The Allure of Goethe Haus in Frankfurt
And other interesting things about Frankfurt am Main
Friends kept asking why, with so many magnificent cities to visit in Europe, we chose to add Frankfurt am Main, Germany to our itinerary.
This is my first time in Germany — when I first started visiting Europe in the early 80s, family members who’d survived Auschwitz were still alive. I had no interest in supporting a country that caused the death of between . But unlike some countries (eg, France, Austria, and Poland among others), Germany acknowledged the atrocities it committed, made reparations, and continues to prevent all attempts at rewriting history.
Germany also refuses attempts at reviving a far-right agenda. They know all too well what happens when one off-balance leader uses his unfettered power to wreak chaos and destruction in the world.
Our first stop in Germany was Frankfurt am Main, a medium-sized city with a wide river, wonderful architecture, a long, storied history, and some excellent restaurants (loved a little place we stumbled into during a sudden storm called EZIM, near the Willy Brandt Platz subway stop).
We were interested in many famous people with connections to the city like , whose family lived in the Judengasse (ghetto) for generations before he began his banking dynasty, the artist , theologians Franz Rosenzweig and (who was born in Vienna but launched his career here in Frankfurt — I once knew his granddaughter), and philosophers in the like and , Jews who left Germany in 1934 soon after the rise of National Socialism when the writing was already on the wall.
Thanks to the Nazis and their far-right, Jew-hating autocracy, Frankfurt’s greatness diminished, and from 1939–1945, 10,000 Frankfurt Jews were deported or murdered.
Starting in 2003 hundreds of brass plaques were placed (with donations from various organizations and individual contributions) in front of buildings where Jews had lived, each one stating if the person was murdered, disappeared, or escaped to Palestina (which, for those who are unclear about history, was under British control at the time).
We stopped every time we saw a plaque and acknowledged the person memorialized by a city and society that came to terms with the evil it allowed. We saw several on our way to visit the house where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (the great novelist, playwright, science writer, and poet) was born and lived for much of his life.
My personal interest in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) started when I was studying Voice in grad school, singing Schumann and Schubert lieder based on his poetry. Then I attended my first performance of Charles Gounod’s opera, Faust, which is based on the play by Goethe and is German literature’s greatest work of art. Faust also inspired hundreds of other stories about the consequences of making a “deal with the devil,” including one of my favorite shows, Damn Yankees.
I will also admit that I constantly pass the statue of Goethe erected in the 1800s by a group of German Americans in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. The inscription describes him as “The Mastermind of the German People.”
Aside from that sculpture being my prime motivation, I admire Goethe for inspiring thinkers from across a wide spectrum of subjects and because he’s still relevant.
I loved stepping into the past to peek into life, the books on his shelves, and the paintings (some beautiful, others not) on his walls. The furniture (some exquisitely built with mosaic inlay and mother-of-pearl) was hidden in storage during the war, the building was destroyed and later meticulously rebuilt. Each room included a highly decorated, complex iron stove for heating, but no closets.
While we were at Goethe Haus, groups of schoolchildren paraded through the rooms listening to their teachers describe Goethe’s accomplishments. My favorite part was seeing his upright piano, the kind they started making in the 18th century that gave way to what we think of as an upright piano today. It was also powerful to see the room where he was born, his writing desk, and where he ate lunch.
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