Sounds like Karl Ernst was afraid of being buried alive? I empathize; as a child, ever since I read my first Edgar Allen Poe story on that subject, I spend a couple of years being afraid to wake up in my own coffin...

Um, I'm remembering that I read through the description of his funeral procession, and I seem to recall there was some ceremony. Ghost!Fritz waves sadly.

And Karl Ernst didn't even have the chance to be an abusive uncle to his nephew. Poor guy. Otoh, he also didn't get the funeral he wanted some centuries later, so there's that.