Ducal Vault (Fürstengruft)
About This Site
Two coffins stand side by side in the vault under this hill, and one of them is not what it says. Built between 1823 and 1828 as the burial place of the house of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the Fürstengruft ended up as something else entirely: the room where a duchy put Goethe and Schiller among its own dead rather than beneath them.
A ducal vault that changed its mind, 1823–1832
Clemens Wenzeslaus Coudray built it for Grand Duke Carl August, and the plan was a family grave — plainly classical, a domed chamber down a flight of steps, the sort of thing every reigning house of the period wanted. Then Schiller was carried in on 16 December 1827 and Goethe followed on 26 March 1832,[1] and the building stopped being a family grave. The foundation calls it a unique mausoleum; the arrangement is why. A ruling family gave up the centre of its own burial vault to two men who had worked for it. The effect of standing there has nothing to do with the architecture and everything to do with that decision.
Schiller's coffin is empty of Schiller, 1805–1827
He was buried in 1805 in a vault on the other side of town, and moved up here in 1827 with due ceremony. Genetic testing has since established that the remains moved that day belonged to other people,[2] and where Schiller's own remains are is not established. So one of the two most visited coffins in Weimar is a gesture — the room exists to make one, about who a state honours, and this is that gesture, still being made decades after the fact came out.
Questions visitors ask
- Who is buried in the Fürstengruft?
- Goethe and Schiller, in a vault built as the family burial place of the house of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Schiller was carried in on 16 December 1827, Goethe on 26 March 1832[1] — a ruling family gave up the centre of its own burial vault to two men who had worked for it.
- Is that really Schiller in the coffin?
- No. He was first buried in 1805 in a different vault across town and moved here in 1827, but genetic testing has since established that the remains transferred that day belong to other people.[2] Where Schiller's own remains are is not established.
- When was it built, and for whom?
- Between 1823 and 1828, by Clemens Wenzeslaus Coudray, commissioned by Grand Duke Carl August as a family grave for the house of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
- Can I visit?
- Yes — Wednesday to Monday, 10:00–18:00, closed Tuesdays and closed over the winter. €7 adults, €5 reduced, €2 for pupils aged 16–20.
Sources
- Fürstengruft — Klassik Stiftung Weimar, retrieved 30 August 2026
- Kassengewölbe — Klassik Stiftung Weimar, retrieved 29 August 2026
Connected Historical Figures
writer • poet • historian
Where the town moved him in 1827 — though the remains it moved have been shown not to be his.
writer • statesman • naturalist
Buried here on 26 March 1832, beside Schiller.
duke • grand duke • patron
He commissioned the vault; Coudray built it for him between 1823 and 1828.
Visit Information
€7 adults; €5 reduced; €2 pupils aged 16–20
Wed–Mon 10:00–18:00; closed Tue; closed over the winter
Historischer Friedhof am Poseckschen Garten, 99423 Weimar
50.9726, 11.3257
In Weimar's history
Historical periods
Where the period's two names ended up, and on whose terms.
For roughly sixty years a duchy of a few thousand people held the centre of German literature, because its ruler kept inviting writers to live there and then gave them jobs. That is the whole mechanism, and it ran from Goethe's arrival in 1775 to his death in 1832.
In Weimar's history
He died in the study on the top floor of his own house, three years after buying it, and was buried in the night of 11–12 May in a vault the court kept for people of rank who had no grave of their own.
Where the town moved him in 1827 — a transfer genetic testing has since disproved.
He died in the house on the Frauenplan he had rented since 1782, and on 26 March was carried into the ducal vault to lie beside Schiller.
Where he was carried on 26 March 1832, into the burial vault of the ruling house.