Gartenfriedhof

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 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.

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.

Speakers included the historian Alheidis von Rohr, retired Superintendent Dieter Zinßer who is the chairman of Renaissance Gartenfriedhof e.V., and mayor Bernd Strauch.

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.