Rhinland-Paleletnet and Saxony-Anhalet in the German states have abolished their burial laws, taking the largest stride with MPs in the West German state.
“After more than 42 years we have created a new structure that incorporates the personal views and desires of the people in the state, with a dignified work of farewell,” said the Rhinland-Palestnet Clamens Hoche, which is the Social Social Democrat (SPD).
From 1 October, the people of the western state will now be able to choose Rhine, Mosele, Lahan or Saar as their last resting place. The river burial is not possible in Germany yet.
The new law introduced by the SPD’s coalition government, environmentalists, complete for Greens and Niolibral Free Democrats (FDP), i.e. homebody: you can request that a dear person keeps your insistence in four walls – one and first – or saves your ashes in your garden.
Human ash memorial diamonds
New laws in Rhine-Palinate and Eastern State Saxony-Anhalt, therefore enable the manufacture of “memorial diamonds” from the ashes of the deceased.
Synthetic diamonds are grown at high temperatures from extracted carbon – a process introduced in Switzerland two decades ago. The search is becoming increasingly popular.
Rhinland-Paletten, Christian Democrats (CDU) conservative protests, are worrying the law that the death may be kneeling for the border-CDU politician Christofe Gensh accused the Health Minister Hach of the state parliament of the state parliament of being “serious excavation”.
The main Christian churches are criticized. Menz’s Catholic Bishop Peter Kohalgraf told public broadcaster ZDF Nobody will know what happened to caskets in private homes.
“I hate thinking that it hates thinking of forgetting in a move or jewelry made by being lost in the Ashes,” Dorothy West, Chairman of Protestant Church in Palatenet, told the Evengelical Press Service (EPD,
German burial law out of step with social changes
The Federal Association of German Undertaker, BDB, however, are advocating the change. It represents 90% of the country’s funeral directors, some 5,000 companies.
General Secretary Stephen Neuser said that new laws increased the will of the people. Neusar told DW that members were often contacted by condolences, who wanted to take Kalash home or to remove ash for the construction of jewelry memens.
He said, “The burial culture we have in Germany has changed a lot in recent year.”
Some three quarters of the dead of Germany have now been cremated. Only one in five is buried.
With the urns taking very little space, the plot leases have been disappearing nationwide for a long time, sometimes low and rising maintenance costs, the cemetery.
In Berlin’s cemetery, for example, according to the 2024 report by the city’s technical university, the area of land is now empty in the land equal to 476 football pitches.
More personal mourning and trend towards monument
Sociologist Thorson Benkel says that the trend reflects increasing mobility and changes towards mourning.
“People no longer want to decide where or how they should mourn.
Digital space has become a place for rapid sorrow and preservation of memories. Researchers at Pasau University still do not think that the cemetery will disappear – but will become an alternative among humans.
Benkel believes that people in Germany should have an independent hand to decide what the tombs should look in the Netherlands.
The new law in the Rhineland-salletnet and Saxony-Anlt Mirror increased sensitivity to infants losing pain in early pregnancy stalls, now mandatory for “sterncanders” (“baby from stars”) with burial-abortion of-abortion of-was avoided.
The eastern state allows shroud burial for Muslims and Jews for the first time, while the western state expands the option for all despite confidence.
Green Funeral: Woodland buried and decomposting bodies
Religious and cultural diversity, secularism, as well as mental goodness and anxiety for the environment are also increasing, even if the funeral law, oh, is often not kept.
Woodland buried grounds grow in popularity in Germany. The first was established in 2001 and now the main two operators run 175 sites alone.
Many people prefer informal natural settings for the regiment lines of traditional cemetery. It is cheap and can run up to 99 years.
This twist is also reflected, also, despite their possible effects in interest in river and marine burial.
Rhinland wants to strictly regulate the river burial in the rhinland-palanet and correspond to the existing rules about maritime burials. The ash should be sent to the water in a biodenable urn from a ship.
Somewhere in more radical back-to-genetics act, the northern states of Shleswig-Holsteinis test natural organic deficiency or terramation.
In a strawd “cocoon”, microorganisms convert a body into soil in 40 days.
The pilot, which has now been extended till June 2026, is being monitored by the University of Leapzing. No environmental risk has been found so far.
Death is in tourism and devil expansion
Funeral Care would like to catch changes in consumer initiatives, Ethannitas, Rhineland-Palenetten and Saxony-Anhalt, but is expected to be quite expected.
“A problem in Germany is that the burial rules are mainly characterized by incorrect and old traditions, where a much more liberal approach is common in other countries.
Some Germans have been ashamed of their loved ones on the border and taking away their remains – or singing the urn for the crematorium to reach the ash.
To prevent that kind of “death tourism”, people living in Rhinland-Paltonate only want to be eligible for the river burial. Even indifferent former residents did not give any chance.
And if a person who has nominated to take care of another German state to take care of his urn, they are neither allowed to keep it in their house nor allow it to anyone else.
The difference in regional laws can mean absurd – and potential heartbreak – landscape.
Edited by Helen Whitel
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