The chosen places on the itinerary follow the poet’s journey through life in two ways: on the one hand they are important places regarding his artistic work, and on the other hand, the places are where his personality and his view of the world decisively changed.
At the beginning, he is the son of an army surgeon, who is forced to submit to the Duke’s discipline in order that he himself be trained as an army surgeon. He however feels destined to be a poet, which the Duke rejects, consequently sparking Schiller’s desire for freedom. He deserts the army and flees to Thuringia, where he finds the conditions, that allow him to realise his visions.
In the end Schiller becomes a libertarian poet, who stands for liberty of the individual in need of protection from absolutist arbitrariness.
The journey begins in Marbach, Schiller’s birthplace. His birth house and the Schiller National Museum with the German literature archive are to be found here. In 1766 Schiller experienced his first theatre performances in Ludwigsburg, in the baroque castle with opera house, the largest theatre in Europe at the time. After his escape to Thuringia Schiller lived in Bauerbach under the alias of Dr. Ritter, in the house which today accommodates the Schiller Museum. Nearby the ‘Friedrich Schiller’ meeting place with the “Zum braunen Ross” (“To the Brown Steed”) Restaurant are reminders of the poet, as is the “Friedrich Schiller Open Air Theatre”.
In Meiningen, situated not far away from Bauerbach, you are invited to discover the Baumbachhaus Literature Museum, the “Glamorous world of the stage” Theatrical Museum, the Meiningen Theatre and the Elisabethenburg Castle. The Schiller Footpath from Meiningen to Bauerbach is recommended as a perfect place to walk the path of the great poet. It was in the picturesque Heidecksburg Castle in Rudolstadt that Schiller met the Lengefeld sisters for the first time and in the bell foundry (today unfortunately only to be viewed from the outside) came by the stimuli for “The Song of the Bell”.
In the Leipzig Schiller House in Gohlis Schiller wrote his ‘Ode to Joy’ and in the Schiller Garden in Dresden (downstream from the “Blue Miracle” Bridge) he met the landlord’s daughter, Johanne Justine Segedin, on whom he modelled Gustel of Blasewitz in “Wallenstein’s Camp”. Jena, where Schiller held lectures at the university, is where he lived at the time in the “Summer House”, which can be visited.
Finally Weimar, where Schiller spent the last and most fruitful years of his working life - his house on the Esplanade (today renamed Schiller Street), the German National Theatre with the famous Goethe and Schiller Memorial, where his pieces were first performed, the Anna Amalia Library from which Schiller borrowed a majority of his “reading material”, and the Grand Duchal Vault, the last resting place of Friedrich Schiller.
