Schiller's birth place

Code: 05

Walking down Niklastorstraße you may not even notice that you pass one of the most famous houses in Marbach. In the years before the Schiller family moved in, this house had already been used as a rental house for many families. Like the lodgers before them the Schiller family was just an ordinary family in these days. They did not have much money and lived together in the basement in just one small room. A traveler’s decription is very likely to be accurate: “The front of the house has three windows on every floor, with decayed, green shutters which closed the windows like sleepy eyelids. When you enter the house through the low entry door, you are greeted by a small, smoky lobby, behind which you find the parlour.”
With his father being often away on external commitments as a soldier, young Schiller lived with his mother and older sister, sharing a common bathroom and kitchen with the house owner and his family. His mother was humble, caring and religious. She was known as an imaginative narrator of moralizing stories. After a few years the family moved on and Schiller was educated in Lorch, Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart.
The house was renovated in 1994 and is now open to the public. The exhibition displays relics from Schiller’s life and his biography is presented in a short animated film.