German-French relations are at their lowest point: This is one of the reasons why the closure of nine Goethe Institutes, for example in Strasbourg and Bordeaux, shows catastrophic ignorance.
Few places embody, indeed symbolize, the rich, varied, and sometimes extremely complicated German-French relationship as impressively as Strasbourg. Georg Büchner and numerous other politically persecuted Germans generously found refuge here in the 1920s and 1940s. The city was already an early center of the “Sturm und Drang” movement; Lenz and Herder worked here. Goethe is certainly the most prominent German amoureux in the city; his boundless enthusiasm for the Strasbourg Cathedral first made the Gothic style popular.