Alter St.-Nikolai-Friedhof, Heritage cemetery in Mitte, Germany

Alter St.-Nikolai-Friedhof is a former cemetery by the Nikolaikapelle near Klagesmarkt, used as a park since its closure in 1866. Of 647 gravestones recorded before 1943, 278 remain; many now stand densely grouped in a lapidarium beside the chapel's surviving choir, held upright by iron rods. The poet Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty has a monument with a bronze statue of a mourning youth.

The cemetery was founded in the 13th century outside Hannover's city walls and grew significantly through several plague epidemics between 1348 and 1598. These periods of expansion shaped its current layout and the variety of burial sites found there.

The cemetery keeps the graves of people tied to Hannover's institutions: the poet Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty, whose monument shows a bronze grieving youth, and the writer Wilhelm Blumenhagen with his wife Christine. A brochure from the city's green spaces office lists 37 selected graves, and the numbering of that list is used on the site.

The grounds lie between Klagesmarkt and Goseriede, cut by the Celler Straße and Goseriede roadways; the surviving section is about two-thirds of the former cemetery. Near the choir of the Nikolaikapelle, a lapidarium groups old gravestones held upright by iron rods set into the ground. A brochure from the city's Grünflächenamt lists 37 selected graves.

During World War II, the cemetery's green spaces served as shelter for local residents during air raids on Hannover. This dual role shows how the place contributed to city life during times of crisis.