The city of Bad Homburg has created a center for its most important poet, Friedrich Hölderlin, in the Villa Wertheimber. It includes the Sattler Library, the Hölderlin Cabinet and the Hölderlin Apartment.
Video: Mayor Alexander Hetjes gives a tour of the new Hölderlin Center in the Villa Wertheimber.
The original library and edition archive of the important Hölderlin researcher D.E. Sattler have found a new home in the Villa Wertheimer in Bad Homburg.
Revolutionary editing technique
For over 30 years, D.E. Sattler compiled the 20-volume Frankfurt Hölderlin edition, which was published by KD Wolff's publishing house Roter Stern, later Stroemfeld. Sattler set a milestone in the understanding and reading of the texts by introducing a new, revolutionary editing technique. His trained profession as a typographer offered the best conditions for this. Hölderlin liked to make corrections above, below and beside his sentences. As a result, his handwriting is very difficult to decipher, if at all. Sattler made these different variants, distortions and revisions visible by marking - on facsimiles - the layers of Hölderlin's work on the text with different typographical designs. In this way, the process of creating the poems, which Sattler also commented on historically and critically, is visible and comprehensible. In a way, you can take a look inside Hölderlin's workshop.
The Hölderlin Society gave the more than 650 books and documents to the city of Bad Homburg on permanent loan in March 2021. The collection is housed in the town archive and is open to the public.
The Hölderlin Cabinet is located in the foyer of the Villa Wertheimber. Temporary exhibitions are held there with original manuscripts and facsimiles of Friedrich Hölderlin's works. Large wall panels provide additional explanations of the works and Hölderlin's life and work in general. The exhibition kicked off in June 2021 with the manuscript of the poem "Andenken".
New exhibition in the Hölderlin Cabinet on Hölderlin's birthday ode to Princess Auguste von Hessen-Homburg
In 2024, it was 225 years ago that the poet Friedrich Hölderlin, who lived in (Bad) Homburg v. d. Höhe for a total of four years, gave Princess Auguste von Hessen-Homburg, daughter of the reigning Landgrave Friedrich V. Ludwig von Hessen-Homburg, a birthday ode written especially for her on her 23rd birthday on November 28, 1799.
The Department of Culture and Education of the City of Bad Homburg is taking this wonderful event as an opportunity to open a new exhibition in the Hölderlin Cabinet of the Villa Wertheimber with the following title precisely on Princess Augusta's birthday on November 28, 2024:
"And as I remembered your feast". Hölderlin and Princess Auguste von Hessen-Homburg. Textual traces of a special relationship.
The new exhibition guides visitors through these textual traces and explains how the poet and Princess built up a fine network of relationships through literature over time. Visitors will also learn many interesting facts about Princess Auguste, who has not yet been the focus of our city's history.
The exhibition can be viewed until December 2025 in the foyer of the Villa Wertheimber in the Hölderlin Cabinet during the opening hours of the city archive, namely Tuesdays 9 am - 4 pm, Wednesdays 2 pm - 7 pm, Fridays 9 am - 12 pm, or by appointment with the Cultural Office at kultur@bad-homburg.de. Guided tours can also be booked at the above e-mail address.
The Hölderlin apartment has been maintained by the city of Bad Homburg for more than 30 years. It used to be located in Dorotheenstraße. Since January 2020, it has been located on the upper floor of Villa Wertheimber.
The apartment is made available to the winners of the Hölderlin Prize and the Advancement Award to research Hölderlin or work on their own works.
