In 1949, on the occasion of Goethe's 200th birthday, the Goethe-Gesellschaft was founded in the Taunushotel. Committed to the ideal of humanism, the purpose of the Goethe Society was to define guiding ideas and cultivate spiritual values with the aim of opposing externalization and the spread of materialism.

It promoted a lively approach to Goethe as an outstanding European and citizen of the world and endeavored to promote relationships with and knowledge of Goethe and his work through lectures and recitations. Important speakers were invited to speak on major topics. With such a diversity of voices, the Goethe Society's appeal was also enhanced by its intention to initiate a lively dialog with interested parties. When designing the program, care was taken to choose topics and authorities that had not yet been considered elsewhere. After the lectures, there was an opportunity to socialize. The initiative "Members speak to members", practiced by the chairmen Walter Felix Mueller (until 1965) and Albert Schaefer (until 1974) and continued when Alexander Hildebrand took over the chairmanship (1974-2006), also belongs in this context.

The initial phase of the Goethe-Gesellschaft also included a certain civic education in its program. There were sufficient indications of this in Goethe's life. Subsequently, life and cultural issues of a more general nature became more prominent: "Man and Truth" (Josef Pieper), "The Spiritual Crisis of the Present and Philosophy"(Helmut Plessner) or "Goethe's Contemplative Power of Judgment" (Hugo Kükelhaus). There was a particular response to series of lectures under key themes such as "Goethe's religion in the context of the idea of God in the West" or "Goethe and his great contemporaries" following Goethe's concept of world literature.

In addition to recitations from Goethe's works by renowned actresses and actors (Marianne Hoppe, Will Quadflieg) and the "Goethe in Song" cycle, the poetry readings enjoyed respectable popularity, initially as matinees in the Kleines Haus of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, and for the last few decades in the Villa Clementine, where the Goethe-Gesellschaft became the forerunner of today's Literaturhaus. This continued the tradition of the "Literary Society" from the 1920s, when Thomas Mann, Stefan Zweig, Kurt Tucholsky, Hermann Graf Keyserling, Alfons Paquet and Arnold Zweig could be experienced there. Now the authors included Edzard Schaper, Erich Nossack, Bernard von Brentano, Günter Eich, Alfred Andersch, Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Ingeborg Bachmann, Siegfried Lenz and Wolfgang Hildesheimer.

In the 1970s, there was an even greater focus on current research. Exile research, which particularly attracted the younger members, was introduced, as were topics such as "Tendencies in contemporary literature" or "What is a modern novel?". Individual works by Goethe became the focus of interpretation, sometimes even a single poem. The press noted the increasing number of women among the speakers, and the poet Ilse Aichinger or the Proust translator Eva Rechel-Mertens were explicitly acknowledged in the feature pages.

The main focus continued to be on the program with an overarching cycle structure. Goethe's work was interpreted from the perspective of various disciplines, for example in lectures on "Goethe and Music", "Goethe and Mathematics", "Goethe and Medicine", etc. The image of Goethe in other European countries was also explored, with the best connoisseurs, repeatedly once ostracized and exiled, travelling from there. Also worth mentioning are the cultural and art-historical excursions to places of Goethe and other poets and artists, e.g. visits to Goethe's originally preserved cabinets in the Brentano House in Oestrich-Winkel. Always at the center: Goethe as an inexhaustible theme.