The Jerusalemhaus is a

house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a v ...

at Schillerplatz 5 in

Wetzlar Wetzlar () is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany. It is the twelfth largest city in Hesse with currently 55,371 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019 (including second homes). As an important cultural, industrial and commercial center, the un ...

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 ...

. On October 30, 1772, the Braunschweig legation secretary Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem shot himself here in a two-room apartment on the second floor.

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 tr ...

, who knew him personally due to an internship they completed together at the

Reichskammergericht The ''Reichskammergericht'' (; ; la, Iudicium imperii) was one of the two highest judicial institutions in the Holy Roman Empire, the other one being the Aulic Council in Vienna. It was founded in 1495 by the Imperial Diet in Worms. All legal ...

in Wetzlar, immortalized Jerusalem as the suicidal "Werther" in ''

The Sorrows of Young Werther ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' (; german: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is a 1774 epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, which appeared as a revised edition in 1787. It was one of the main novels in the '' Sturm und Drang'' period in Ge ...

'' (1774). The apartment is today a memorial equipped with historical furniture and documents. The Jerusalemhaus houses the ''Goethe-Werther-Sammlung'' ("Goethe-Werther Collection"). The special library strives for maximum completeness in the documentation of Goethe's novel ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' and not only keeps precious contemporary German editions of the novel, but also collects new editions in every conceivable language. Another museum in Wetzlar, the former home of

Charlotte Buff Charlotte Buff (11 January 1753, Wetzlar – 16 January 1828, Hanover) was a youthful acquaintance of the poet Goethe, who fell in love with her. She rejected him and instead married Johann Christian Kestner, vice-archivist and privy councillor ...

, known as the

Lottehaus The Lottehaus is a museum in Wetzlar, Germany. It was the birthplace of Charlotte Buff, who lived there for the first 20 years of her life until she got married. The Lottehaus was originally an establishment of the Teutonic Order, which founde ...

, also has several editions on display. The building is a cultural monument under the .

References

{{authority control Historic house museums in Germany Literary museums in Germany Museums in Wetzlar