The institution was originally founded as the "Goethe Archive" in 1885 to keep safe the literary and scientific documents, manuscripts, drafts, diaries and letters of Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Later, it was renamed the "Goethe and Schiller Archive", including also the documents of scholars and artists such as Schiller, Herder, Wieland, Hebbel, Heine, Liszt or Nietzsche. The archive building was completed and inaugurated in 1896. Today, it accomodates the largest literary archive in Germany with 120 personal documents from poets, scholars, associations and publishing houses.    back