Old South Cemetery

Duke Albrecht V had the cemetery laid out outside the city during an outbreak of plague. From 1788 it was Munich's only general burial ground for decades, and in 1818 it was decided to open it to Catholics and Protestants alike. The wine merchant Johann Balthasar Michel is regarded as the first Protestant buried here. St Stephen's church has stood on the grounds since 1674, and victims of the Sendling Christmas Massacre of 1705 lie in mass graves.

The layout was shaped by Gustav Vorherr, who built the mortuary and vault arcades between 1818 and 1821, and by Friedrich von Gärtner, whom King Ludwig I commissioned in 1840 to enlarge it on the model of the Campo Santo in Bologna. The old section lies to the north and the new section to the south. Together they hold around 270 vaults.

The architects Leo von Klenze and Friedrich von Gärtner, the painters Carl Spitzweg and Wilhelm von Kaulbach, the sculptor Ludwig Schwanthaler, the physicist Georg Simon Ohm and Andreas Dall'Armi, credited with the idea for the Oktoberfest, are buried here. The former blessing hall houses a collection devoted to Schwanthaler, and the lapidarium displays sculptures and reliefs.

Burials no longer take place. The monuments were restored between 2004 and 2007, and the cemetery serves as a quiet park close to the Sendlinger Tor.