Germany's cultural summit — where Goethe and Schiller wrote the works that defined the German Enlightenment, Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in 1919 and changed the visual language of the 20th century, the Duchess Anna Amalia Library holds the greatest German literary archive in existence, and the Weimar Republic's democratic constitution was drafted between the ruins of empire and the rise of fascism
Weimar (65,000; metro 210,000) is a small Thuringian city with a cultural density out of all proportion to its size — birthplace of Weimar Classicism (1772–1832), the Bauhaus movement (1919–1925), and the Weimar Republic (1919–1933). Goethe lived and worked here for 57 years until his death in 1832; Schiller lived here 1799–1805 and wrote Wilhelm Tell, his last great play, in Weimar. The Duchess Anna Amalia Library (UNESCO World Heritage, fire-damaged 2004, restored 2007) holds over one million volumes including the world's most comprehensive collection of German literature from the 8th to 19…
Weimar's cultural epoch was initiated by Duchess Anna Amalia (1739–1807), who used the power of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar to attract the greatest intellectuals of the German-speaking world: Goethe (arrived 1775, stayed 57 years), Schiller (1799), Herder (1776), and Wieland (1772). This concentration of genius in a small court city produced Weimar Classicism — the literary and philosophical tradition that shaped European Romanticism. Walter Gropius founded the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar in April 1919 by merging two existing art schools, creating a curriculum integrating fine art, craft, indu…