Federal Republic of Germany, 5 Deutsche Mark 1977

The commemoration coins of the Federal Republic of Germany all allude to remarkable events. In this case it is the 200th anniversary of Heinrich von Kleist (*1777, †1811). The image was modeled after a portrait that Kleist had made for his fiancée Wilhelmine von Zenge in 1801. At that time, however, the poet already faced a deep existential crisis from which he would never really recover: in 1811 Heinrich von Kleist committed suicide.