All Saints’ Day and later the Sunday of the Dead bring many people to the cemeteries. In many Bavarian cities in particular, the trend towards urn burials is unbroken. The undertaker’s association knows the reasons.
Munich / Nuremberg (dpa / lby) – Especially in Bavarian cities, more and more people are cremated after their death. In Munich, almost 11,300 people were buried in the city cemeteries in 2021. 68.6 percent of the burials were urn burials, 31.4 percent traditional burials. Ten years earlier there were 40.5 burials, according to a spokesman for the health department.
In Nuremberg, the difference is even greater: the Department for Environment and Health registers around 70 percent cremation and 30 percent earth burials in the ten municipal cemeteries every year. Apart from minor fluctuations, this distribution has remained the same in recent years. The Franconian cities of Würzburg and Bamberg report the same figures: 70 percent urn burials and 30 percent burials.
While there were as many urn burials as there were funerals in Ingolstadt in 2012, the proportions have now shifted, as a spokesman said: in 2021, 36 percent of the deceased were buried in the coffin, 64 percent were cremated.
A spokeswoman for the city of Regensburg said about the forms of burial in the city’s cemeteries: “The trend is clearly towards cremation.” Around three quarters of the burials are now urn burials. According to municipal information, the proportion of urn burials in Augsburg rose from 59 percent in 2014 to 71 percent in the current year.
The undertakers’ association in Bavaria knows the reasons why more and more relatives first cremate their deceased and then have the urns buried. Especially in the cities, the days of family graves that belonged to the same family for decades or sometimes even centuries are over. People have become more mobile. A grave site is difficult to maintain when the relatives live far away, said office manager Jörg Freudensprung. An urn offers more possibilities – an urn grave is easy to care for; Niches, urn walls or steles as well. You have a place for mourning and remembering, but you don’t have to take great care of it. “These points are often crucial,” said Freudensprung.
When it comes to urn burials or burials, however, the undertakers’ association noticed a clear urban-rural divide, he explained further: There are significantly more burials in rural areas. There are often more family members on site who could take care of the grave care.
On November 1, the Catholic Church celebrates the holiday of All Saints – the resting places of the deceased are traditionally blessed.
