Document courtesy
of Thuringian State
Archive, Weimar.
This document, which is part of Professor Wilson's research on Goethe, is a draft of a Weimar Privy Council order for extraordinary security measures at the 1783 execution of a woman who killed her child. Infanticide was a burning social issue in 18th-century Germany because unwed mothers often killed their newborns from fear of ostracism. Goethe had portrayed such a woman with great empathy in the earliest version of his play Faust, and yet the draft carries his initials "JWG" (highlighted in color above) below those of the other two Privy Councillors and the Duke Carl August, indicating that he participated in the meeting and agreed with the decision to execute the mother.