Updated on October 31, 2024 by Angelika

November 12, 2023 is Schiller Sunday in Marbach. Every year, Marbach celebrates its most famous son for a week around Schiller's birthday. Friedrich Schiller was born on November 10, 1759 in the small town at the Neckar river. So what could be more natural than traveling to Marbach for my 12 of 12 in November, especially as the town of Schiller is only 46 km away from my home in Sindelfingen. Besides, I haven't been there for at least 20 years.

On my parents' bookshelf was a five-volume thin-print edition of Schiller's Collected Works published by the Deutscher Bücherbund, a very popular German book club in the 1960s to 80s. As a result, I voluntarily memorized some of Schiller's poems at an early age - even before they were on the school curriculum. I had good access to Schiller's poetry: "... From the heated brow | Sweat must freely flow, | That the work may praise the Master, | Though the blessing comes from higher. I understood that. Credo of the boomer generation: no pain, no gain. No wonder my life as an employee ended in burnout ...

My route first took me to the Schillerhöhe, is home to the most important complex of literary museums in Germany with Schiller National Museum, Museum of Modern Literature and German Literature Archive. Researchers from all over the world travel here to study texts and documents of modern German literature from Schiller to the present day.

The poet and his museum: The Schiller National Museum is currently closed and is due to reopen with a new permanent exhibition in fall 2024 [Update October 2024: The museum will not reopen until May 2025]. Until then, the old permanent exhibition "Schiller, Hölderlin, Kerner and Mörike", including Luise Duttenhofer's silhouettes, has been moved to the Museum of Modern Literature.

The Museum of Modern Literature, which opened 17 years ago, was designed by David Chipperfield Architects. After years of legal disputes over construction defects, it is now being renovated. The exhibitions continue, but from the outside the museum is currently not a feast for the eyes ...

In the permanent exhibition "Schiller, Hölderlin, Kerner, Mörike", which has been moved from the Schiller National Museum to the Museum of Modern Literature for the duration of the renovation, I see interesting personal objects belonging to Schiller, such as the ring with a satyr that he is said to have worn during his escape from Stuttgart to Mannheim, and learn that he traveled under the false name "Dr. Ritter", as can be seen from a book loan slip ...

In the LiMo Luise Duttenhofer's reading scenes are presented, in which she captured the reading types of the 19th century. Here Friedrich Schiller sticks his nose deep into a book. Waiblingen-born silhouette artist Luise Duttenhofer (1776 - 1829) portrayed the celebrities of the 18th and 19th centuries in her works.

Until April 7, 2024, the Museum of Modern Literature is presenting digitized manuscripts from Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's Meersburg estate.

The city tour in Marbach was one of the best I've ever been on. Our guide led us through Marbach for 1.5 hours and showed us many interesting sights, about which she told interesting and entertaining stories. This here is the parental home of Schiller's mother Elisabetha Dorothea, the "Gasthof Goldener Löwe". Shortly after the wedding of Elisabetha and Schiller's father Johann Caspar, Elisabetha's father lost the inn and his fortune through speculation, which plunged the whole family into poverty.

While Schiller's father, a professional soldier, was almost always absent during the first years of Friedrich's life, Elisabetha lived with her eldest daughter Christophine and Friedrich, who was born in this house, in a room measuring just 12 square meters on the first floor of this half-timbered house. Schiller's birth room is located behind the two lower left-hand windows.

The late Gothic Alexander Church by the Württemberg master builder Aberlin Jörg is one of the most important 15th century hall churches in southern Germany. In its tower is the Schiller bell Concordia, which is rung every year on Schiller's birthday (November 10) and the anniversary of his death (May 9). Unfortunately, I didn't have time to visit the church from the inside, but it should be worth it!

Schiller was not the only genius to come from the Swabian town of Marbach. The great astronomer, cartographer and mathematician Tobias Mayer was born in this house. To him we owe the longitudes and the prime meridian. Tobias Mayer's scientific work is presented in the adjoining, newly built extension to the house.

You can also find this in the middle of Marbach's old town: 2.5 million year old shell limestone deposits from the Ice Age.

Unfortunately, not only the Schillerhöhe, but also the old town of Marbach is currently a construction site - and there is no end in sight. The State Garden Show is due to take place in Marbach and Benningen in 2033. Hopefully everything will be finished by then.

I was lucky and it was dry for most of the day in Marbach. When I drove back home, it was raining cats and dogs.

Thanks for reading and see you at the next 12 out of 12!

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