Coppenbrügge Jewish cemetery

Even before the November pogroms in 1938, the mayor of Coppenbrügge, Friedrich Beckmann, pushed for the removal of the Jewish cemetery. In 1935, he asked the district administrator of the Hameln-Pyrmont district to have the cemetery closed.

District administrator Helmut Lambert immediately took up the mayor's suggestion and asked the Hanoverian government president for approval. He particularly pointed out that the full width of the cemetery was located on the Reichsstrasse and demanded that the cemetery be removed as quickly as possible. Hitler regularly used this road when he traveled to Goslar by car from the Reichserntedankfest on the Bückeberg.

The government president in Hanover initially rejected the closure: after repeated pressure from the district administrator, he decided to close the cemetery in 1937. No further burials were allowed. The cemetery was to be preserved until the resting periods of all the graves had expired; it was not intended to be preserved in perpetuity.

After the closure, a contract was signed in January 1938 between the local community of Coppenbrügge and the Jewish community in Hameln regarding future burials. These were to take place at the Jewish cemetery in Hameln in the future. The local community wanted to keep the cemetery in Coppenbrügge in a worthy condition at its own expense. Contrary to all contractual agreements, the mayor of Coppenbrügge had the cemetery leveled and the gravestones removed on his own initiative in May 1938. They were used as building material in road construction and in the Christian cemetery. The former Jewish cemetery was turned into a meadow and leased out for grass. In 1943, the land became the private property of Friedrich Beckmann (local mayor from 1924 to 1946 and 1952 to 1957).

The Jewish cemetery Coppenbrügge is a protected cultural monument.