Minna Herzlieb

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Minna Herzlieb (1789–1865) was the foster daughter of the German publisher Carl Friedrich Ernst Frommann. Orphaned early, she grew up in Frommann’s house in Jena. In 1807 she moved to Weimar, where she met Goethe, who gave her some sonnets. She inspired the character Ottilie in Goethe’s Elective Affinities. In 1821 she married Professor Karl Wilhelm Walch, but the marriage was not based on love and may have affected her mental health. She died in a mental hospital in Görlitz on 10 July 1865, aged 76.