International Cemetery in Tsingtao, China

History

The cemetery was begun as a German cemetery for German community in Tsingtao (Tsingtau, Qingdao) on five terraces of the southern slope of Bismark Hill outside the village of Tsingtao. Before the Germans used the site for a cemetery, Chinese peasants grew wheat, sweet potatoes, peanuts, and other crops on these terraces.

During the siege of Tsingtao by the Japanese from August to November 1914 two hundred German defenders were killed. They were buried altogether on one terrace.

The cemetery had been cared for by the Germans until the Japanese occupation of November 1914. At that time the cemetery was called the International Cemetery, because an international commission took care of the management of the terrain. No Chinese or Japanese were members of the international commission, because no Chinese or Japanese persons were buried in the cemetery.

The chairman of this commission was the British consul. This commission had also a German among its members, usually Dr. Seufert from the German East Asia Mission.

The terrain had a green hedge around it, which deteriorated over time. Further, all metal parts on the gravestones were stolen as were flowers placed on the graves. To better care of the cemetery the Chinese administration took over in 1926, and the international commission was dissolved. The Chinese city administration decided that from then on Chinese persons could also be buried in the cemetery. A stone or brick wall was built around the whole cemetery, and a Chinese warden was hired. A small house for the warden was built beside the only entrance, which lay on the north side of the cemetery. The warden also acted as a gardener for the cemetery. North of the International Cemetery a small Jewish cemetery was also created.

When the communist Chinese took over China in 1949 they did no harm to the cemetery. The current Chinese cemetery warden at that time remained on his job from 1950 to 1965 with his salary paid for by the German government.

The International Cemetery in Tsingtao, however, was destroyed in 1966 during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Tombstones were fragmented and used for other purposes one of which was to line a ditch. We do not know if those buried in the cemetery were disinterred or they remain where the lay, possibly the latter. Removing the tombstones would have eliminated any obvious trace of the occupants of the cemetery without needing to go to all the trouble of digging up the remains.

The fact that the former cemetery is now a park and the park has not been given over to development gives some weight to the possibility that authorities and developers did not want to disturb anything. This park is now named Bai Hua Garden. Surrounding the park is a wall with a north and south entrance. The park contains the sculptures of famous Chinese. Therefore some people call the garden "The Sculpture Garden." Visitors must pay an entrance fee.

Burial Records

Some records still exist regarding those buried in the cemetery. The Central Archive of the German Evangelical Church in Berlin has a list of graves, perhaps only German graves, in the international cemetery in Tsingtao, for the period 1898 until 1932. Also the the German Protestant Community in Tsingtao had a church book, into which all baptism, weddings and death data were written from 1898 until 1953. This book now resides in the central archive in Berlin. Much of the information in this paragraph specifically, and on this web page generally, was generously supplied by Professor Wilhelm Matzat, a former resident of Tsingtao. Professor Matzat also provided most of the names of German Protestants buried in the cemetery between 1914 and 1953. Some of this data is now in the document International Cemetery Tsingtao Burials. The document also includes individuals known from other sources to have been buried in the cemetery.More names will be added as time permits.

Conceivably other records were lost during troubles experienced in the many decades before, and the years immediately after the victory of the Chinese Communist Party. If records were not lost at that time they may have been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution or they were simply thrown out by someone to make room for more pertinent data. Hopefully, complete records were not lost and will be found eventually.

Description of International Cemetery

The cemetery was on a hill with many trees and surrounded by a fence made of iron. The gates too were made of iron. The cemetery had various sections, one of which was the terrace.

Request for Information

We are attempting here to reconstruct the records of individuals buried at the International Cemetery in Tsingtao. If you have names, photos, information of anyone buried in the cemetery, cemetery records or eyewitness accounts please click on my name Lennart Holmquist to send me an email.

For an incomplete list of known burials in the International Cemetery see:

International Cemetery Tsingtao Burials

Photos of International Cemetery Tsingtao

Shandong News Story (dated 2009-5-3) regarding botonist finding secondary use of gravestone fragments. Article is in Chinese.

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Email concerning the cemetery

May 15, 2012
May 22, 2012

Footnotes