Goethetafel (Johanngeorgenstadt)
The Goethe plaque in the former main post office in Johanngeorgenstadt commemorates the visit of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in August 1785.
Goethe in Johanngeorgenstadt
In a letter of August 18, 1785 to Charlotte von Stein , the 36-year-old Goethe described his stay in Johanngeorgenstadt and the surrounding area:
“ Finally here six hours from Carlsbad , on the way to you again my lover, my friend, the only security in my life. What is everything else, what is each other human creature? The more I get to know you, the more I see that there is nothing left for me to look for in the world, that I have found everything in you.
d. The princess left 13th, we still had very pleasant hours. The Brühls went on the 14th and I went the day before yesterday and looked around in Joachimsthal . Darbes made us a lot of fun.
If I had known you in Weimar, I would have had little joy in everything, my soul is looking for you in Kochberg and often rushes over to you.
Edelsheim came the last few days, I almost let myself be persuaded to stay. Because he is at home in matters of state and economy and in the solitude where he has no one talkative and detailed, in two days we have already talked about something right through. Tomorrow I'm going to Schneeberg , look around underground, as I did here, then I'll hurry home. When I meet you what a joy. "
In addition to his visits to underground mines, on the evening of August 16, 1785, Goethe also attended the funeral of Susanna Margaretha von Rochow (widowed Wegely from the well-known Berlin family) at the Johanngeorgenstadt cemetery. The wife of Friedrich Ludewig von Rochow from Berlin died during Goethe's stay in Karlsbad. Her body was transferred to Johanngeorgenstadt and buried here in the first Protestant town across the border. Her tomb has been preserved to this day.
Goethe plaque as a reminder
The bronze plaque was put up on June 3, 1911 by the hotel owner and city councilor Carl Truckenbrodt in the hallway of his “Hotel de Saxe” (since 1914 “Sachsenhof” ) on the market square of Johanngeorgenstadt as a permanent reminder of Goethe's stay . It shows a portrait of Goethe and an extract from the above-mentioned letter to Charlotte von Stein .
As a visible sign of his loyalty to the Erzgebirgsverein , Carl Truckenbrodt presented the Goethe plaque to the Johanngeorgenstadt branch association with the provision that it should be erected as a memorial in a suitable place if his house would no longer be used as a hotel. Before the building was demolished in November 1953, the plaque was removed and placed in the stairwell of the new main post office in New Town, which was inaugurated in November 1954.
Post office
The Goethe plaque was installed in the Sachsenhof hotel on the north side of the market square, suggesting that Goethe had stayed in the previous building. In fact, however, he took up his quarters with the post office and mayor Johann Friedrich Baumann, who owned a spacious house on the market square, which at that time served as a post house where travelers could spend the night.
After Baumann's death in 1797, the glazier August Heinrich Gruner was appointed his successor, after he had already helped the sick postmaster and his wife with the handling of the postal business. The building passed into the possession of Gruner a little later, remained the post office of Johanngeorgenstadt without interruption until 1855 and was destroyed in a city fire in August 1867 along with all other houses on the market. When the old town was demolished in 1953, a new building at the same location was the only building on Markt 6 that remained.
literature
- Manfred Blechschmidt : Goethe with us in Johanngeorgenstadt and Schneeberg: How it was and how it could have been. Aue: Rockstroh, 2006.
- Wolfgang Möhrig-Marothi : Miriquidis Raunen , Sosa, 2001, pp. 79–82.
- Jörg Brückner : Riddle about Goethe's quarters solved. Enlightened for the 345th day of the city's foundation. In 1785, Dichterfürst lived in a building that has been preserved to this day . In: Freie Presse , local editions Aue and Schwarzenberg, 37 (1999), No. 46.
- Kurt Burkhardt: Goethe visited Johanngeorgenstadt 200 years ago . In: Erzgebirgische Heimatblätter 7 (1985), H. 5, P. 128-130.
- Friedrich H. Hofmann : Postal history of Johanngeorgenstadt: With short Darst. D. City history. Schwarzenberg: philatelist verb. in the Kulturbund d. GDR, District Executive, 1983.
