Friedrich Schiller

It was in Marbach, a little town on the Neckar that the great German poet saw the light of day. He was buried in the Royal Tomb in Weimar. Both towns have erected attractive monuments for the author of so many popular stage works and ballads. In Marbach, the Schiller National Museum rises up on a hill above his birthplace. In Weimar they constructed the Schiller Museum just behind the house where he lived with his family after 1799. Between these two geographic poles, however, there are many other important stations in his life. The small town of Lorch on the Rhine where the boy Johann Friedrich gets elementary education in the mediaeval vicarage. Afterwards his new home is the garrison in Ludwigsburg and from there he moves to Stuttgart with the military academy where he reads medicine and writes the first scenes of "The Robbers". In 1782 the play is staged in Mannheim Court Theatre. It is a huge success. Later Schiller works for a short time in Meiningen as a librarian. And in 1790, in the village church of Wenigenjena he marries Charlotte von Lengefeld.