Wieland Estate, Oßmannstedt
About This Site
About ten kilometres north-east of Weimar, the estate where Christoph Martin Wieland lived and wrote from 1797 to 1803, calling himself a poetic country squire and the place his Osmantium. He is buried in its park, which makes this the only one of Weimar's great writers' houses that is also the grave.
A writer who wanted land
The others took court appointments and town houses. Wieland took a farm. He styled himself a poetischer Landjunker — a poetic country squire — and named the place after a Roman precedent, and the six years he spent here were working years rather than a retirement. The baroque manor is a museum now, with interiors partly as they were, and its permanent exhibition is titled with the claim his contemporaries made for him: the first writer of Germany.
The obelisk in the park, 1813
His grave is in the romantic park behind the house: a three-sided sandstone obelisk, where he was buried in 1813 beside his wife Anna Dorothea and beside Sophie Brentano. Weimar's other famous dead are gathered in two burial grounds inside the town, under municipal management, at fixed opening hours. Wieland is in his own garden, and the difference is the man.
Still a working house
The building also holds a research centre and the Wielandakademie, which runs seminars and courses, so the estate is used rather than only shown. The park keeps a lime avenue and an old orchard meadow from his time; entry is free and it opens Wednesday to Monday in the season. Getting here takes a short journey out of Weimar, which is the price of seeing what the period looked like when somebody chose to leave.
Questions visitors ask
- Why did Wieland move to a farm instead of staying in town?
- The others took court appointments and town houses; Wieland took a farm, styled himself a poetic country squire, and named the place after a Roman precedent. He lived and wrote there from 1797 to 1803 — working years, not a retirement.
- Where is he buried?
- In the romantic park behind the house, under a three-sided sandstone obelisk, where he was buried in 1813 beside his wife Anna Dorothea and beside Sophie Brentano — the only one of Weimar's great writers' houses that is also the grave.
- Can I visit, and is it free?
- Yes, entry is free. Wednesday to Monday, 11:00–17:00, closed Tuesdays and closed in winter.
- What else is at the estate today?
- A research centre and the Wielandakademie, which runs seminars and courses, plus a permanent exhibition in the baroque manor and a park with a lime avenue and an old orchard meadow from his time.
Connected Historical Figures
writer • poet • translator
He lived and wrote here from 1797 to 1803 and is buried in the park, in 1813.
Visit Information
Free
Wed–Mon 11:00–17:00; closed Tue; closed in winter
Wielandstraße 16, 99510 Ilmtal-Weinstraße OT Oßmannstedt
In Weimar's history
Historical periods
The classical generation's alternative: not a court post but a farm ten kilometres out.
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.
Around Weimar
Northeast
The estate stands in Oßmannstedt, one of this municipality's sixteen villages.