The establishment of the Goethe National Museums in 1885 originated from a request in the will of the last of Goethe's grandchildren transferring ownership of his estate – Goethe's house and garden and the writer's collections – to the grand ducal family.

Many museums in one
Goethe's house takes pride of place in the museum ensemble put together by Carl Alexander. The whole group comprises 22 public museums perpetuating the memory of the great German author. The main component is Goethe's house and garden on Frauenplan which documents his literary and scientific achievements. Goethe lived here from 1792 until his death in 1832 with his wife Christiane Vulpius and his son August. The house remained in the possession of the family after Goethe's death until his grandson Walter opened it as the Goethe National Museum in 1885.

Goethe's collections on art and science, his library and around 2,000 of his own drawings form the core of the museum's holdings with about 50,000 items. His unusually intact literary estate is part of UNESCO's Memory of the World programme and has been preserved in the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar since 1985 where it is available for academic research. The archive contains about 90 per cent of Goethe's literary estate, including the surviving original manuscript of "West-Eastern Divan", fair copies of "Faust II", "Master Wilhelm's Years of Travel" and "Poetry and Truth".
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A selection of other museums in Germany dedicated to famous people.