Garden Cemetery with the Garden Church at left and Marienstraße behind
The Garden Cemetery (German: Gartenfriedhof) is a cemetery in Hanover, Germany. It was created in 1741 and is located by the Garden Church[de] built in 1749. The cemetery and the church are both named after the garden parish outside the former parish city walls in front of Aegidien Gate. The cemetery, which contains a number of classicising grave markers from the first half of the nineteenth century, was closed in 1864 with the establishment of the Stadtfriedhof Engesohde. Today it forms a park in the middle of inner city Hanover. The graves of Charlotte Buff (inspiration of Goethe's "Lotte" in The Sorrows of Young Werther), the astronomer Caroline Herschel and the painter Johann Heinrich Ramberg are located here. The Gartenfriedhof lies on Marienstraße between Warmbüchenstraße and Arnswaldtstraße.
The names Gartenfriedhof and Gartenkirche date to the establishment of the parish and its cemetery in the Garden community in the eighteenth century. At the time, the modern ward of Südstadt lay outside the city walls and the Aegidien Gate and was used by the "Garden folk" (Gartenleute) primarily for growing crops and vegetables for sale in the city of Hanover. Because of their simple homes, called Kates, these farmers were also known as "Garden Cossacks" (Gartenkosaken, punningly derived from cotter). In 1741, the City of Hanover established the "New Churchyard before the Aegidien Gate" (Neuen Kirchhof vor dem Aegidientor) for these people. Between 1746 and 1749 a simple aisle church with a flèche was built by Johann Paul Heumann as well–later to be known as the Gartenkirche. This was replaced by a new building constructed from 1887 to 1891 by the architect Rudolph Eberhard Hillebrand. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Gartenfriedhof was not just used by the Garden folk, but also by townspeople who settled in the nearby Aegidienneustadt from the middle of the eighteenth century: families of officials, soldiers, ministers, professors and councillors, who are commemorated on the stones of the Gartenfriedhof to this day. In their artistic devotion to classicising elements, these grave monuments represent the ethos of the bourgeois class–known in Hannöversch as the "Hübsche families. The grave monuments of this time, like urns, weeping jugs, the snake eating its own tail (symbolising eternity), the butterfly (transformation), and the extinguished torch are found throughout the Gartenfriedhof in numerous variations. There are also works of art, like the gravestone with acanthus flowers and palmettes designed by Georg Ludwig Friedrich Laves for Charlotte Buff or the four sphinxes pulling Kielmannsegge's stone sarcophagus.
Already in the nineteenth century, the Open Grave, subject of numerous horror stories, had developed into an early tourist attraction and a Hanover landmark.
Since the 1950s, the Gartenfriedhof has fallen into serious decay, especially the sandstone gravestones and wrought iron fences. Air pollution and also vandalism and the (ongoing) misuse of the Gartenfriedhof as a dog's toilet have contributed to this. Since the old fence was melted down during the Second World War, the former railing of the Kanalbrücke bridge in the Hanoverian suburb of Vinnhorst was recycled as a fence for the cemetery in 1984. Community efforts by various cultural societies finally led to the protection and refurbishment of the space. As a result, a bronze plaque with a map was installed in the entrance area in the mid-1990s by the Hannover-Leineschloß Rotary club, which makes it possible to find the way to the most distinguished surviving tombs. The numbers on this table are the same as those in literature issued by the Parks and Gardens Office.
In 2011 the group "Renaissance Gartenfriedhof" was founded under the umbrella of the Heimatbund Niedersachsen, from which the charitable organisation "Renaissance Gartenfriedhof e.V." was formed in September 2011. Their goals are:
Improvement of the historic space,
Conservation and restoration of the grave monuments,
Negotiation of sponsorship for individual grave plots,
Cultural use of the Gartenfriedhof for commemoration of the deceased, staged readings, concerts, and dramatic performances,
Exhibition and presentation of the treasures of the Gartenfriedhof and establishment as a tourist destination.
Current sponsorship
The sponsorship of the gravestone of the royal court painter Johann Heinrich Ramberg was taken up by his great-great-great-grandson Jürgen Behrens. The inauguration of the sponsorship occurred on 14 April 2012 in the Gartenfriedhof. Speakers included the historian Alheidis von Rohr, retired SuperintendentDieter Zinßer who is the chairman of Renaissance Gartenfriedhof e.V., and mayor Bernd Strauch. The occasion was celebrated musically with songs from Ramberg's time by Ja-Henrik Behnken (tenor).
Further sponsors were celebrated in the Gartenfriedhof at the beginning of their sponsorships on 10 December 2011. Speakers included Dieter Zinßer and mayor Hans Mönninghoff. It concerned the graves of the following:
Heinrich Andreas Jakob Lutz ("Menschenfressergrab") – Susanne Debus
The sponsorship of the gravestone of Charlotte Henriette Caroline Kestner nee Buff was undertaken by the charity "Ahlers pro Arte". This was celebrated on 24 September 2011, with speakers including Christel Thomczyk who is a fourth generation descendant of Charlotte Kestner, Jan Ahlers on behalf of the society, Dieter Zinßer, Ingeborg Rupprecht and Lord Mayor Stephan Weil. The celebration was enlivened by a brass band performance and short readings from Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit by Moritz Nikolaus Koch of Theater für Niedersachsen.
Grave monuments (selection)
Tomb of Charlotte Kestner (No. 29)Tomb of minister von der Decken (No. 9)Tomb of Georg Wilding, Prince of Butera Radali (No. 28)
On the official table
The numbers match the bronze plaque at the entrance.
Henriette Juliane Caroline von Rüling (1756–1782), whose Open Grave was a civic landmark
Georg Charlotte von Hinüber (1764–1828), Postmaster general, Cabinet minister and Privy Councillor, Major, Diplomat, Auditor of the Chancellery and art historian
Ernst Ludwig Taentzel (also Täntzel, Tänzel, Taenzel) (1791–1845), Mason and Court stonemaster
Johann Georg Taentzel (also Tänzel, Taenzel, Täntzel) (1755–1815), Court and council master mason-architect and stonemason.
Shared tomb of
Georg Friedrich Mühry (1774–1848), important doctor of the first half of the nineteenth century, Upper medical council, Court Doctor, scholarly author (birth date on the tomb is incorrect!)
Ludwig Damm, "Von alten Friedhöfen der Stadt Hannover", edited by Magistrat, Hannover 1914.
Alfred Fuhrmann, "Der Gartenfriedhof in Hannover in geschichtlicher und kunstgeschichtlicher Bedeutung." Hannoverscher Volks-Kalender. vol. 62 (1931), pp.45–51.
Arnold Nöldeke, "Die Kunstdenkmäler der Provinz Hannover". 1: Regierungsbezirk Hannover. Heft 2: Stadt Hannover. Teil 1: Denkmäler des "alten" Stadtgebietes Hannover. Hannover 1932, pp.192–200.
Hinrich Hesse, "Die Grabinschriften des Gartenkirchhofs in Hannover." Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte. vol. 44 (1939), pp. 235–290.
Hans Geiß, "Der Gartenfriedhof", in: Heimatland, 1983, pp.1–3.
Ludwig Wülker, "Die Hannoverschen Friedhöfe im Wandel der Geschichte". Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter, New Series 5 (1939), pp.76–81.
Waldemar R. Röhrbein, "Von Hannovers alten Friedhöfen." In Geschichten um Hannovers Kirchen. Studien, Bilder, Dokumente, edited by Hans Werner Dannowski und Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hannover: Lutherhaus-Verlag 1983, pp.97–102 (auch über den Gartenfriedhof), ISBN3-87502-145-2.
