Sitzender Goethe, Ilmenau

The Goethe Monument is a monument in honor of Johann Wolfgang Goethe in the market square of the town of Ilmenau in Thuringia, Germany.

Goethe visited Ilmenau a total of about 28 times during his Weimar period, as he pursued professional duties in Ilmenau, among other things, because of his job as Minister of Mines. Likewise, vacation stays in Ilmenau and the Thuringian Forest are known. Due to this close connection, the need to erect a monument to Goethe in the marketplace grew in Ilmenau as early as the end of the 19th century, but this did not happen at first. Plans from the 1980s failed for financial reasons.

In 1996 the idea of such a monument was taken up again. The design was - mainly because of lack of similarity with contemporary portraits. - very controversial.

The location of the monument is the market square in front of the Amtshaus, where Goethe usually spent the night when he was away on official business. It is made of bronze and was created by sculptor Klaus Glutting from Homburg, one of Ilmenau's twin towns. Depicted is an elderly man sitting on a bench in life size, next to which is space for other people. This has become a popular tourist photo motif, and on Goethe birthdays the figure is colorfully garlanded for the press.

Older than this Goethe bench is the Goethe fountain in Ilmenau's main cemetery. This listed ensemble with the relief of a Bauhaus student was inaugurated in 1932 and is included in the list of cultural monuments in Ilmenau. On a website of the city of Ilmenau it is described as "a kind of urban Goethe monument".