At the end of Goethe has made his law doctorate in Strasbourg. The more time he spent but in the middle of Sessenheim, in his Beloved. The town in the Alsace region, is happy to profit from it.
He has celebrated. He has fallen in love with. With the beginning of Twenty spent, Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe at the behest of the father a year in Strasbourg and the surrounding area. He should improve his French and continue to study law. And took – as in Leipzig – everything that the student life ready for him. “That was his Erasmus year”, says the Strasbourg tourist guide Annie Dumoulin.
Friederike Brion remained unmarried her entire life
In the autumn, met Goethe, in about 40 kilometers away in the nearby village of Sessenheim, the pastor’s daughter Friederike Brion. And spent now more time with her than with legal studies. He rode to the Beloved and wrote: “It’s my heart beat; swiftly to horse!” (“Welcome and farewell”).
Almost 250 years ago, and in Sessenheim is unforgettable. The place on the French side of the Rhine has brought out the love idyll out what is going on. So far, there is a Goethe memorial Goethe-hill, and oak, a Goethe Hiking trail. Of course streets named after the two. And Friederike is also the name patron of the school.
“Sessenheim, Goethe,” says Dumoulin. Anyone who parks in the middle of the place with a German flag and a short umguckt, immediately gets the story of Goethe and “his love” tells the story. Unsolicited.
Even a Goethe-barn in Sessenheim
The love idyll fascinated generations
Has benefited from the love life of the German poet, the “Auberge au Boeuf”. The family cultivates since the 1890’s a private Goethe collection. In the window of the exhibition room there is a bust of the author stands. Behind it, on the other side of the street, the Church. There Friederike’s father once delivered his sermons, with Goethe among the listeners: “Where I was not because, of their (Friederike) side, a somewhat dry sermon of the father too long,” he wrote in the autobiographical work “poetry and truth”.
In the Evangelical Lutheran Church was Friederike’s father as a pastor
A first edition of the book is pitched in a showcase of the Museum. In addition, a hodgepodge of ancient Treasures: letters, a library Leihzettel of Goethe, Bible editions of 1589 and 1656. On the walls-and-White shots of the place, ancient maps of the Rhine level, a gallery with the most famous women from Goethe’s love life hanging Black.
Has compiled the collection of Wilhelm Gillig – a master carpenter, “was fascinated by this story of the Liebesidylls,” says Christiane Charneau about your great-uncle. The 66-Year-old has operated the “Auberge au Boeuf” even in the third Generation and, in the meantime, your son made.
Christiane Charneau in the private Goethe-Museum the guest house
She has guests from the black forest who come every year to Goethe’s birthday. “There are Goethe-Fans, so right,” says the Alsace region.
Just a few steps from the restaurant and Church, the city has built a memorial. In front of the small Canopy, a group of older gentlemen in biker Dress to get into Position for a photo. Your next destination: Meißenheim, on the German side of the Rhine. “Because Goethe is said to have had a mistress,” whispers one of the cyclists. In fact, it is but Friederike, which was held in meißen, home of their last years, and there buried.
The Goethe-Gedenkstätte in Sessenheim
At the end of the village of Sessenheim Friederikens rest is “” – a clearing, walked to the love couple regularly, and where the “Heather rose” to be created. “We have always said “the Goethe-hill”, because this is the only hill here,” recalls Charneau. The “hill” is more of a small elevation in the otherwise flat Land, where you can already see from a distance, through fields of grain across the onion tower of the Church. The city has constructed a rough wooden pavilion, he has the charm of a mountain refuge for hikers.
High in Strasbourg
Unlike in Sessenheim you have to search in Strasbourg, his place of study, according to the traces of Goethe. In front of the University there is a Statue in the Botanical garden there is a bust, the former home of the Old fish market, a plaque hangs – that’s it.
Strasbourg Cathedral, one of the most important cathedrals of Europe
Guest leader Dumoulin on to say: “don’t Tell me that there is a lot about him.” Goethe was, after all, the only writer in the city with a Statue! Was fascinated Goethe from the Strasbourg Cathedral. In “poetry and truth” he has devoted himself extensively to the building on which the tower is to be regularly increased, in order to combat his fear of heights.
In 1771 Goethe returned, as planned, his doctoral examination and has traveled. The love story between the girl from the Land and the man who should be one of the most important German Poet to be ended. “Even if he was madly in love with you,” says Dumoulin. “But you don’t just fit into his career plans.”
Eight years later, Goethe made a detour to Sessenheim. But: “Le charme était rompu,” says Charneau – the spell was broken.
Claudia Korn Meier (dpa)