Ernst von Stein

Gottlob Ernst von Stein (born September 30, 1767 , † June 14, 1787 in Wildenthal ) was a hunting page at the court in Weimar and a young friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

Life

Ernst von Stein is the second of three sons of Charlotte von Stein and Freiherr Gottlob Ernst Josias Friedrich von Stein. At the age of 13 he became a squire of Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar . He suffered from bone tuberculosis that developed into painful pulmonary tuberculosis. As a result, he returned to his parents' house at Christmas 1785.

On August 8, 1786, Charlotte von Stein wrote: Goethe is still looking after my little Fritz, which strengthens our sense of togetherness. Karl is unhappy with his studies and has debts and Ernst is seriously ill. The inevitable is certain: he has bone cancer and there is no longer any help. The evils are nice at times on his neck! He has the advantage that he does not need to come back from the madness of youth, since nature, it seems, sends him out early. I also went back to Karlsbad for a cure. Goethe said I should take it seriously, but I preferred to go alone. The dear privy councilor really cares about my family and me: he sought the advice of several doctors and took care of Ernst and tried to cheer him up. He is also very concerned for my health.

When his illness improved in the spring of 1787, his parents took him and his younger brother Fritz (Goethe's foster son) on a trip to Karlsbad for a cure , which Goethe also advocated. The party came about Zwickau after Schneeberg , where the state of Ernst suddenly deteriorated acutely. The Stein family sent a messenger to Karlovy Vary to fetch porters for help.

Watercolor, Wildenthal around 1830, in the foreground the Hammerherrenhaus - place of death of Ernst von Stein

On June 14, 1787, the journey continued on Poststrasse via Eibenstock . The journey ended in the small village of Wildenthal , a few kilometers from the Hirschenstander Pass to Bohemia , where Ernst was killed in the manor house of the hammer mill owner Gottschald. The Hammerherr made his hereditary funeral available at the cemetery in Eibenstock, where the body of the 20-year-old was buried on June 18, 1787 at 9 p.m. The mourning bells of the town church rang for an hour. Four shift supervisors and 24 miners paid their last respects to the deceased in the presence of the grieving von Stein family. Out of gratitude, Charlotte gave Gottschald a couple of silver candlesticks, which were shown to Karl von Stein when he visited the place where his younger brother died in June 1834.

literature

• Wolfgang Möhrig-Marothi : Miriquidis Raunen , Volume 3 A New Harvest , Scheßlitz, Wilfried Diller, 1993, No. 269.