Dying for a living - the job of a mortician

By Christina Sticht Nov 17, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Berlin - 'How in heaven could you do that?' is usually the first reaction Lukas Bente gets when he reveals his profession to a stranger.

Bente is a trainee undertaker in northern Germany.

'There are prejudices against funeral directors. Many people think it's an abnormal job,' says the 22-year-old. Bente works in his father's business. He wanted to become a mortician because of the challenge in dealing appropriately with grieving families and because of the many tasks it entails.

'We don't sit around all day in the office. Nor do we spend our time digging graves or transporting dead people around the place.' Bente is getting practical experience in the family funeral home in the town of Sarstedt, but also travels to the mortician school in Springe to receive formal instruction.

The job of undertaker has been recognized as an official trade in Germany for the past five years. In 2010, the country introduced the profession of Master Undertaker.

'It's a job that comes with an awful lot of responsibility,' says Rolf Lichtner, general secretary of Germany's Association of Morticians. 'Undertakers are becoming a little like event managers. People who are not religious and don't go to church expect undertakers to organize a ritual for the funeral.'

In Germany, there are no preconditions to opening an undertakers but the business is becoming increasingly competitive and qualifications ever more important. Lichtner says about 170 apprentices are taken on every year by Germany's 3,800 funeral homes.

In the central German town of Munnerstadt there is even a special graveyard where young morticians can practice burials - the only one of its kind in Europe. 'It's a highly sought after profession. For every trainee position we have 20 applications,' says Lichtner.

There are 14 men and women studying to become morticians in Bente's class. None of them has come to the job with any reservations. 'I found the profession interesting and I asked myself how I would deal with it. You can't allow yourself to get too involved. It's very sad when a young person dies,' says 19-year-old Damon Przytarski.

Although they are only at the beginning of their careers, the daily task of dealing with death has changed their lives. 'You learn how to enjoy things more intensely,' says Bente.

Among the topics for study in Springe are accounting, the legal aspects of undertaking, international law connected with transporting bodies to other jurisdictions as well as the rites and customs of different religions. They also study the tools of the trade, such as coffins, urns and funeral clothing.

In recent years the culture of mourning has changed in Germany. Funerals have become more personal, often more colourful.

'As private business people, funeral directors are usually better able to cater for individual needs. A priest, on the other hand, is confined to certain structures,' says Alexander Helbach, spokesman for the consumer funeral watchdog association in Germany. Helbach believes morticians are profiting from the change in attitudes by extending their services into organizing funeral orators or funeral halls for families of the dead.

At the same time, profit margins are being squeezed. The demand for expensive oak wood coffins is falling. Cremation and urn burials make up about half of all funerals in Germany with hardly anyone opting for an expensive coffin anymore.

But it's unlikely that the trainees studying in Springe have gone into the business to get rich.

Undertaker Maximilian Pieper says it has more to do the trainees' own experiences in the trade: 'There was once a 20-year-old man who died in a motorbike accident. His family chose a simple coffin, the cheapest we had. Family and friends painted the coffin and stuck pictures on it. It looked so beautiful.'