The Life And Death of 

Goethe

Goethe, inspires many legends these days, being the great writer he was, but let us find the man behind these myths.  Goethe was born in 1651 to peasant family in a village outside of Nürnberg.  His father, Otto Goethe was a shoemaker by trade, as was his father, and the entire Goethe family.  Johan was the first son of Otto's second wife, Maria; his first Ida had died from the bubonic plague a few years before.  Since childhood Goethe was intrigued by ships and water-going vessels of all sorts, and loved to visit his mother's father's shipyard on the North Sea coast of Holland.  However Otto was determined to Make his son a shoemaker and at the age of seven made him and apprentice to his elder brother Friedrich.  Johan resented this treatment and after a month of his imprisoning apprenticeship ran a way to the cultural hub of Antwerp to learn the trade of the sailor.

    Goethe learned quickly and at the age of 23 was a lieutenant captain in the Dutch Navy.  He was renowned throughout the Dutch Colonial Empire as Johan the Brutal.  After serving in the Seven years war under Captain van Taark, Goethe was knighted by Queen Charlotte II.  And made admiral of the Dutch Pacific Fleet.  He commanded the Dutch forces in the Crimean War, but sadly lost right leg and his left eye.  Goethe was landboud for the rest of his life.  He was still a leading figure in the Dutch Navy but instead of being on the high seas, he had a desk job of sorts.  It was at this time that Goethe discovered his great love of writing and the German language.  He published many poems and short stories about life on the sea, under the Alias of Dr. Ludo Zamenhof.  At the age of 45, in 1718, Goethe left his post at the Dutch Navy and returned to the country of his birth.  Goethe continued to write, this time under his true name, and republish the best of his early works also under his real name.

    There were not many people willing to patron Goethe and he ended up writing at night and holding a variety of odd jobs during the day.  Some of these include a mime, a dentist, a lumberjack, and the guy who cleans up after the elephants in the circus. Finally.  A well-known, yet rather eccentric alchemist by the name of Dr. Johannes Faust was paid Goethe a grand some of money to right a story about his life.  Goethe did this and it became an immediate success, not just among eccentric alchemist but throughout the general populous.  Goethe went on to write many other beloved classic tales such as 20 Thousand Leagues under the Sea, The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, War and Peace, and Goodnight Moon.

    Unfortunately for Goethe, he had made a big mistake.  Under the newly established regime of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, most books were strictly forbidden, being though of as works of The Devil.  All German copies of Goethe two hundred or so anthologies of poetry, his 5 novels and the movies based off of these novels were burned.  Goethe would have been to if he and Dr. Faust hadn't escaped to Argentina when they heard of Das Feuerfest. Goethe lived as an impoverished farmer known to the people as El Alemán. He did not dare to write any more, fearing that his literature would be identified written by him by the Nazis and used as a clue to his wherabouts.  He died in 1947 as his father had died and his father before him, an poor peasant.