Current Time in Weimar, Germany

Weimar is a historic city in the state of Thuringia in central Germany, situated on the Ilm River approximately 80 kilometers southwest of Leipzig. Despite its modest size, Weimar occupies a place of extraordinary importance in German and European cultural history as the home of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, the greatest writers of German Classicism, and as the site of the Bauhaus, the most influential design school in modern history. The Classical Weimar UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1998, and the Bauhaus and Its Sites, inscribed in 2017 as part of a larger ensemble, confirm the global significance of this small Thuringian city.

With a population of approximately 65,000, Weimar is a small city whose cultural weight is enormous relative to its scale. The Friedrich Schiller University of Jena (nearby) and the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar contribute academic vitality, and the city's museums, parks, and cultural institutions attract visitors from around the world drawn by its unparalleled literary, artistic, and intellectual heritage. Weimar also holds a more somber historical significance as the city that gave its name to the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), Germany's first democratic republic, whose constitution was drafted here, and as the city near which the Buchenwald concentration camp was built by the Nazi regime in 1937.

The history of Weimar as a cultural center is inseparable from the patronage of the Duchess Anna Amalia (regent from 1758 to 1775) and her son Duke Carl August, who made Weimar a magnet for German intellectual and artistic talent. Goethe, invited in 1775, remained for the rest of his life and served as the duke's chief minister while writing his greatest works. Schiller settled in nearby Jena before relocating to Weimar in 1799. The Weimar court attracted Herder, Wieland, and many other leading figures of German intellectual life, creating what became known as Weimar Classicism, the German equivalent of the French Enlightenment's influence on culture and literature.

Goethe's house on the Frauenplan, now the Goethe-Nationalmuseum, is preserved almost exactly as he left it at his death in 1832 and provides an extraordinarily intimate encounter with one of the greatest literary figures in Western civilization. Schiller's house nearby offers a parallel encounter with his shorter but equally remarkable life. The Duchess Anna Amalia Library, with its magnificent Rococo Hall and collection of over a million volumes including Goethe's personal library, is one of the most beautiful libraries in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage monument in its own right.

The Bauhaus, the design school founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919 and forced to move to Dessau in 1925 under political pressure, revolutionized architecture, design, typography, and applied arts through its philosophy of combining fine arts with craft and industrial production. The Bauhaus Museum Weimar, opened in 2019 for the centenary of the school, presents the most comprehensive collection of Bauhaus works and provides an outstanding introduction to this seminal movement. The original Bauhaus building in Weimar and the Haus am Horn, an experimental model house designed by Georg Muche in 1923, are UNESCO World Heritage monuments.

The Ilm Park, a beautiful English landscape garden extending along the Ilm River that Goethe designed and worked on throughout his life, contains Goethe's Garden House, his first Weimar residence, and provides a serene green setting at the heart of the city. The Buchenwald Memorial, located on the Ettersberg hill north of the city, provides a sobering counterpart to Weimar's cultural glory, presenting one of Germany's most important Holocaust memorial sites.

Weimar is connected by rail to Erfurt (approximately fifteen minutes) and Leipzig. The combination of Goethe, Schiller, the Bauhaus legacy, extraordinary library, beautiful park, and the proximity of the Buchenwald Memorial make Weimar one of the most intellectually and morally essential destinations in Germany.