It incorporates Ernst Rietschel's 1857 bronze double statue of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) and Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), who are probably the two most revered figures in German literature.

The bronze figures of the Goethe–Schiller statue are substantially larger than life-size; notably, both are given the same height, even though Goethe was nearly 20 cm shorter than Schiller.

[7] The figures were mounted on a large stone pedestal in front of the Court Theater that Goethe had directed, and that had seen premieres and countless performances of Schiller's plays.

[8] Four exact copies of Rietschel's statue were subsequently commissioned by German-Americans in the United States for the Goethe–Schiller monuments in San Francisco (1901), Cleveland (1907), Milwaukee (1908), and Syracuse (1911).

[10][11] The project of creating a Goethe–Schiller monument in Weimar was sponsored by Karl Alexander August Johann, the Grand Duke of the Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach Duchy, and by a citizen's commission.

[5] The dedication of the monument was planned to coincide with the centennial celebrations of the birth of the earlier Grand Duke Karl August, who had brought Goethe to Weimar in 1775.

Goethe arranged for the theater to premiere Schiller's last four plays (Mary Stuart, The Bride of Messina, The Maid of Orleans, and William Tell).

The molds were prepared from Rietschel's original forms at the Albertinum in Dresden; the work was supervised by Rudolf Siemering, a Berlin sculptor.

Paul Zanker[24] has written of this movement: After the wars of liberation in German lands had brought neither political freedom nor national unity, the citizenry began to seek in cultural pursuits a substitute for what they still lacked.

This is especially true of the period of the restoration, and in particular, the years after the failed revolution of 1848, when monuments to famous Germans, above all Friedrich von Schiller, sprouted everywhere.

Ute Frevert writes,[23] "It did not matter who spoke, a Hamburg plumber, a political emigrant in Paris, an aristocratic civil servant in Münster, a writer in Wollenbüttel, they unanimously invoked Schiller as a singer of freedom and the prophet of German unity."

Rüdiger Görner illustrates the origins of this reputation with a speech from the "famous" tenth scene of the third act of Schiller's 1787 play, Don Carlos: "Look all around at nature's mastery, / Founded on freedom.

"[25] Wolf Lepenies takes a similar perspective, writing that "After the revolution of 1848 failed, Schiller became more popular, as the festivities for his hundredth birthday in 1859 demonstrated; the occasion was celebrated throughout the German lands in a mood of patriotic fervor.

[30] Phyllida Lloyd, a recent director of Schiller's plays, has said "During the Civil War, and this was complete news to me, a quarter of a million German-born soldiers were fighting for Lincoln.

At the 1901 dedication of the first US Goethe–Schiller monument, C. M. Richter remarked:[14] The German, who brought these two masters as his inheritance to a new homeland, contributed this wealth to the intellectual life of his fellow citizens.

[17] The Chicago and St. Louis monuments were recastings of Ernst Rau's 1876 bronze located in Marbach, Germany, where Schiller was born in 1759.

[34] This monument, by Hermann Hahn, shows an idealized figure often identified with Zeus;[3] it signaled a profound departure from sculptures that were recognizable portraits of the poets.