Along the Rhine with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
17 December 2024
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was an enthusiastic hiker and admirer of nature in Switzerland. However, the Geneva-born writer mainly stayed in French-speaking Switzerland.
His German contemporary Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) also liked to stay and hike in the German-speaking part of the country. He was particularly impressed by the Rhine Falls (Rheinfall) near Neuhausen (canton Schaffhausen) and the untamed course of the Rhine at that time.
The Rhine between Rheinau and Neuhausen
On his visits to the Rheinfall, he visited Laufen Castle and Wörth Castle (Schlössli Wörth). In his diary, he wrote about Schlössli Wörth on 18. September 1797: ‘Ich ging hinein, um ein Glas Wein zu trinken’. Wörth Castle honours him with the Goethe room.
The Rheinfall, Laufen castle (on the left, Wörth castle, on the right)
Wörth castle
Many well-known personalities visited the Rheinfall before and after him, including the Holy Roman Empire’s emperors Ferdinand I (1503-1564) and Joseph II (1741-1790), Russia’s Tsar Alexander I (1777-1825), and the Austrian emperor Franz Josef I (1830-1916) and his wife Elisabeth, better known as Sisi (1837-1898) because of her tragic death in Geneva.
Switzerland is the Water Castle of Europe, and the Rhine has traditionally been an essential waterway for trade and traffic. For centuries, Schaffhausen has been a transhipment location for goods (salt from Austria, for example). After all, the Rheinfall was a natural blockade. After the Rheinfall, the river was again navigable to the Dutch delta.
For this reason, Dutch merchants even had the audacious plan in 1609 to make the Rheinfall passable for the huge and (profitable) wooden rafts from the Swiss Rhine to Amsterdam and Rotterdam. They wanted to use explosives to blow up the Rheinfall and its rocks, giving the wooden rafts free passage.
Model of a wooden raft. Museum the Bastei, Nimwegen (Nijmegen)
This idea resembles the 19th-century plan to build a water link for ships through the Swiss Alps and to connect the Rhine and the Rhone through a canal in Vaud.
Be that as it may, the Rheinfall is still there. The Schlössli Wörth, however, appreciated the initiative of the Dutch merchants and decorated a room as a ‘Holländer Eck’.
Neuhausen, the monument of Europe’s first aluminium industry
A few centuries later, the industrialist Johann Georg Neher (1788-1858) used the Rheinfall. He established an ironworks and exploited the waterfall as a source of energy. It was the foundation for Europe’s first aluminium factory! The Rheinfall offers another attraction. Swiss Smilestones offers an indoor miniature overview of Switzerland and its nature!
Impression of Swiss Smilestones
It is not known whether Goethe and other celebrities visited the town of Rheinau and the Rheinau Monastery. In any case, the Gastwirtschaft zum Buck has been there since 1492. Dendrochronological research has shown that the basement walls and beams date back to 1330, perhaps as part of the Rheinau monastery.
Located near the Rhine, this Gastwirtschaft has been a stop for the stagecoach and later the Postauto for centuries and a good starting or ending point for a walk along the Rhine.
The Swiss Alpine Club
The Swiss Alpine Club (Schweizer Alpen Club, SAC/Club Alpin Suisse, CAS) organises ski tours, hiking trips, and other sports in the high mountains and other areas.
Power station Rheinau
Beavers at work
An island in the Rhine near Rheinau