Dozens of monuments to the poet and naturalist Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) have been erected in Bohemia, mostly in the area of the West Bohemian spa towns he regularly visited. Aš is mostly spoken of negatively in Goethe`s diaries, but the local monument is one of the most beautiful ones. Goethe is depicted here holding a mineral, a reference to his local geological explorations.

Goethe made seventeen trips to Bohemia between 1785 and 1823. The town of Aš was the place where he crossed the border, and he usually continued along the Cheb road to Cheb. Immediately upon entering Bohemia, several geological attractions awaited him: above the road a few kilometres beyond Aš are the outcrops of a quartz mound and a deposit of the mineral Egeran (now a natural monument called Goethe`s rocks, Hazlov), where his first stop used to be. A commemorative plaque was placed on the site of this regular stop as early as 1846. Goethe was always attracted to the extinct volcano Komorní hůrka between Hazel and Cheb, the scene of a scientific dispute between the so-called Neptunists and the Plutonists.

The statue of the poet in Aš stands on a pedestal in the middle of the fountain. The statue's posture expresses both the researcher's interest and delight in finding the mineral we see in Goethe's hand. On the sides of the pedestal there are reliefs referring to Goethe's literary works and also the dates when he stopped in Aš. The monument was erected during the Goethe celebrations on the centenary of the poet's death in 1932. The author of the monument was the Czech-German artist Johannes Watzal (1887-1945). Although Goethe once described Aš in his diary as “the most repulsive place in the Christian world”, this monument is one of the best in the sense of Goethe's relationship to Bohemia (Böhmen).

Connected places: J. W. Goethe Commemorative Plaque in Bílina-Kyselka

Komorní hůrka near Cheb
Bořeň
Pomník návštěv Johanna W. Goetha v Krupce; Pomník Johanna W. von Goethe v Teplicích - Trnovanech; Pamětní deska Johanna W. Goetha v Bílině - Kyselce; Pomník Johanna W. Goetha v Jablonném v Podještědí; Památník J. W. Goetha ve Františkových lázních; Komorní hůrka u Chebu; Železná hůrka

Keywords: history of natural sciences; geology; mineralogy; naturfilosofie [natural philosophy]; Goethe celebrations; Goethe in Bohemia; Cheb region; Johannes Watzal

Babušíková, D. : Nejzápadnější město Čech v proměnách času. Historie Aše ve vyučování vlastivědy. Diplomová práce. Fakulta pedagogická západočeské univerzity v Plzni. 2015.

Monument to J. W. Goethe in Aš