Goethe Oak (or Goethes Oak), is a name given to a number of oak trees in Germany that are referred to in this way because they allegedly bear some sort of connection to the poet

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

History

Perhaps the most famous one is the oak tree near

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

, Germany, on the

Ettersberg The Thuringian Basin () is a depression in the central and northwest part of Thuringia in Germany which is crossed by several rivers, the longest of which is the Unstrut. It stretches about from north to south and around from east to west. Its h ...

, at the foot of which was the castle of

Charlotte von Stein Charlotte Albertine Ernestine von Stein (alternatively Charlotta Ernestina Bernadina von Stein; née von Schardt; 25 December 1742 – 6 January 1827) was a German lady-in-waiting at the court in Weimar and a close friend to both Friedrich Schille ...

. The oak, in the middle of a beech forest, is named thus because it is supposedly the tree under which Goethe wrote "

Wanderer's Nightsong "Wanderer's Nightsong" (original German title: "") is the title of two poems by the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Written in 1776 ("") and in 1780 (""), they are among Goethe's most famous works. Both were first edited together in his 18 ...

", or, alternatively, the location where he composed the

Walpurgisnacht Walpurgis Night (), an abbreviation of Saint Walpurgis Night (from the German ), also known as Saint Walpurga's Eve (alternatively spelled Saint Walburga's Eve) and Walpurgisnacht, is the eve of the Christian feast day of Saint Walpurga, an ...

passages of his ''

Faust Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...

''. The fate of the oak became in due course associated with the fate of Germany: if the one were to fall, so would the other. According to the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, the name 'Goethe Oak' was simply an epithet made up by the inmates of Buchenwald camp in commemoration of the walks Goethe was known to have made in the area. The large, old tree had previously been labeled the ''Dicke Eiche'' (English:"thick oak") on maps of the area.

The end of the Buchenwald oak

The beech forest was cleared in 1937 to make way for the

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Nazi Germany, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (pre-1938 ...

. Originally the camp was to be called ''KL Ettersberg'' ("KL" for ''Konzentrationslager''), but this was abandoned because the Ettersberg name was so closely connected to the life of Goethe. The tree stood in the center of the camp, and is reputed to have served also for the hanging and torture of prisoners. The tree was hit by an Allied incendiary bomb on 24 August 1944 and burned all night long. It is preserved (being cast in concrete under the auspices of the DDR government, which also laid a plaque saying "Goethe Eiche") and is part of the Buchenwald memorial. For the SS guards and the prisoners, the tree held two completely different meanings: for the SS it was a link to the Germany they thought they represented, but for the prisoners the tree pointed to a different Germany from the one they experienced in the camp. According to

Amos Oz Amos Oz (; born Amos Klausner (); 4 May 1939 – 28 December 2018) was an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist, and intellectual. He was also a professor of Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. From 1967 onwards, Oz was a pro ...

, the incorporation of the oak in the camp and its subsequent destruction are evidence that the Nazis destroyed their own heritage,. In ''Der Totenwald'', camp survivor

Ernst Wiechert Ernst Wiechert (18 May 1887 – 24 August 1950) was a German teacher, poet and writer. Biography Wiechert was born in the village of Kleinort, East Prussia, (now Piersławek, Poland). He was one of the most widely read novelists in Germany ...

recalls standing under the oak and reflecting on the two Germanies it represented—what later scholars would call the "''Januskopf Deutschlands''", the Weimar-Buchenwald dichotomy. The tree gave its name to another book by a survivor, Pierre Julitte's ''L'Arbre de Goethe'' (1965). The oak was sketched by

Léon Delarbre Léon Delarbre (; 30 October 1889 – 20 May 1974) was a painter, museum curator, and World War II resistance fighter. After a career as a museum conservator and teacher in his hometown of Belfort, he joined the French resistance in 1941. Arres ...

, who used to sit under its "charred limbs" and compose poetry.

Other Goethe oaks

Another Goethe oak is in

Krásný Dvůr Castle Krásný Dvůr Castle (; ) is a Baroque chateau in Krásný Dvůr, North Bohemia, Czech Republic. It has a English landscape garden, English-style landscape park and a garden inspired by that of Palace of Versailles, Versailles. History The fir ...

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

(today in the Czech Republic), estimated to be 1000 years old. The

Arnsberg Forest Nature Park The Arnsberg Forest Nature Park () is a nature park in the districts of Hochsauerlandkreis and Soest within the administrative region of Arnsberg in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The park was established in 1960 and covers an area ...

Sauerland The Sauerland () is a rural, hilly area spreading across most of the south-eastern part of the States of Germany, German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, in parts heavily forested and, apart from the major valleys, sparsely inhabited. ...

claims one as well (a beech named for

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He was born i ...

fell victim to a storm in 2007).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goethe oak Buchenwald concentration camp Individual oak trees Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Individual trees in Germany