1806-1815: Orientation
From January till November 1806 Jacob Grimm was assistant at the Council of War in Kassel, but due to the French occupation of the Electorate of Hesse, he gave up his position. In July 1808, after his mother’s death, he became the personal librarian of Jérôme Bonaparte, the king of the new “Kingdom of Westphalia”. In 1809 he took also the position of “Auditor of the Council of State”. Wilhelm Grimm was unemployed and lived together with his other siblings in Kassel. After a stay at a health resort in Halle he travelled to Arnim in Berlin in the autumn of 1809 and visited Goethe in Weimar on the return journey.
During the Napoleonic occupation the Grimm brothers dealt intensively with “Old German” culture and with the “poetry of the people”. After the collapse of the French rule Jacob Grimm became in December 1813 secretary of legation for the Electorate of Hesse, was a member of the staff of the allies’ headquarters during the campaign in France and operated at the Congress of Vienna. In 1815 he was put in charge of ensuring the return of the cultural assets stolen by the French during their occupation to Hesse and to Prussia.
Kassel / Paris / Wien / Berlin
1806–1815
Virtual Museum of the Brothers Grimm
1785-1798: Parentage
1798-1806: Education
1806-1815: Orientation
1814-1829: Appreciation
1830-1838: Courage
1837-1841: Persistence
1841-1863: Performance
1863-... Impact