Research paper
Wilson, Geheimräte gegen Geheimbünde (1991)
A study of Goethe, Duke Karl August and the Illuminati in Weimar — and a disputed interpretation of why they joined.
- Date
- 1991
- Author / issuer
- W. Daniel Wilson
What it is
A study by the Germanist W. Daniel Wilson of the Illuminati in Weimar, based on archival research.
Its argument
Wilson argued that Goethe and Duke Karl August joined the order in 1783 at least partly in order to observe and control it. The thesis has been influential but also contested; it is a scholarly interpretation, not a settled fact. See Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Source reference
W. Daniel Wilson, Geheimräte gegen Geheimbünde: Ein unbekanntes Kapitel der klassisch-romantischen Geschichte Weimars (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1991).