Goethe-Haus

Goethe-Haus, name given to two houses associated with Goethe, one in Frankfurt am Main and the other in Weimar. The poet was born in the Frankfurt house (Grosser Hirschgraben 23) in 1749 and lived there until 1775; it was acquired by his grandmother in 1733, and rebuilt and enlarged by his father in 1755. His mother sold it in 1795, but in 1863 the Freies Deutsches Hochstift acquired it, restored it to its 1755 condition and opened it as a museum. It was severely damaged in 1944 and subsequently rebuilt using original materials as far as possible.

The Goethe-Haus in the centre of Weimar (Am Frauenplan) was Goethe's home from 1782 until his death fifty years later. Rented at first, the house was bought for him in 1794 by Duke Karl August. Goethe occupied it with Christiane Vulpius (see Goethe, Christiane) and it remained in the family until the death of his last descendant in 1885, when it reverted to the Duchy. It has always been one of Weimar's major attractions, and its contents, which survived the war unscathed, represent many aspects of Goethe's personal, professional and creative life.