The Goethe Prize of the City of Frankfurt (german: Goethe-Preis der Stadt Frankfurt am Main, links=no) is an award for achievement "worthy of honour in memory of

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...

" made by the city of

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

, Germany. It was usually an annual award until 1955, and thereafter has been triennial. Following a decision of municipal authorities in 1952, the "Award of the Goethe Prize" only takes place every three years. Many recipients are authors, but persons working in several other creative and scientific fields have been honoured. The prize money is €50,000.

Recipients

* 1927 –

Stefan George Stefan Anton George (; 12 July 18684 December 1933) was a German symbolist poet and a translator of Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Hesiod, and Charles Baudelaire. He is also known for his role as leader of the highly influential literar ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

* 1928 –

Albert Schweitzer Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was an Alsatian-German/French polymath. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran minister, Schwei ...

, France * 1929 – , Germany * 1930 –

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

* 1931 –

Ricarda Huch Ricarda Huch (; 18 July 1864 – 17 November 1947) was a pioneering German intellectual. Trained as an 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 hon ...

, Germany * 1932 –

Gerhart Hauptmann Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (; 15 November 1862 – 6 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He recei ...

, Germany * 1933 –

Hermann Stehr Hermann Stehr (16 February 1864 – 11 September 1940) was a German novelist, dramatist and poet. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. Personal life Stehr was born in Habelschwerdt (Bystrzyca Kłodzka) in 1864; he ...

, Germany * 1934 –

Hans Pfitzner Hans Erich Pfitzner (5 May 1869 – 22 May 1949) was a German composer, conductor and polemicist who was a self-described anti-modernist. His best known work is the post-Romantic opera ''Palestrina'' (1917), loosely based on the life of the s ...

, Germany * 1935 – , Germany * 1936 –

Georg Kolbe Georg Kolbe (15 April 1877 – 20 November 1947) was a German sculptor. He was the leading German figure sculptor of his generation, in a vigorous, modern, simplified classical style similar to Aristide Maillol of France. Early life and educa ...

, Germany * 1937 –

Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (30 December 1878, in Budapest – 12 April 1962, in Munich) was an Austrian novelist, poet and playwright. Later based in Germany, he belonged to a group of writers that included the likes of Hans Grimm, Rudolf G. Bindi ...

, Germany * 1938 –

Hans Carossa Hans Carossa (15 December 1878 in Bad Tölz, Kingdom of Bavaria – 12 September 1956 in Rittsteig near Passau) was a German novelist and poet, known mostly for his autobiographical novels, and his "innere Emigration" ( inner emigration) during ...

, Germany * 1939 –

Carl Bosch Carl Bosch (; 27 August 1874 – 26 April 1940) was a German chemist and engineer and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. He was a pioneer in the field of high-pressure industrial chemistry and founder of IG Farben, at one point the world's largest ...

, Germany * 1940 –

Agnes Miegel Agnes Miegel (9 March 1879 – 26 October 1964) was a German author, journalist and poet. She is best known for her poems and short stories about East Prussia, but also for the support she gave to the Nazi Party. Biography Agnes Miegel was born ...

, Germany * 1941 –

Wilhelm Schäfer Wilhelm Schäfer (20 January 1868 – 19 January 1952) was a German writer. Life Born in Ottrau (Grand Duchy of Hesse, Hesse), until 1896 Schäfer was a school teacher. He gained a scholarship to study in Switzerland and France through the Co ...

, Germany * 1942 –

Richard Kuhn Richard Johann Kuhn (; 3 December 1900 – 1 August 1967) was an Austrian-German biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938 "for his work on carotenoids and vitamins". Biography Early life Kuhn was born in Vienna, Austr ...

, Germany * 1945 –

Max Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...

, Germany * 1946 –

Hermann Hesse Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include ''Demian'', ''Steppenwolf (novel), Steppenwolf'', ''Siddhartha (novel), Siddhartha'', and ''The Glass Bead Game'', ...

, Germany * 1947 –

Karl Jaspers Karl Theodor Jaspers (, ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jasper ...

, Germany * 1948 –

Fritz von Unruh Fritz von Unruh (; 10 May 1885 – 28 November 1970) was a German expressionist dramatist, poet, and novelist. Biography Unruh was born in Koblenz, Germany. A general's son, he was an officer in the German army until 1912, when he ...

, Germany * 1949 –

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...

, Germany * 1952 –

Carl Zuckmayer Carl Zuckmayer (27 December 1896 – 18 January 1977) was a German writer and playwright. His older brother was the pedagogue, composer, conductor, and pianist Eduard Zuckmayer. Life and career Born in Nackenheim in Rhenish Hesse, he was t ...

, Germany * 1954 –

Theodor Brugsch Theodor Brugsch (11 October 1878 – 11 July 1963) was a German internist and politician. Early life Theodor Brugsch was born in Graz. Theodor Brugsch's father had been born in Berlin, and it was in Berlin that the son received his schooling ...

, Germany * 1955 – Annette Kolb, Germany * 1958 –

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (; 28 June 1912 – 28 April 2007) was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War, under ...

, Germany * 1960 –

Ernst Beutler Ernst Beutler (12 April 1885 — 8 November 1960) was a German literary historian and Goethe researcher who served as the director of the Freies Deutsches Hochstift literary society between 1925 and 1960. Biography Ernst Beutler was born in ...

, Germany * 1961 –

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in conne ...

, Germany * 1964 – , Germany * 1967 – Carlo Schmid, Germany * 1970 –

György Lukács György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and ae ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

* 1973 –

Arno Schmidt Arno Schmidt (; 18 January 1914 – 3 June 1979) was a German author and translator. He is little known outside of German-speaking areas, in part because his works present a formidable challenge to translators. Although he is not one of the p ...

, Germany * 1976 –

Ingmar Bergman Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film director, screenwriter, Film producer, producer and playwright. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, his films are known ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

* 1979 –

Raymond Aron Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Aron is best known for his 19 ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

* 1982 –

Ernst Jünger Ernst Jünger (; 29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a German author, highly decorated soldier, philosopher, and entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir '' Storm of Steel''. The son of a successful businessman and ...

, Germany * 1985 –

Golo Mann Golo Mann (born Angelus Gottfried Thomas Mann; 27 March 1909 – 7 April 1994) was a popular German historian and essayist. Having completed a doctorate in philosophy under Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg, in 1933 he fled Hitler's Germany. He followe ...

, Germany * 1988 – Peter Stein, Germany * 1991 – Wislawa Szymborska, Poland * 1994 –

Ernst Gombrich Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich (; ; 30 March 1909 – 3 November 2001) was an Austrian-born art historian who, after settling in England in 1936, became a naturalised British citizen in 1947 and spent most of his working life in the United Kin ...

, United Kingdom * 1997 –

Hans Zender Johannes Wolfgang Zender (22 November 1936 – 22 October 2019) was a German conductor and composer. He was the chief conductor of several opera houses, and his compositions, many of them vocal music, have been performed at international festival ...

, Germany * 1999 –

Siegfried Lenz Siegfried Lenz (; 17 March 19267 October 2014) was a German writer of novels, short stories and essays, as well as dramas for radio and the theatre. In 2000 he received the Goethe Prize on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's bi ...

, Germany * 2002 –

Marcel Reich-Ranicki Marcel Reich-Ranicki (; 2 June 1920 – 18 September 2013) was a Polish-born German literary critic and member of the informal literary association Gruppe 47. He was regarded as one of the most influential contemporary literary critics in the fi ...

, Germany * 2005 –

Amos Oz Amos Oz ( he, עמוס עוז; born Amos Klausner; 4 May 1939 – 28 December 2018) was an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist, and intellectual. He was also a professor of Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. From 1967 onw ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

* 2008 –

Pina Bausch Philippine "Pina" Bausch (27 July 1940 – 30 June 2009) was a German dancer and choreographer who was a significant contributor to a neo-expressionist dance tradition now known as . Bausch's approach was noted for a stylized blend of dance mov ...

, Germany * 2011 –

Adunis Ali Ahmad Said Esber (, North Levantine: ; born 1 January 1930), also known by the pen name Adonis or Adunis ( ar, أدونيس ), is a Syrian people, Syrian poet, essayist and translator. He led a modernist revolution in the second half of the ...

, Syria * 2014 – Peter von Matt,

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

* 2017 –

Ariane Mnouchkine Ariane Mnouchkine (; born 3 March 1939) is a French stage director. She founded the Parisian avant-garde stage ensemble ''Théâtre du Soleil'' in 1964. She wrote and directed ''1789'' (1974) and ''Molière'' (1978), and directed ''La Nuit Mirac ...

, France * 2020 –

Dževad Karahasan Dževad Karahasan (born 25 January 1953) is a Bosnian writer, essayist and philosopher. Karahasan was awarded with Herder Prize and Goethe Medal for his writings. In 2020, the city of Frankfurt awarded him the Goethe Prize. Early life Karahas ...

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control German literary awards Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Awards established in 1927 Literary awards of Hesse 1927 establishments in Germany Triennial events Culture in Frankfurt

Recipients

See also

References

External links