Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798–1874) wrote “Das Lied der Deutschen” while on Helgoland (at that time a British island), where he was not subject to the censorship prevalent in the absolutist states of the German Confederation. His poem was a call for a unified, constitutional German nation that would overcome the existing proliferation of small states and also guarantee civil liberties. Such a nation should be Germans’ top priority—“über alles.” The poet set his text to the melody of Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Kaiserhymne” (1797) because his vision of a unified Germany included Austria.¹ Dismissed from his position as a professor of German literature at the University of Breslau, which he had held since 1830, for his liberal, nationalist views, he became a political exile. In 1922, “Das Lied der Deutschen” became the official national anthem of the Weimar Republic. The National Socialists sang just the first verse, to emphasize German superiority over all other nations. The third verse (“Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit”) became the official national anthem in 1991.

¹Reichel, Peter. Glanz und Elend deutscher Selbstdarstellung: Nationalsymbolik in Reich und Republik. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2012, 73.

See also Hotch, Hanno. “Das Deutschlandlied—ein Lied mit Geschichte.“ NDR. May 5, 2021. Accessed June 12, 2021. https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/chronologie/Deutschlandlied-ein-Lied-mit-Geschichte-,liedderdeutschen100.html.

Hoffmann von Fallersleben, August Heinrich. “Das Lied der Deutschen.” In Deutsche Lieder aus der Schweiz, 16–17. Zürich 1842. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89068030295?urlappend=%3Bseq=22.

Reference to the jingoistic poem “Die Wacht am Rhein,” written by German Max Schneckenburger (1819–49) in response to the Rhine Crisis of 1840, which broke out when France threatened to mobilize its military and reclaim all territory west of the river Rhine. This line echoes the reassuring refrain of Schneckenburger’s poem: “Lieb’ Vaterland, magst ruhig sein, / Fest steht und treu die Wacht am Rhein.”

Schneckenburger, Max. Deutsche Lieder: Auswahl aus seinem Nachlass, 19–20. Stuttgart, 1870. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3148536?urlappend=%3Bseq=27.

A variation of the “Kaiserlied,” the national anthem of the German Empire, which begins: “Heil dir im Siegerkranz, / Herrscher des Vaterlands, / Heil, Kaiser, dir!”

“Heil dir im Siegerkranz.” In Patriotische Klänge: eine Sammlung von Gedichten und dramatischen Festspielen zur vaterländischer Ehrentage, edited by Wilhelm Fricke, 231. Brun, [188–?]. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101066401686?urlappend=%3Bseq=229>.