An award for global engagement and innovative cultural work.
Since 1955, the Goethe-Institut has awarded the Goethe Medal once a year as an official decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Goethe Medal honours public figures who render outstanding services to conveying the German language and to international cultural exchange. The Goethe Medal is the most important award of Germany’s foreign cultural and educational policy.
The nomination process is unique in Germany. Every year, staff of the Goethe-Instituts, in coordination with German missions abroad, nominate cultural actors from all regions and cultural fields, as well as from the fields of science and language. From these nominations, the commission for awarding the Goethe Medal, a jury consisting of persons from Germany’s academia, art and culture, chooses three awardees.
The well over three hundred past awardees include Daniel Barenboim, David Cornwell aka John le Carré, Ágnes Heller, Petros Markaris, Jorge Semprún, Robert Wilson, Neil MacGregor, Helen Wolff, Yurii Andrukhovych, Irina Shcherbakova, Shirin Neshat, Ariane Mnouchkine, Yoko Tawada, Sofia Gubaidulina, Dogan Akhanlı und Princess Marilyn Douala Manga Bell. The international network of the Goethe-Institut and its expertise in collaborating with local cultural actors plays a central role in the nomination.
In a variety of civil society contexts, the Goethe-Instituts and embassies identify innovative approaches and artistic signatures that make cultural work appear exciting, freedom-fostering and aesthetically outstanding. The Goethe Medal honours achievements in promoting the German language, culture and arts in the awardees’ home countries. It also honours the renewal and constant updating of an international understanding of culture. The award draws attention to forward-looking topics and trends and strengthens the internationalisation of the German cultural landscape, global networking and mutually beneficial cooperation.
Since 1992, the Goethe-Institut has organised the award ceremony in Weimar, and since 2009 it has been held on 28 August, the birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Together with the Kunstfest Weimar, the Goethe-Institut develops an accompanying programme that offers opportunities to meet the awardees and learn about their work. Since 2022, the awardees have been able to strengthen or establish new relationships with institutions and individuals working in Germany as part of a networking trip to Germany.
