100th death anniversary of Walter Christmas. Sailor Princes. Like many historians and history lovers, I feel strangely drawn towards places where you can still feel the presence of the people you study. The homes of famous authors, the palaces of royalty, the public sites where history was made. Strangely enough, I usually feel most connected to my subjects when I visit their burial places. It is as if churches, cemetries and mausoleums invite you to begin a conversation between one mortal soul and another. On the occasion of Walter Christmas’s 100th death anniversary, I would like to share two of my favourite burial places with you: that of Prince Henry of Prussia, and, of course, that of Walter Christmas.
A word in advance: Although they often have a solemn atmosphere, are interesting to visit and easy-to-read like a catalogue, I do not personally like cathedrals or crypts as burial places. They are a bit spooky and sometimes also just not very reverent. I was shocked to see that people can actually walk across the grave of my favourite author Jane Austen in Winchester Cathedral, while her family members peacefully rest in the picturesque graveyard of her home village Chawton.
The first fully-fledged Sailor Prince Alfred of Britain was buried in a tomb in the family crypt of the Saxe-Coburgs on the so-called Glockenberg in Coburg, Germany – a place that leaves little room for true emotion.
Prince Valdemar of Denmark, meanwhile, was buried in one of the vaults of the grand Roskilde Cathedral near Copenhagen, the church where all the kings and queens of Denmark are buried – a city of the dead, as it were, with very little privacy.
What I prefer are more personal graves, in the open air at best, where you can hear birds singing and feel the wind go through your hair. Therefore, I was particularly intruiged by the burial site of Prince Henry of Prussia. Together with his wife, Princess Irene, and their son Heinrich, who died at the early age of four years old, he rests in a mausoleum near his family home Gut Hemmelmark near the coastal resort town Eckernförde. The walk from Hemmelmark to the mausoleum takes about 30 minutes and it leads you through quiet woodlands and grain fields. On one of my strolls there, I was even suddenly confronted by a deer standing silently in front of me. The mausoleum itself was erected near an old megalithic tomb (a “Hühnengrab”) and is built in the shape of a Russian-Orthodox chapel (reminiscent of Irene’s two sisters, Alix and Elisabeth, who married the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian Grand Duke Alexander Romanov, respectively). It just feels so calm and peaceful there!
Walter Christmas‘s grave is also one that you have to go looking for, but in a different sense: Not because it is unique but because it is one of many. His ashes were buried in the Garnisons Kirkegård (Garrison Cemetery) in eastern Copenhagen, and I needed around 30 mins. to find the burial site. I didn’t mind the time I spent there, though, because I left a busy city for a serene spot, filled with old family graves and war monuments and old trees gently moving in a rising wind. During my search, I even discovered the grave of another famous author of Danish naval adventure fiction: Cai Schaffalitzky de Muckadell. And then I suddenly faced an inconspicuous, simple urn made of stone engraved on which were the names of Walter Christmas, his second wife Ellen, and his parents Walter Edmund Christmas and Tusky Dirckinck-Holmfeld. After all the royal tombs that I visited during my previous research, this humble grave touched a chord with me. However driven, restless and enigmatic Walter Christmas was during his lifetime – I knew that here he rested in peace.
Further Reading
To find out more about the enigma that is Walter Christmas and his driven life, you can read my two previous blog entries regarding the #100th death anniversary of Walter Christmas:
Man between the spots – Why I am writing about Walter Christmas
The Armchair Sailor's Story Book 