ILMENAU  , a

town and summer resort of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Saxe-Weimar, at the north foot of the Thuringian Forest, on the river Ilm, 30 M. by rail south of Erfurt . Pop . (1905) 11,222 . The town, which stands picturesquely among wooded hills, is much frequented by visitors in the summer . It was a favourite resort of Goethe, who wrote here his Iphigenie, and often stayed at Gabelbach in the neighbourhood . It has a grand-ducal palace, a Roman Catholic and two Evangelical churches, a sanatorium for nervous disorders, and several educational establishments . Its chief manufactures are glass and porcelain, toys, gloves and chemicals, and the town has tanneries and saw-mills . Formerly a part (if the county of Henneberg, Ilmenau came in 1631 into the possession of electoral Saxony, afterwards passing to Saxe-Weimar . See R . Springer, Die klassischen Stdtten von Jena and Ilmenau (Berlin, 18691; Pasig, Goethe and Ilmenau (and ed., Weimar, 1902); and Fits, Bad Ilmenau and seine Umgebung(Hildburghausen, 1886) .