Weimar celebrates the "FAUST Year" in 2025.
In Bleckede on the Elbe, too, one can gain deep insights into the famous work, which are rarely mentioned in Weimar.
What does Goethe's FAUST have to do with Bleckede and the bird lover Johann Peter Eckermann? And even with the tour guide herself? We'll uncover this secret on a leisurely stroll and also discover the place where the content for Goethe's FAUST was developed. These lines are:
There the flood rushes outside to the brim, (Faust II, Act 5, line 11570)
And as she nibbles, violently shooting,
Community pressure rushes to close the gap.
On this philosophical walk, Goethe and Eckermann friends will gain interesting insights into the life of Johann Peter Eckermann, the writer and closest confidant of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Johann Peter Eckermann from Winsen an der Luhe had a very special relationship not only with Weimar and Goethe, but also with the small town of Bleckede on the Elbe. From around 1825 to 1829, Johanna Bertram, Johann Peter Eckermann's fiancée and later wife, lived in Bleckede with her brother Christian Bertram, a district administrator and hydraulic engineering inspector from Hanover.
Johanna, the merchant's daughter from Hanover, waited for Eckermann in Bleckede for several years and wrote poignant letters to Weimar. It's a tragic story without a happy ending—and a tragedy, too.
During a philosophical walk along the "Eckermann Trail," participants will explore a small section of the Lower Saxony Elbe Valley Biosphere Reserve and learn not only about Johann and Johanna, but also about the special features of the Elbe Valley in this region from Petra Pettmann. Petra Pettmann is a certified nature and landscape guide and guest guide for the region.
We observe birds, learn about typical plants and trees of the floodplain, rest and read poems and letters, philosophize about Johann Peter Eckermann's "Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of his Life," and take in the Elbe valley and the house on the Marschdeich, where Johanna waited for her Eckermann for many years.
Participation is only possible with prior registration and confirmation of participation. Target group: Adult Goethe & Eckermann fans, nature & bird lovers. Participants: Minimum of 4 to maximum of 15. Meeting point: Eckermann plaque, created by Petra Pettmann at Marschdeich 1 in Bleckede.
The walk begins at the so-called "Eckermann House" in Bleckede on the Marschdeich. This is where tour guide Petra Pettmann lives. She is a freelance journalist, a trained archaeologist, and a certified nature and landscape guide for the Lower Saxony Elbe Valley Biosphere Reserve. Her ancestry from the Frankfurt area was related by marriage to Goethe's grandmother Cornelia, which allows us to view Goethe in a different light. There are also connections to FAUST here.
