He was one of the grandsons and last living descendant of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

He had his first music lesson when he was fifteen with the Weimar Kapellmeister Karl Eberwein.

[1] Later, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy taught him to play the piano, because he showed musical talent.

[2] Above all in 1842, he opposed the suggestion of the German Confederation to acquire the Goethe House in Weimar and the estate of the poet for the nation.

In 1864, Goethe became a member of the Freies Deutsches Hochstift, the academic society which had purchased his father's childhood home in 1863.