Jerusalemhaus

The house where Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem shot himself — the real-life ending of Werther

The house is preserved with one room set as Jerusalem would have known it — a writing desk, a small bed, books — and the rest given over to an exhibition about the suicide, the rapidly written novel that followed, and the wave of copycat suicides ("Werther fever") that swept across Europe in the years after publication.

It is small — half an hour is enough — but it pairs naturally with the Lottehaus a few minutes' walk away. Together they cover both sides of the Werther story.

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A story
On the night of 29 October 1772, the lawyer Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem borrowed pistols from Goethe's friend Kestner — supposedly for a trip — and shot himself in his lodgings here. He was 25 and in love with the wife of a colleague. The suicide gave Goethe the ending for his novel; the borrowed pistols became Werther's own.

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