WAS BORN IN BINGEN
Stefan George was born in Bingen-Büdesheim on 12th July 1868, the
son of a wine merchant and inn keeper. Even as a child, he gravitated
towards ritual, religion and national ideas. After completing his
secondary education, George travelled throughout Europe and was
in contact with major authors and artists of his time. Right from his
early works, there is evidence of a renunciation of everyday reality.
Followers and admirers of the young poet very soon formed the elite
“George group”. He received his first official award as a lyricist in 1927
from the city of Frankfurt am Main. Bingen renamed the Nahe quay
Stefan-George-Straße. Discouraged by the exploitation of his work for
propaganda by the National Socialists, George left Germany and moved
to neutral Switzerland, where he died at Muralto hospital near
Locarno on 4th December 1933. The wake was arranged by Claus von
Stauffenberg, who explicitly referred to his teacher, Stefan George, at
his attempted assassination of Hitler.
Search for clues in the “oat shed”, an imposing, half-timbered, 17thcentury
building and former department store.
