Goethe National Museum (Weimar)

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The museum entrance

The Goethe National Museum is a museum in Weimar operated by the Weimar Classic Foundation . The Goethe National Museum includes the former home of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), including a garden and an extension.

history

Goethe's house
Goethe's study

The Goethe National Museum was founded on August 8, 1885 in the form of a foundation in Weimar . The occasion was the death of Goethe's last grandson, Walther von Goethe . According to his will, the property and collections of the poet were transferred to the Grand Ducal House and the so-called Goethe House on Frauenplan , built in 1709, including the garden, was opened as the “Goethe National Museum”. In this way, what was planned for 1842/43 was realized, at that time as part of an initiative by the German princes under the leadership of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV (decision of the German Bundestag in Frankfurt am Main, September 9, 1842) to found the first German national museum at all.

After the formation of the State of Thuringia in 1920, the Goethe National Museum, along with a number of other buildings in Weimar from the “classical” period and the Weimar castles, became the property of the state. In the 1920s, other buildings in Weimar were assigned to the Goethe National Museum. In 1953 these were transferred to the National Research and Memorial Centers for Classical German Literature in Weimar (NFG). In October 1991 the NFG facilities, including the Goethe National Museum, were transferred to the Weimar Classic Foundation , which was merged with the Weimar Art Collections in 2003 and has since been part of the Weimar Classic Foundation since 2006 . In addition to the head office, the foundation manages a total of 22 historical houses and museums in the entire city of Weimar and beyond.

In Goethe's house on Frauenplan, the living quarters restored by Goethe himself and his wife Christiane after being destroyed in the war (bombing raid on February 9, 1945) , the reconstructed study and the poet's library, the reception and art collection rooms and the house garden can be viewed.

Extension

Spiral staircase in the extension (Architects Fischer / Fromm, 1999)

history

The permanent exhibitions of the Goethe National Museum are presented in a "collection building" added to Goethe's house on Seifengasse in 1913/14 and expanded in 1934/35.

The extension from 1935 is now considered to be the first new museum building in National Socialist Germany; Its construction was made possible by the 'self-nazification' (Georg Bollenbeck) important representatives of the Weimar cultural elite, including the long-time museum director Hans Wahl (1885-1949, in office since 1918), who succeeded after persistent advertising attempts, which had been formulated before 1933 Adolf Hitler proposed a plan for an extension building. Hitler supported the building of the museum and was venerated as its founder. These circumstances were consistently denied after 1945, first by Hans Wahl himself, and are still not disclosed to the visitor today.

Permanent exhibitions

In the new museum building there were several successive permanent exhibitions, until 1958 the one by Hans Wahl from 1935, only slightly modified, then two exhibitions on Marxist literary studies (1960 and 1982), with which the Goethe Museum rose to become the largest literary museum in the GDR and as such was advertised.

From 1999, the year Weimar was named European Capital of Culture , until October 20, 2008, there was a permanent exhibition entitled “Repeated Reflections - Weimar Classic 1759-1832”, which looked at the Weimar Classic as a whole.

Since August 2012 a new permanent exhibition has been shown under the title “Floods of Life - Storm of Acts” , which is dedicated to various thematic chapters of Goethe's life and work.

collection

The basis of the museum's holdings is made up of Goethe's art and natural science collections and his library, as well as around 2000 personal drawings. Today the inventory comprises around 100,000 pieces with a focus on Weimar Classics . An inventory was made by Johann Christian Schuchardt as early as the middle of the 19th century .

Support association

The Goethe National Museum is supported by its own sponsorship association, the Friends of the Goethe National Museum eV

literature

(in chronological order)

  • Robert Keil: The Goethe National Museum in Weimar. Huschke, Weimar 1886 ( digitized version of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library ).
  • Louis Held : Goethe's home in Weimar. 20 views from the Goethe National Museum. Weissbach, Weimar 1886 ( digitized version of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library ).
  • Goethe National Museum (Ed.): Guide through the collection extension of the Goethe House. 2nd Edition. G. Uschmann, Weimar 1922, DNB 573180113 .
  • Hans Wahl : The Goethehaus am Frauenplan - A guide through the historical rooms. Leipziger Verlagsdruckerei, Leipzig 1932, DNB 576854441 .
  • Goethe National Museum (Ed.): Short guide through the extension of the Goethe National Museum. Goethe National Museum, Weimar 1937, DNB 573176027 .
  • Dieter Eckardt: Treasures from Goethe's art collection. (= Accompanying volume to the exhibition of the same name in the Lower Rhine Museum of the City of Duisburg, May 12, 1987 to June 21, 1987). Niederrheinisches Museum, Duisburg 1987, DNB 871504626 .
  • Dieter Eckardt, Willy Handrick: Goethe National Museum, Weimar. Edition Leipzig, Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-361-00211-7 .
  • Jochen Klauss: Goethe's house in Weimar - A tour in stories. Weimar Classics, Weimar 1991, ISBN 3-7443-0097-8 .
  • Oliver Hamm: The stairs in the Goethe National Museum. Circle, Berlin 1999, DNB 973678186 .
  • Caroline Gille (Ed.): The Goethe National Museum in Weimar. (= Vernissage. Volume 7, No. 8). Vernissage Verlag, Heidelberg 1999, DNB 956499724 .
  • Stefan Matuschek: Museum as a Transfer Project - On Science and Public Interest in Goethe. In: The gate. Publications of the Friends of the Goethe National Museum. 15th year, booklet 9. Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library, Frankfurt am Main 2008, pp. 15–28 ( online ).
  • Wolfgang Holler, Kristin Knebel (eds.): Goethe's house. Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Weimar 2011, ISBN 978-3-7443-0152-7 .
  • Wolfgang Holler: Floods of life - storm of action. (= Companion volume to the permanent exhibition of the same name in the Goethe National Museum). Klassik-Stiftung, Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-7443-0154-1 .
  • Paul Kahl: The Invention of the House of Poets. The Goethe National Museum in Weimar - A cultural history. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1635-5 .
  • Paul Kahl: The Goethe National Museum in Weimar. Volume 1: The Goethe House in the 19th century. Documents. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1636-2 .
  • Paul Kahl: The Goethe National Museum in Weimar. Volume 2: Goethe House and Goethe Museum in the 20th Century. Documents. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-8353-1637-9 .

Web links

Commons : Goethe National Museum  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See pictures of destruction. Weimar 1945. Photos by Günther Beyer. Catalog for the special exhibition in the Stadtmuseum 2015. P. 34–41
  2. ^ House chronicle of the Goethe National Museum. In: Klassik-Stiftung.de. Retrieved January 3, 2020 .
  3. ^ Henry Bernhard: Hitler supported the building of the Goethe National Museum. In: DeutschlandfunkKultur.de. August 19, 2015, accessed January 2, 2020 .
  4. ↑ "Floods of Life - Storm of Action" - Goethe National Museum is reopened with a new exhibition. In: Klassik-Stiftung.de. August 27, 2012, accessed January 2, 2020 .
  5. ↑ life floods - deeds storm. In: Klassik-Stiftung.de. Accessed January 2, 2020 .
  6. ^ Johann Christian Schuchardt: Goethe's art collections. First part: copperplate engravings, woodcuts, etchings, black art sheets, lithographs and steel engravings, hand drawings and paintings. 352 pages. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1848. ( digitized from the Internet archive ) - Johann Christian Schuchardt u. A .: Goethe's art collections. Second part: cut stones, bronzes, medals, coins; Working in marble, ivory and wood; antique vases and terracottas, plaster casts, majolica etc. A. 370 pages. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1848. ( digitized from the Internet archive) - Johann Christian Schuchardt with Walther Wolfgang von Goethe , Wolfgang Maximilian von Goethe : Goethe's art collections. Third part: Mineralogical and other scientific collections. 297 pages. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1849. ( digitized from the Internet archive)

Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 39.2 "  N , 11 ° 19 ′ 43.3"  E