Deutschlandlied
The "Deutschlandlied", officially titled "Das Lied der Deutschen", is a German poem written by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben. A popular song which was made for the cause of creating a unified German state, it was adopted in its entirety in 1922 by the Weimar Republic, replacing the de facto anthem "Heil dir im Siegerkranz". The first stanza of "Deutschlandlied" was used alongside the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" during the Nazi regime from 1933 until the end of World War II. On the proclamation of the Federal Republic of Germany, the entirety of the song was still the official anthem, though only the 3rd verse was sung. Since the Reunification of Germany in 1991, only the third stanza was reconfirmed as the national anthem. It is discouraged, although not illegal, to perform the first stanza, due to the perceived association with the Nazi regime.
Its phrase "Wikt:Einigkeit" is considered the unofficial national motto of Germany, and is inscribed on modern German Army belt buckles and the rims of some German coins.
The music is derived from that of "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser", composed in 1797 by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn as an anthem for the birthday of Francis II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and later of Austria. In 1841, the German linguist and poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the lyrics of "Das Lied der Deutschen" as a new text for that music, counterposing the national unification of Germany to the eulogy of a monarch: lyrics that were considered revolutionary at the time.
Title
The "Deutschlandlied" is also well known by the incipit and refrain of the first stanza, "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles", but this has never been its title. This line originally meant that the most important aim of 19th-century German liberal revolutionaries should be a unified Germany which would overcome loyalties to the local kingdoms, principalities, duchies and palatines of then-fragmented Germany, essentially that the idea of a unified Germany should be above all else. Later, and especially in Nazi Germany, these words came to more strongly express not only German superiority over and domination of other countries in particular, but also the idea of Germany being ranked foremost of all possible idealism among Germans.Melody
The melody of the "Deutschlandlied" was written by Joseph Haydn in 1797 to provide music to the poem "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" by Lorenz Leopold Haschka. In its original form, the song was an anthem honouring Francis II, emperor of the Austrian Empire. It was intended as an impetus to Austrian patriotism, modelled on Great Britain's "God Save the King".The melody later became the music of the national anthem of Austria-Hungary, prior to the abolition of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918.
The re-use of Haydn's melody in the "Deutschlandlied" is one of a great number of later such adaptations and reuses.
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Historical background
The Holy Roman Empire, stemming from the Middle Ages, was already disintegrating when the French Revolution and the ensuing Napoleonic Wars altered the political map of Central Europe. However, hopes for human rights and republican government after Napoleon's defeat in 1815 were dashed when the Congress of Vienna reinstated many small German principalities. In addition, with the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819, Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich and his secret police enforced censorship, mainly in universities, to keep a watch on the activities of teachers and students, whom he held responsible for the spread of radical liberalist ideas. Since reactionaries among the monarchs were the main adversaries, demands for freedom of the press and other liberal rights were most often uttered in connection with the demand for a united Germany, even though many revolutionaries-to-be held differing opinions over whether a republic or a constitutional monarchy would be the best solution for Germany.The German Confederation was a federation of 35 monarchical states and four republican free cities, with a Federal Assembly in Frankfurt. The federation was essentially a military alliance, but it was also abused by the larger powers to oppress liberal and national movements. Another federation, the German Customs Union was formed among the majority of the states in 1834. In 1840, Hoffmann wrote a song about the Zollverein, also to Haydn's melody, in which he ironically praised the free trade of German goods which brought Germans and Germany closer.
After the 1848 March Revolution, the German Confederation handed over its authority to the Frankfurt Parliament. For a short period in the late 1840s, Germany was united with the borders described in the anthem, and a democratic constitution was being drafted, and with the black-red-gold flag representing it. However, after 1849, the two largest German monarchies, Prussia and Austria, put an end to this liberal movement towards national unification.
Lyrics
wrote the text in 1841 while on holiday on the North Sea island Heligoland, then a possession of the United Kingdom.Hoffmann von Fallersleben intended "Das Lied der Deutschen" to be sung to Haydn's tune; the first publication of the poem included the music. The first line, "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt", was an appeal to the various German monarchs to give the creation of a united Germany a higher priority than the independence of their small states. In the third stanza, with a call for "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit", Hoffmann expressed his desire for a united and free Germany where the rule of law, not arbitrary monarchy, would prevail.
In the era after the Congress of Vienna, influenced by Metternich and his secret police, Hoffmann's text had a distinctly revolutionary and at the same time liberal connotation, since the appeal for a united Germany was most often made in connection with demands for freedom of the press and other civil rights. Its implication that loyalty to a larger Germany should replace loyalty to one's local sovereign was then a revolutionary idea.
The year after he wrote "Das Deutschlandlied", Hoffmann lost his job as a librarian and professor in Breslau, Prussia because of this and other revolutionary works, and was forced into hiding until he was pardoned following the revolutions of 1848 in the German states.
Only the third stanza, in bold, is used as the modern German national anthem.
Über alles in der Welt,
Wenn es stets zu Schutz und Trutze
Brüderlich zusammenhält.
Von der Maas bis an die Memel,
Von der Etsch bis an den Belt,
Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue,
Deutscher Wein und deutscher Sang
Sollen in der Welt behalten
Ihren alten schönen Klang,
Uns zu edler Tat begeistern
Unser ganzes Leben lang –
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Für das deutsche Vaterland!
Danach lasst uns alle streben
Brüderlich mit Herz und Hand!
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Sind des Glückes Unterpfand –
Above all in the world,
When it always stands united
Brotherly in protection and defence.
From the Meuse to the Neman,
From the Adige to the Little Belt,
German women, German loyalty,
German wine and German song
Shall retain in the world
Their old, beautiful sound,
Inspiring us to noble deeds
Throughout our entire lives –
Unity and justice and freedom
For the German fatherland!
Let us strive for this together,
Brotherly with heart and hand!
Unity and justice and freedom
Are the foundation of happiness –
Use before 1922
The melody of the "Deutschlandlied" was originally written by Joseph Haydn in 1797 to provide music to the poem "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" by Lorenz Leopold Haschka. The song was a birthday anthem to Francis II of the House of Habsburg, and was intended to rival in merit the British "God Save the King".After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" became the official anthem of the emperor of the Austrian Empire. After the death of Francis II new lyrics were composed in 1854, Gott erhalte, Gott beschütze, that mentioned the Emperor, but not by name. With those new lyrics, the song continued to be the anthem of Imperial Austria and later of Austria-Hungary. Austrian monarchists continued to use this anthem after 1918 in the hope of restoring the monarchy. The adoption of the Austrian anthem's melody by Germany in 1922 was not opposed by Austria.
"Das Lied der Deutschen" was not played at an official ceremony until Germany and the United Kingdom had agreed on the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty in 1890, when it appeared only appropriate to sing it at the ceremony on the now officially German island of Heligoland. During the time of the German Empire, it became one of the most widely known patriotic songs.
The song became very popular after the 1914 Battle of Langemarck during World War I, when, supposedly, several German regiments, consisting mostly of students no older than 20, attacked the British lines on the Western front while singing the song, suffering heavy casualties. They are buried in the Langemark German war cemetery in Belgium.
By December 1914, according to George Haven Putnam, the song had "come to express the... war spirit of the Fatherland" and "the supremacy of Germans over all other peoples", despite being, in past years, "an expression simply of patriotic devotion". Morris Jastrow Jr., then an American apologist for Germany, maintained that it meant only "that Germany is dearer to Germans than anything else". J. William White wrote into the Public Ledger to confirm Putnam's view.