August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben

August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben (born April 2, 1798, Fallersleben, near Braunschweig, Hanover [Germany]—died Jan. 19, 1874, Corvey Castle, near Höxter, Ger.) was a German patriotic poet, philologist, and literary historian whose poem “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles” was adopted as the German national anthem after World War I. (See Deutschlandlied.) His uncomplicated verses, expressing his deep love of country, were of great significance to the German student movement.

Having studied at the Universities of Göttingen and Bonn, he was custodian of the university library at Breslau (1823–38). He became professor of German language and literature there in 1830 but was removed by the Prussian authorities in 1842 for his Unpolitische Lieder (1840–41; “Nonpolitical Songs”), interpreted, despite its title, as political. After the Revolutions of 1848 he was allowed to return. In 1860 he was appointed librarian to the duke of Ratibor at Corvey Castle, a post he held until his death.

Hoffmann was among the earliest and most effective of the poets who prepared the way for the revolutionary movement of 1848. His patriotic poem “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” written in 1841, is typical in its expression of popular feeling—the wish for national unity felt by German liberals of the period. In the first line the word “Deutschland” was repeated to fit Joseph Haydn’s tune (which appears in his Emperor Quartet, Opus 76, No. 3). The third verse of the song, “Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit” (“Unity and Justice and Freedom”), was adopted as the national anthem of West Germany after World War II and of unified Germany in 1990.

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A Study of Poetry

As a student of ancient Germanic literature, Hoffmann ranks among the most persevering and cultivated of German scholars. His Deutsche Philologie im Grundriss (1836; “Outline of German Philology”) made a valuable contribution to philological research.