Weimar, famed as the city of Goethe and the great center of German classical literature, lies in the valley of the Ilm in the southeast of the Thuringian Basin, to the south of the Grosser Ettersberg.
Luther, Cranach and Bach all lived and worked in the town, but Weimar's great days began in the 18th C
, when it was the home of Wieland, Goethe, Herder and Schiller. In the 19th C., great musicians were attracted to the town, and the Art School founded in 1860 brought famous painters to Weimar.
Between 1902 and 1914 the Art School, now the College of Arts and Crafts, was directed by Henry van de Velde. From this college stemmed the Bauhaus, founded by Gropius in 1919, which in 1925 moved to Dessau).
After the First World War the German National Assembly met in the National Theatre in Weimar and in 1919 adopted the constitution of the "Weimar Republic."
In 1920 Weimar became capital of the Land of Thuringia, formed by the amalgamation of many small territorial domains.
During the Nazi period the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp was established in the immediate vicinity of the town.
In 1998, UNESCO designated "Classical Weimar" a World Heritage Site.
The town of Weimar was named a European Capital of Culture in 1999.
A fire in 2004 destroyed 40,000 to 50,000 items in the collection at the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar. The library building and a great deal of the collection was restored and the library reopened in 2007.
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