The Goethe-Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft (Goethe Medal for Art and Science) was a German award. It was authorized by Reichspresident Paul von Hindenburg

Paul von Hindenburg

Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....

 to commemorate the centenary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

's death on March 22, 1932. It consists of a silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

, non-wearable medal

Medal

A medal, or medallion, is generally a circular object that has been sculpted, molded, cast, struck, stamped, or some way rendered with an insignia, portrait, or other artistic rendering. A medal may be awarded to a person or organization as a form of recognition for athletic, military, scientific,...

 (62mm, after about 1938 69.5mm in diameter).

This medal should not be confused with the Goldene Goethe-Medaille (Goethe-Medal in Gold) of the Weimar Goethe Society (51 awards from 1910 to 2005), the "Goethepreis der Stadt Frankfurt" (Goethe Prize of the City of Frankfurt) which since 1927 has been awarded first annually, then triennially (41 awards from 1927 to 2005 - no medal), the "Goethe-Plakette der Stadt Frankfurt" (Goethe Plaque of the City of Frankfurt), or the "Goethe-Medaille" (Goethe-Medal) of the Goethe-Institut, which from 1955 to 2006 has been awarded to 312 personalities from 57 countries. With more than 600 recipients, the "Goethe-Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft" is thus the most widely distributed award named after Goethe.

Under Hindenburg - 1932-1934

Originally meant to honor persons who had performed some service in connection with the 1932 Goethe Centennial at Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

, the "Goethe-Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft" was since April 1932 in Hindenburg's name given to Goethe scholars, artists, scientists, government officials and politicians. Between March 18, 1932 and June 19, 1934 almost 200 persons were honored, 159 of these before January 30, 1933. Among the first 55 recipients of the Medal were Chancellor Brüning, and the Nobel Prize winners Gerhart Hauptmann

Gerhart Hauptmann

Gerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.-Life and work:...

 and Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...

. Starting in April 1932 there followed Max Planck

Max Planck

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, ForMemRS, was a German physicist who actualized the quantum physics, initiating a revolution in natural science and philosophy. He is regarded as the founder of the quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.-Life and career:Planck came...

 and the current or future Nobel Prize bearers Nikolas Murray Butler, André Gide

André Gide

André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...

, Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun was a Norwegian author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. He was praised by King Haakon VII of Norway as Norway's soul....

, Verner von Heidenstam

Verner von Heidenstam

Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam was a Swedish poet and novelist, a laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1916. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1912...

, Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...

, Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer OM was a German theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, at that time part of the German Empire...

, Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber was a German chemist, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his development for synthesizing ammonia, important for fertilizers and explosives. Haber, along with Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid...

 and Richard Willstätter

Richard Willstätter

Richard Martin Willstätter was a German organic chemist whose study of the structure of plant pigments, chlorophyll included, won him the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Willstätter invented paper chromatography independently of Mikhail Tsvet.-Biography:Willstätter was born in to a Jewish family...

. Other recipients were Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

, José Ortega y Gasset

José Ortega y Gasset

José Ortega y Gasset was a Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist working during the first half of the 20th century while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism and dictatorship. He was, along with Nietzsche, a proponent of the idea of perspectivism.-Biography:José Ortega y Gasset was...

, Wilhelm Furtwängler

Wilhelm Furtwängler

Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...

, Otto Klemperer

Otto Klemperer

Otto Klemperer was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century.-Biography:Otto Klemperer was born in Breslau, Silesia Province, then in Germany...

, Carl Goerdeler, Paul Ernst

Paul Ernst

Paul Ernst may refer to:* Karl Friedrich Paul Ernst , commonly known as Paul Ernst, German writer* Paul Ernst , American Pulp Fiction writerSee also*Paul Ernest, philosophy of mathematics...

, Hans Grimm

Hans Grimm

Hans Grimm was a German writer.His father, Julius Grimm, was a professor of law who retired early and devoted his time to private historical and literary studies and to political activity as a founder member of the National Liberal party, which he represented in the Prussian parliament, and was a...

 and E. G. Kolbenheyer. About one quarter of the honorees of the Goethe Medal before July 1934 were non-Germans. Women were rarely considered; only Ricarda Huch

Ricarda Huch

Ricarda Huch was a pioneering German intellectual. Trained as a historian, and the author of many works of European history, she also wrote novels, poems, and a play. Asteroid 879 Ricarda is named in her honour.- Life :...

, Agnes Miegel

Agnes Miegel

Agnes Miegel was a German author, journalist, and poet. She received the Kleist Prize for lyric in 1913, the Herder Prize in 1936, the Goethe Prize of the City of Frankfurt in 1940, the literature prize of the Bavarian Academy of Art in 1959 and the...

, Ina Seidel, Feodora, Grand Duchess of Saxon-Weimar, Enrica von Handel-Mazetti and the Turkish writer Seniha Bedri were apparently thought to be worthy of the Medal. In Hindenburg's name this medal was last awarded under the date of June 19, 1934.

Under Hitler - 1934-1944

Beginning in November 1934, Adolf Hitler, in his position as German Head of State, took over the awarding of the "Goethe-Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft". Among them are the Nobel Prize winners Hans von Euler-Chelpin, Johannes Stark, Heinrich Wieland and Adolf Windaus, as well as five women: Anna Bahr-Mildenburg, Hedwig Bleibtreu, Agnes Bluhm, Isolde Kurz, and Lulu von Strauß und Torney. Under Hitler the Medal was generally awarded only on high birthdays or other important anniversaries. Many of the recipients were followers of National Socialism. Jewish candidates were no longer considered (until January 1933 at least eleven Germans of Jewish origin had been honored by Hindenburg with the Medal, although Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

 and Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

were ignored). The last "Goethe-Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft" was awarded on December 10, 1944.

Sources

Kurt-G. Klietmann, Staatlich-Zivile Auszeichnungen. Weimarer Republik und Drittes Reich. Stuttgart, 1990; Bundesarchiv Berlin (R55); Internet (Springerlink); search under "Goethe-Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft"