rebuilding Goethehaus Frankfurt post-WW2

Model of the Goethe House before the renovation in 1775

Frankfurt was hit by a very large air raids of WW2 in March 1944. Av­oid­ing German anti-aircraft defences, 816 British planes dr­op­ped thousands of heavy bombs and 1.2 million incendiary dev­ices. Al­tst­adt-Old Town particularly suffered when the entire quarter was dest­roy­ed down to rubble.

bombed out Al­tst­adt Frankfurt, 1944

Creating the most pain was an elegant 5-storey building that had been the cradle of German culture, home of Jo­hann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Goethe had recalled it was to Goethehaus that he owed his lit­er­ary passion, where he’d learn­ed to love Italy, antiq­uity and nat­ure; where he wrote some of his most famous works including Faust.

This house had been bombed in 1943 by the British but the blaze was contained. Luckily prisoners of war ensured a temporary roof protecting the house. The next British bomb in 1944 was much wor­­se when nothing was left ex­cept the cellar, foundations and one fra­g­ile wall. The German press expl­od­ed with anger, describing the bomb­ing as terr­orism. Rhein-Mainishe Zei­t­ung claimed that in dest­roy­ing this part of the civilised world, the Allies comm­itted an outrag­eous assault on the German soul that demanded revenge.
                                       

Ernst Beutler and colleague

sitting in the rubble of Goethehaus

Ernst Beutler (1885-1960), historian, Goe­t­he resear­ch­er and Goethehaus Direc­t­or, had already fore­seen the danger, and began safe­guarding the house in 1939 by moving paintings to safety. By 1943 the entire lib­rary had been crated & shipped. Beutler was as careful with the building, having detailed architectural draw­ings prep­ared and photo­graphs taken.

Once the Free German Foundation, which ran Goethe­haus, had given its approval in Apr 1944, Beutler launched an awareness campaign: leaflets, newsletters and vol­un­teer lists. Hav­ing devoted much of his career to Goet­he’s memory, re­con­str­uct­ion seemed mandatory.

Alas others thought diff­erently. Post-war Germany, now occupied and divided, was no longer the nation it had been. As people strugg­led to come to terms with the Third Reich, guilt began to grow. Though most were anxious to put the Nazi years behind them, it was a rare person who didn’t value Germany’s cul­tural past.

Post-war, Eugen Blanck & Werner Hebebrand were app­oint­ed Frank­furt City Planning Office’s new chiefs. Committed mod­ern­ists, they focused on affordable housing, deter­mined to rebuild Frankfurt al­ong functional, egal­itarian lines. Anticipating a bitter struggle with­in the City Council and with Beutler, they created a survey of lead­ing architects who opposed reconstruction, and started a new press campaign

Even Germany’s most prominent writers and artists, who shared a deep admiration for Goethe’s works and referred to his Frank­furt years with pride, were concerned about what rebuilding Goethehaus would mean post-war. Poet Reinhold Schneider saw hero-worship. A leading anti-war figure, Schneider’s works were banned by the Third Reich and he became the Conscience of the Nation. He det­ected in Beu­t­ler’s plan a cultish hint, like the adulation piled on Hitler. If West Ger­m­any was to rise from the ashes, Schneider thought it vital to rescue the German spirit from itself.

Modernist architect Otto Bartning said Beutler’s promise of a faithful rec­onst­ru­c­tion was a dev­ious commitment. Since Goethe’s father remodelled it, building methods had changed, new materials were introd­uced and regulations were tightened. Even with a large budget, Beut­ler could only produce an imitation. Lack of authenticity made Beut­l­er’s plan a giant lie, dec­eiving the public with a false im­age of the past. Giv­en all that Germ­any had exper­ienced since 1933, this was the opposite of what was needed.

Many worried about costs. Philosopher Dolf Sternberger strug­g­led to justify sp­ending money  so many were home­less. Since history was less valuable than the lives of ord­inary cit­iz­­ens, they should have erected a simple Goethe memorial on the rubble. What might I have said, had the Melbourne Shrine or Sydney Harbour Bridge been bombed?

Beutler thought it easiest to go be­hind the Planning Off­ice! But when he heard Blanck and Hebebrand, it was clear that a sneaky app­roach was inappropriate. So he began writ­ing to polit­ic­ians, writ­ers and scholars for supp­ort. His appeals were elegant and charm­ing, diff­erent from his oppon­ents’ rants. They suc­­c­­eed­ed! With­in weeks Beut­ler received help from industrialist Richard Mert­on, Soc­ial Democratic polit­ician Kurt Schumacher and nov­elist Ernst Wiechert.

The most important backing came from Hermann Hesse. With his friend Thomas Mann, 1929 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, Hesse domin­ated German liter­at­ure. Hesse’s novels won him the Nobel Prize for Lit­erat­ure in 1946. Though he remained in Swiss exile, Hesse had devoted his career to explor­ing the individual’s quest for auth­en­ticity. But he was not an uncrit­ical Goethe fan. Goethe was the blight of Hesse’s intell­ectual life, boring, pompous and drunk, even though he regarded Goethe as an important writ­er for the post-war era. Hesse was ac­utely aware that there were other more pressing needs in Germany but he was still convinced that Beutler’s plan was a vital enterprise. It wasn’t just that Goethehaus had represented the loss of some­thing beautiful. Rather it was so import­ant in its potential to force present/future people to think  critically.

Goethehaus today

Hesse’s intervention was decisive. In Apr 1947 Beutler won City Council approval to re-build Old Goe­t­hehaus. Blan­ck and Hebebrand were hor­r­ified. 3 months later André Gide (French Nobel Prize winner in Lit­er­at­ure 1947) pres­id­ed over laying the found­ations. Mayor Walt­er Kolb saw the house as a place of peace and sp­ir­it­ual underst­and­ing between nations. 2 years later, Goethehaus triumph­antly reop­en­ed. 

Goethe's library rebuilt

Beut­ler received the 1960 Goethe Prize for rebuilding of Goethehaus. He died in Frankfurt that year.