The Goethe Medal was endowed in 1954 by the Executive Comitee of the Goethe-Institut and became an official annual decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1975. Since 1992 it is awarded in the city of Weimar.
Since it was first awarded in 1955, a total of 312 personalities from 57 countries have been honoured. Among the prize winners in the last few years were Hölderlin researcher Pierre Bertaux, the cultural sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the Psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, the composer Pierre Boulez, the director Georgio Strehler, the art expert Sir Ernest Gombrich, the exhibition maker Jan Hoet, the composer György Ligeti, the philosopher Sir Karl Raimund Popper, the author Michel Tournier and the directors Istvan Szabo and Billy Wilder.
