This oak was planted for a play. In 1865 the Verschönerungsverein, Stuttgart's beautification society, laid out a lookout on the Schillerhöhe and put this tree on it. By the club's own account it marks the first reading of Schiller's Die Räuber; a newspaper agrees on the year but is vaguer about where that reading happened, so treat the link to the play as the club's story. The planting is what makes it datable, which is rarer than it sounds. Counted from 1865 rather than guessed from a trunk, it is about 160 years old. Nobody has published its girth or height. It has outlasted most of what was built around it. A Kurhaus and restaurant named after the oak once stood beside it and is gone. In 2005, for the 200th anniversary of Schiller's death, the lookout was renovated together with the city's parks, cemeteries and forestry office. The club still owns the ground and keeps it open as a public viewpoint, and Stuttgart has protected the oak as a natural monument since 2003. The view is the other reason to climb up. From 408 metres the lookout takes in the city from south-west to north-east, with benches beside the trunk and a footpath along Wernhaldenstraße. A photograph from May 2024 shows the crown full and in leaf. Pair it with the Wernhalde sequoias, about 250 metres east on the same slope.
In fruit
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Schillerhoehe lookout, Wernhaldenstrasse above Neue Weinsteige, StuttgartYou can recognise it as the oak on the Schillerhöhe lookout, with benches beside it and the city laid out below from 408 metres. It stands by the footpath along Wernhaldenstraße.
Free, open lookout with benches and a footpath beside Wernhaldenstrasse; the ground belongs to the Verschoenerungsverein Stuttgart, which keeps it as a public viewpoint. No ticket.
Stadtbahn U5/U6 to Weinsteige, then roughly 10 to 15 minutes' walk along Wernhaldenstrasse (walk time estimated, not sourced)
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
