Goethe Tower

About this place

The Goethe Tower is an observation tower built entirely of wood, standing on the northern edge of the Frankfurt City Forest below Sachsenhausen. It rises to just under forty-four metres and is climbed by one hundred and ninety-six steps, which makes it one of the tallest wooden towers in Germany. There is no ticket desk and no attendant; it is simply a piece of municipal furniture left open for the city to use. Its history comes in broken pieces. The first wooden tower here went up in eighteen sixty-seven at twenty-two metres, and was replaced in nineteen thirty-one by a taller one paid for by the Jewish businessman Gustav Gerst. On the night of the twelfth of October twenty seventeen an arson attack burned the whole structure down, and the loss was felt across the city. Reconstruction began in November twenty nineteen, the rebuilt tower was handed over in twenty twenty, and the public has been able to climb it again since the spring of twenty twenty-one. The climb is mildly hard work and the wooden stairway is open at the sides, so anyone uneasy with heights will notice. What you get at the top is a sea of trees with the skyline standing behind it, a very different picture from the paid viewing platforms in the centre. A bus from Sachsenhausen brings you close, or you can walk in through the forest, and there is a restaurant and a large playground at the base. It can shut at short notice in storms or when the steps ice over.