History
The town has existed at least since the 8th century, when it was mentioned in a document signed by Charlemagne as Villa Gotaha ("Good Waters"). Its importance derives from having been chosen in 1640 as the capital of the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha. In the 18th century, the extended séjour of the French philosopher Voltaire turned the court into one of the centres of the Enlightenment in Germany. From 1826 to 1918, Gotha was one of the two capitals of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Gotha has played an important role in the German workers' movement. The German socialist party (SPD) was founded in Gotha in 1875, through the merger of two organizations: the Social Democratic Workers' Party, led by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, and the General German Workers' Association, founded by Ferdinand Lassalle. A compromise known as the Gotha Program was forged, although it had been strongly criticized by Karl Marx for its reformist bias in his Critique of the Gotha Program.
This is the city where the famous psychologist and anthropologist Theodor Waitz was born in 1821.
Gotha also has been a centre of publishing. The firm Justus Perthes (now called Hermann Haack) began the publication in 1763 of the Almanach de Gotha, an authoritative directory of the world's major ruling dynasties and Europe's high nobility.
From 1949 to 1990, Gotha was part of the German Democratic Republic.
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