The first station on the current site, a temporary building that served the line to Lehrte, was erected in 1843.

The route built between 1875 and 1879 became the model for the Berlin Stadtbahn and similar projects in other German cities.

[4] The new station building was designed by Hubert Oswald Stier in the Renaissance Revival style.

'rabbit line') – a branch line planned in 1913 from the Heath Railway from Langenhagen via Großburgwedel to Celle: from May 1938 trains could run directly between Hamburg and southern Germany without running through Lehrte; it was no longer necessary for trains to reverse in Hanover.

In the timetable of summer 1939, Hanover station had a total of 144 scheduled long-distance arrivals and departures.

On 13 June 1945, passenger services ran for the first time after the war to Minden, Nienburg and Göttingen.

Passenger services again ran from Hanover to Bremerhaven, Duisburg, Hamelin, Göttingen, Braunschweig and Uelzen.

On 15 August 1946, Hanover was again served for the first time after the war by the Nord Express running from Paris by Berlin and thus reconnected to the international long-distance network.

After the severe bomb damage, the reconstruction of the entrance building began in the summer of 1948, resulting in a facade with newly designed interiors and the remaining steel work of the roofs of the old halls was removed and the platforms were covered by temporary wooden canopies.

The middle entrance was widened, the side pedestrian tunnel was closed and the platforms received new canopies.

[7] Upon completion, two tracks were blocked from 1970 to 1975, through which the Stadtbahn tunnel and an overlying pedestrian level were built.

With the introduction of the Intercity network in 1971, Hanover became a transfer hub, where it was possible to change between IC trains on the same platform.

[8] With a total of 323 arrivals and departures of regularly scheduled long-distance trains, the station was the fourth most-important junction in the Deutsche Bundesbahn network in the summer 1989 timetable.

The system, which cost about 100 million marks, was designed to control about 5,000 trains and shunting movements each day, 279 sets of points and 535 signals by ten dispatchers.

[10] The station was the most important node in Deutsche Bahn network in the summer 1996 timetable, with 398 arrivals and departures of regularly scheduled long-distance trains each day.

Among other things, a 7,000 m2 (75,000 sq ft) shopping area was built in the entrance building after the relocation of the ticket office and the closure of the system for transporting baggage.

Between the summer of 2004 and the spring of 2006, the passageway in the basement was extensively modernised and adapted to become part of the Niki-de-Saint-Phalle-Promenade from Kröpcke to Raschplatz.

There is a wide variety of outlets in the 20,000 m2 (215,000 sq ft) of retail space on two levels, and most stores are open to 10 pm on weekdays.

Hannover Hauptbahnhof is served by some 622 trains daily, excluding the Hanover Stadtbahn and tramway.