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At the beginning of the 1990s, Michael Jagdt's business was a pure gold mine, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The coffin manufacturer's customers had multiplied when the Wall came down.
Suddenly West Berlin was no longer an island, and Jagdt's company Lignotec was now selling coffins far beyond the surrounding area.
When Jagdt speaks today about the coffins that are stored in rows of hundreds in an industrial area near the disused Tegel Airport, his voice becomes hoarse. He hasn't had a sip in the past two hours, there was so much to tell about the coffin trade - an industry that is now threatened with extinction in Germany.
It's a long story.
It is true that the saying “There will always be death” has not lost its validity.
Almost a million people die in Germany every year.
In 2020 there were 982,489 deaths - an increase of around five percent compared to 2019, which is at least partly due to the pandemic.
With a few exceptions, for example in the case of Muslim burials, the deceased in Germany must be buried in a coffin or cremated.
This is what the Federal Burial Act prescribes.
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But because the end of life
Often a taboo subject, many don't know what's going on behind the scenes at a funeral.
The death business is worth billions.
It has undergone profound changes in the past few years.
One of the reasons for this is the way people are buried today.
For years there has been a trend towards urn burials, which now make up 75 percent, or unconventional burials, for example in so-called quiet forests or at sea.
Although the coffin obligation also applies to cremation, an inexpensive piece is usually chosen - because it will be burned anyway.
Individually designed coffins are therefore becoming increasingly rare.
"Nine out of ten of our coffins are burned," says Jagdt.
"In this country no coffin manufacturer can finance his business with pure burials."
Coffin maker Michael Jagdt
Source: Jan Klauth
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The local manufacturers are worried about another development: They see their market threatened by imports from Eastern Europe. "The total domestic production is estimated at around 180,000 coffins annually," says the Federal Association for Funeral Needs - with more than five times as many deaths. In other words: more than 80 percent of all coffins now come from abroad, especially from Poland.
Michael Jagdt had to watch for years how the market continued to shrink.
One traditional factory after another went bankrupt.
Many succumbed to the competition from Eastern Europe.
“We are a dying species,” he states in his wood-paneled office, while a dark box van turns into the company premises in front of the window.
"There are only a handful of medium-sized coffin manufacturers." There are still 15 in total, says the association.
After reunification, there were around 100 in reunified Germany.
In Germany there are only 15 medium-sized coffin manufacturers
Source: Jan Klauth
In order to stand out from the competition, Jagdt designed a “Made in Berlin” logo.
Its customers should know that the products are regional and sustainable.
A coffin costs between 1000 and 4000 euros in this country, depending on the processing and special requests.
Pieces produced abroad are around five to ten percent cheaper, mainly because of lower wage costs.
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Whereby cheaper does not necessarily mean worse: "Some of the producers in Eastern Europe have better machines than we do - thanks in part to EU funding," says Jagdt.
In any case, the price difference was enough to undermine large parts of the market.
The costs for a funeral are high: Almost 13,000 euros have to be taken into account for an average funeral, calculates the portal “todesfall-checkliste.de” - extravagant funerals, however, cost three times as much.
That the Germans still spend a lot of money on funerals
Factoring in, shows the industry turnover: According to the Federal Statistical Office, this was 1.5 billion euros in 2009, it was almost a third more in 2018 at 2.1 billion - but this does not mean that funerals are becoming more and more expensive: The turnover also depends on the death rate - and this was around ten percent higher in 2018 than in 2009.
Controversial quarries
When Benjamin Pütter talks about his work in India, it sometimes sounds like something out of the script of an agent's film: lobbyists bribing the authorities, tax evasion running into billions - and in the end a feverish escape from Bangalore, where he is targeted by a quarry contractor should.
But Pütter, who works for the international aid organization “Sternsinger”, does not see himself as a spy, but as a liberator: He wants to help the children who - as he relates it - have to toil in Indian quarries with heavy equipment.
The Freiburg native has traveled to India more than 80 times since the 1970s.
At first he belonged to the peace movement, today he is close to the Greens.
His mission is also part of the industry behind the burials: He wants to put an end to child labor in the manufacture of gravestones - child labor that, in the opinion of his opponents, hardly exists.
Even photos of minors in quarries, which the activist claims to have shot himself, are for the other side just pictures of committed actors.
Benjamin Pütter works for the aid organization "Sternsinger"
Source: Benjamin Pütter
"In some regions in India I can no longer set foot, I would risk my life," says Pütter.
But he also fell out of favor with German stonemasons because of his reports.
Some have already taken legal action against him.
There has been a seal of the Indo-German Export Promotion since the 1990s, which is supposed to prove the ethically correct origin of Indian exports.
But Pütter, who considers this to be inadequate, set up a seal on his own in 2012.
At that time, support came from ex-Labor Minister Norbert Blüm (CDU).
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But despite all the efforts Germany apparently still has a major gravestone problem: "Every third gravestone in Germany comes from India, where 150,000 children toil in quarries," warned Development Minister Gerd Müller (CSU) just a few months ago.
When asked, his ministry specifies: According to current figures from the International Labor Organization (ILO), around ten million children work in India. Two thirds of all tombstones in this country came from there. According to a spokesman, it is plausible that “at least half of the stones imported from India were manufactured using child labor”.
Sybille Trawinski, on the other hand, is irritated by this calculation. Some of the statements have been made "for over ten years, without any evidence being known to us," says the managing director of the Federal Association of Stonemasons. "To this day we have to assume that child labor takes place in quarries, but that they do not work on the grave, but rather knock small stones that are more used in road construction and landscaping," the head of the association defends the industry, to which around 5000 companies belong.
Trawinski sees the problem elsewhere - and emphasizes that there is a "low-price policy" especially with public building projects, in which the cheaper materials from countries like India are often given preference over local offers.
It is difficult to find concrete figures on this - even Müller's ministry cannot name any: The origin of the stones from India is still partly non-transparent.
“Stonemasons are often the end of a long chain,” says Trawinski.
And this often ends in a company network.
The concentration on tombs is even "cosmetics" for larger areas, such as gardening or road construction.
A sculptor works ornaments into a tombstone with a diamond cutter
Source: Getty Images / Westend61
In any case, the stonemasons also value sustainability. It is even the “new catchphrase”, according to the guild's 2018 annual report. Child labor is generally rejected. And the history of the stones' origins is evidently also becoming increasingly important to customers: the German government's “Siegelklarheit.de” portal lists four different certificates - Pütter's one also belongs to it.
However, one thing is clear: because more and more people are being buried in urns or otherwise, the demand for gravestones is falling.
And even with these, the price differences are considerable: The prices start at around 1000 euros, but can also reach ten times as much.
The association cannot provide reliable sales figures for the entire industry on request, but in a member survey in 2019, 92.9 percent of the companies stated their business situation as good or satisfactory.
Funeral event culture
A heavy oak coffin that is lowered into the dark earth - for many people this classic form of burial is a frightening idea.
A new industry is benefiting from this - and from the high costs of a traditional burial - for several years now, companies have been entering the market that want to revolutionize burial culture in Germany.
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Away from earth and coffin and towards a kind of event culture of burial, which should at least take away some of the horror of death.
At least that is the aspiration with which many of the young companies started.
This trend started in the USA, where the offer already extends from funerals in compostable granulate and urns to cremations in recycled glass and sustainable forest burials.
Not all of it will find its way to Germany - also because there are much stricter rules in this country.
Nevertheless, a handful of start-ups are trying to organize funerals of the unconventional kind at the request of customers.
Some companies have also specialized in the increasingly complex topic of digital inheritance and living wills, while others offer all-round services for relatives who are often overwhelmed by organizing a funeral in the midst of their grief.
Emmora is one of those startups.
Its two founders have decided to take the weight of earth away from the subject of burials in Germany.
Victoria Dietrich and Evgeniya Polo formulate their claim about death as a matter of principle, and that more should be said about funerals and their costs.
Your company, with offices in Hamburg and in Berlin's trendy Prenzlauer Berg district, uses its digital platform to refer bereaved relatives to undertakers, musicians and funeral orators or funeral attendants.
Customers virtually book a funeral as an all-inclusive package with individual care.
Victoria Dietrich and Evgeniya Polo from the start-up Emmora
Source: Nathalie Luna Schön
So-called tree burials are particularly popular, says founder Polo in the kitchen of the Berlin office, which is more reminiscent of student flat shares than company headquarters.
Emmora is the 27-year-old's first professional position as boss;
She met co-founder Dietrich, who previously worked for the Maersk shipping company, at a workshop on the Berlin start-up scene in 2018.
At the tree burial, the urn is buried in the roots of a tree in the quiet forest, the trunk is often adorned with a small name plaque.
The funeral in the great outdoors corresponds to the desire of many customers for an environmentally friendly burial, as the two entrepreneurs describe it.
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Those who live sustainably have deceased relatives buried sustainably.
Even the young and savages of the local funeral industry cannot fulfill completely unusual wishes, such as those for a final resting place on the other side of the earth, in space - so far this has only been possible in the USA and Scandinavia.
In return, the rather unconventional desire to incorporate part of the ashes in a diamond can now also be booked in this country.
For legal reasons, however, the implementation - depending on the size of the diamond, usually between 3,000 and 15,000 euros is called - must take place in neighboring Switzerland.
The young industry is likely to derive its greatest advantage less from its hip image and more from the lower costs compared to the range offered by classic undertakers: Because the expensive tombstone is no longer necessary, there is great potential for savings - because this alone often costs 2,000 to 5,000 euros to book.
Additional costs such as cemetery fees or costs for grave maintenance are also eliminated if the cemetery is chosen as the final resting place instead of the cemetery.
And in fact, the trend towards new forms of burial far away from the cemetery has long been reflected in the declining number of church burials: According to the Federal Statistical Office, they made up just under 54 percent in 2018.
Twenty years ago it was almost two thirds.
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