With reunification, Berlin state law was consolidated. The existing West Berlin cemetery law was now applicable to the cemeteries in the eastern part of the city as well.
On Nov. 1, 1995, the Berlin House of Representatives enacted a new cemetery law applicable to all public cemeteries in Berlin: the Law on State-Owned and Non-State-Owned Cemeteries.
The Cemetery Law e.g. establishes a minimum repose time of twenty years, introduces cemetery-development planning, enables nonprofit religious and philosophical communities that are not statutory associations to be granted the sovereign right of burial under certain circumstances, and contains a separate section on the environment and nature conservation.
The existing excess of cemetery space is to be met by the Senate Department for Urban Mobility, Transport, Climate Action and the Environment with measures that are to be presented in an area-specific cemetery development plan (in German).