[2] Due to its status as one of the most important landscape parks in the Berlin metropolitan area, along with the large amount of historically valuable tombs and other buildings which include the landmark wooden chapel, the cemetery was designated as a place of special importance and a protected area by the state of Brandenburg in 1982.

It was decided by Berlin City Synodal Association, comprising parishes of the Protestant Church of the older provinces of Prussia in Berlin and the surrounding area, that a large cemetery on the outskirts should have to be established and finally acquired a large piece of land outside the city limits which included an area of around 156 hectares in size, partly covered with pine trees in a wooded area, in the southwest of Berlin, between the Parforceheide forests in the north and west, the new Potsdamer Landstrasse in the south and the municipality of Stahnsdorf in the east.

The cemetery was consecrated on March 28, 1909, and the first burial took place on April 8; a retired teacher named Elisabeth Wenzlewski.

The wooden interior houses Art Nouveau stained glass windows and a pipe organ built by Wilhelm Sauer.

[3] In 1928, a railway built between Wannsee and Stahnsdorf, and a special train station was inaugurated on the forecourt of the cemetery for the purpose of transporting the coffins, along with the mourners, families of the deceased and visitors.

Since 1991, the Protestant Church invested more than 6 million Euros for the conservation of cemetery site and associated facilities, along with the rehabilitation of the chapel, funerary monuments and mausoleums.

[9] The gothic setting of the burial ground and grave monuments in the attractive forest-like landscape has made the Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery a backdrop for film shoots on various occasions, particularly the area around the chapel and the mausoleum of the Caspary family.