Restoring the German Spirit: Humanism and Guilt in Post-War Germany

Abstract

In March 1944, Allied bombers destroyed the house of Johann Wolfgang Goethe in the Hirschgraben in Frankfurt am Main along with most of the city. Shortly after the German surrender on May 8, 1945, at a time when one might expect other concerns to take precedence, a heated and protracted debate over what to do about the venerable site was already in full swing. On one side of the controversy were the noted architects of the German Werkbund who saw the loss of the original house as an opportunity for a new building in a more appropriately modern style. On the other were the city fathers and Goethe enthusiasts who believed that the house should be rebuilt exactly as it had been. The year 1949 was soon approaching, the two-hundredth anniversary of Goethe’s birth, and the city fathers feared that the historic edifice would not be ready in time for the celebration. As the left-wing Catholic intellectual Walter Dirks wrote at the time: “The enthusiasm of the friends of this honorable site and their concern over the rescue and restoration of this until then long-preserved piece of memory pressed for a rapid decision.” So it was decided: The Goethe house would be rebuilt unchanged according to the original architectural plans on the old site. On the fifth of July 1947, the cornerstone was laid. For Dirks the decision to reconstruct the old Goethe house was an event not of local but of national significance. Like post-war Germany, Dirks bitterly observed, it was to be rebuilt “as if nothing had occurred.”¹