent miniature portrait. It was here that the last photograph was taken which would find its place in a mourning locket.

With the introduction of urban burial regulations from the 1880s onwards (the increasingly obligatory laying out in mortuaries rather than at home), this practice changed. In the countryside the custom of lying in state at home persisted longer - in Bavaria and Tyrol here and there well into the 1960s.

The funeral meal and social hospitality

The Trauerschmaus (funeral meal, Leichenschmaus, burial meal, consolation refreshment) is a central social institution. After the burial the mourners gathered in the house of the deceased or in an inn for a communal meal.

Regional variants:

• Vienna: at the inn, often with a menu of its own (Leichenschmaus) - typically beef, beans, bread, wine
• Munich: at the brewery or inn, with a traditional Beerdigungsessen (Weisswurst, pretzel; in higher circles bouillon and roast beef)
• Northern Germany: at home, with coffee, bread and a simple platter of cold cuts; Protestant restraint
• The Rhineland: at a Trauerlokal, with more substantial catering, often ending with dancing (varying by region)
• East Frisia: Beerdigungs-Kuchen (Krintstuten) as a regionally specific baked good

The funeral meal is not merely the taking of food but the working through of grief in company. It is frequently the first permitted laughter after the bereavement, the first renewal of social ties. The obligation to wear mourning ends ritually with the end of the funeral meal.

Mourning dress in the German-speaking world

German-speaking mourning dress followed codes similar to the English, but with more local variation:

Duration of mourning:

• Widow's mourning: nominally two years, in more liberal circles often shortened to one
• Parents' mourning for an adult child: one year
• Children's mourning for parents: six to twelve months
• Mourning for a sibling: three to six months
• Mourning for grandparents: three months

Phases:

• Deep mourning: black woollen clothing with crape trim, black hat, black gloves
• Second mourning: black cloth with white accents permitted
• Half mourning: muted colours - grey, purple, mauve, off-white
• End of full mourning: transition to coloured clothing, often with a symbolic mourning pendant as an enduring gesture of remembrance

Regional particularities:

• Bavaria and Tyrol: mourning dress in the manner of traditional costume - black dirndl, black jacket; in rural regions into the late twentieth century
• Vienna: strict middle-class and aristocratic mourning dress; long veils; a Trauer-Conditorei for pastries suited to the occasion
• Switzerland: in the Protestant cantons particularly restrained, often plainer mourning dress
• Silesia and the Sudetenland: mixed forms with Slavic mourning elements - white mourning (instead of black) in individual regions, above all for the very young or the very old

The culture of memorial jewellery in the German-speaking world

The mourning and memorial jewellery of the German-speaking region is shaped by four principal forms:

Hairwork (see Hairwork). The most important Biedermeier form. Family hair brooches with strands from several family members, mourning pendants with a woven lock, hair-mosaic bracelets. Especially widespread in the German-speaking world, because the tradition of lying in state at home secured direct access to the deceased's hair.

Berlin iron (see Berlin Iron). The specifically Prussian, later all-German line of mourning jewellery. Particularly widespread in the Protestant north and in Berlin; rarer in Bavaria and Austria.

Forget-me-not pendants (see Forget-me-not). The iconographically most important German-speaking gesture. Small pendants with a forget-me-not, painted or set as a micro-bouquet of turquoise; often with the inscription Nicht vergessen ("do not forget") or Treue bis in den Tod ("faithful unto death").

Black enamel and gold jewellery (see Black Enamel (Schwarzemail)). Widespread at the Viennese court and among the upper middle classes of Vienna, Munich and Berlin. Black enamel brooches and lockets with gold inscriptions; often with black-and-white ornament and a Gothicising gold setting.

Cemetery and grave culture

The cemetery culture of the German-speaking world differs from the English and French traditions. Three particularities:

The tradition of the reserved and family grave. In the German-speaking world the family grave (holding several generations of a family) long remains dominant, whereas English and French burial traditions often favour individual graves. Family graves are tended over decades and often carry several mourning inscriptions.

All Saints' / All Souls' Day. In Catholic regions an annual tradition of grave candles. On 1 and 2 November cemeteries are illuminated with hundreds or thousands of grave candles; in Vienna, Munich, Salzburg and Linz the tradition of All Saints' cemetery visits is alive to this day.

Sepulchral culture as reflection. Since the late twentieth century the German-speaking world has seen comparatively intensive academic and museum reflection on the culture of mourning and burial - the Museum für Sepulkralkultur in Kassel (founded 1992) is an institution unique in this form.

Middle-class and working-class mourning

Mourning culture in the German-speaking world follows distinct class lines:

Aristocratic / upper middle class: extensive mourning-jewellery commissions from specialised workshops; printed death notices in several newspapers; elaborate mourning dress; a funeral meal at an inn or at home with many guests.

Middle middle class: more modest mourning-jewellery commissions - a hair brooch, a simple mourning locket; printed mourning cards to relatives and acquaintances; standardised mourning dress from one's own wardrobe; a smaller funeral meal with the close family and circle of friends.

Lower middle class / working class: mourning jewellery often only as inherited family pieces or a simple lock of hair in a small pendant; word-of-mouth notice of the death instead of a printed announcement; a black armband instead of full mourning dress; a simple communal meal after the burial.

These class stratifications shaped German-speaking mourning culture more strongly than the English, because the logic of court mourning was not normative in Germany and Austria in the same way. Middle-class and working-class mourning practices had codes of their own, oriented towards the court model but not determined by it.

From the late nineteenth century to the modern age

With the Gründerzeit (from 1871) and the gradual arrival of urban burial regulations, a reorganisation begins. Laying out in mortuaries replaces lying in state at home; crematoria are built from the 1870s onwards in Gotha, Heidelberg, Munich and Vienna (cremation was first permitted in Germany in 1876). From the 1890s mourning jewellery loses its normative, obligatory character and becomes an individual practice tied to particular occasions.

The First World War (1914–1918) brings a radical break. Mass losses can no longer be represented within the Biedermeier and middle-class logic of mourning. Family hair brooches with locks from fallen sons, mourning pendants with photographic portraits of soldiers - these memorial pieces become the dominant form. But the normative order of court mourning is finally broken.

Through the Weimar Republic, National Socialism and the postwar years, mourning jewellery disappears as an everyday obligatory gesture. What remains are individual memorial pieces - mostly photo lockets with pictures of family members, often from inherited holdings.

Modern German-speaking memorial culture

In the twenty-first century a specifically German-speaking tradition of memorial jewellery lives on:

• Photo lockets with a photograph of a parent or grandparent - the commonest form of memorial jewellery in the present generation
• Ash pendants as a more recent variant of memorial jewellery, above all after cremations (legally complicated in Germany and Austria; see Burial Laws and the Ashes of the Deceased (Germany, Austria, Switzerland))
• Fingerprint pendants as the technically modern standard form (see Fingerprint Pendant)
• Memorial diamonds as the premium variant, often commissioned by larger families (see Memorial Diamond)

German-speaking memorial jewellery practice is today less normative than the Victorian, but culturally more present than is often assumed. Workshops in Germany, Austria and Switzerland make thousands of memorial pieces every year; specialised providers have established themselves. The historical deep layer - lying in state at home, hairwork, forget-me-not pendants, the funeral meal - remains present as a background of meaning, even where the individual ritual practices are no longer alive.