Goethe–Schiller Monument

The original Goethe–Schiller Monument is in Weimar, Germany. It incorporates Ernst Rietschel's 1857 bronze double statue of Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, who are probably the two most revered figures in German literature. The monument has been described "as one of the most famous and most beloved monuments in all of Germany" and as the beginning of a "cult of the monument". Dozens of monuments to Goethe and to Schiller were built subsequently in Europe and the United States.

Goethe and Schiller had a remarkable friendship and collaboration that was "like no other known to literature or art." Both men had lived in Weimar, and were the seminal figures of a literary movement known as Weimar Classicism. The bronze figures of the Goethe–Schiller statue are substantially larger than life-size; notably, both are given the same height, even though Goethe was nearly 20 cm shorter than Schiller.