Weimar

1 - Weimar is a city in Thuringia. At the end of 2022, it had 65,620 residents. It is the fourth-largest city in the state. The city is sometimes also known as the City of Classicism.

2 - Weimar was once the capital of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, which was eventually ruled by grand dukes. The last grand duke abdicated in 1918. The rulers resided in the City Palace in Weimar; until 1945, the Wartburg near Eisenach was also owned by their family.

3 - In 1919, a National Assembly met in Weimar and drew up a democratic constitution for the German Reich. It is called the “Weimar Constitution.” After the Kaiser and all the princes lost their power at the end of the First World War, Germany became the Weimar Republic under this constitution. However, it came to an end as early as 1933, when the dictator Adolf Hitler seized power. The Weimar Constitution enshrined fundamental rights. These included, among other things, the right to express one’s opinion freely. Everyone was given the right to live in a home and decide who could enter it. The privacy of correspondence was now protected; the state could no longer simply read people’s letters. Women were granted the right to vote for the first time.

4 - Weimar is closely associated with the great poets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832) and Friedrich Schiller (1759 - 1805). Goethe came to Weimar in 1775 at the invitation of Duke Carl August. At the time, the city had only 6,000 inhabitants. Goethe became one of the duke’s ministers. Schiller also moved to Weimar in 1799, but died just 6 years later. The homes of both poets have been preserved and are open to visitors. Goethe and Schiller were friends, and a monument to both of them stands in front of the National Theatre in Weimar.

5 - The Anna Amalia Library was named after Duke Carl August’s mother. It is a public library, and also serves as a resource for research and the study of literature. It focuses especially on works from the period between 1750 and 1850, known as the Classical period. In September 2004, a fire caused serious damage to the library.

6 - Just a few kilometres from Weimar, the SS established a concentration camp in 1937. SS is short for “Schutzstaffel”. It was a special organisation founded by the dictator Adolf Hitler. It was used to persecute his political opponents and, above all, Jewish people, imprison them in camps and murder them. Such camps were called concentration camps. Thousands of people were imprisoned here in simple wooden barracks. They had to do hard labour and were given very poor food. Many died of disease; others were murdered and their bodies burned in large ovens. The Buchenwald camp near Weimar was surrounded by 3,500 m of electrified barbed-wire fencing. By the end of the war in 1945, a total of 277,800 people from more than 50 countries had been imprisoned in the camp; about 56,000 died there. When the camp was liberated, about 900 children were among the prisoners.