Segall slightly alters the central question in a popular patriotic poem by Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769–1860), “Des Deutschen Vaterland” (1813): “Was ist des Teutschen Vaterland?” Written during the Wars of Liberation, the poem served as an anthem of sorts for nationally-minded Germans. The catalog of cities in Segall’s second stanza also echoes the first stanza of Arndt’s poem, in which he suggests possible answers to his question: “Ist’s Preussenland? ist’s Schwabenland? / Ist’s, wo am Belt die Möve zieht?” / O nein, nein, nein! / Sein Vaterland muß größer seyn.”

Arndt, Ernst Moritz. “Des Teutschen Vaterland.” In Gedichte, 116–18. Frankfurt am Main, 1818. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.30000118302656?urlappend=%3Bseq=126.

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