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“When I was walking alone on the cliff, seeing nothing but the sky and the sea around me, I felt so courageous that I had to write poetry even if I hadn't wanted to.

This is how the song 'Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles!' (Germany, Germany over everything!) Was written on August 26th. ”This is how the poet and professor of German studies August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798–1874) described his mood when the famous lines came to mind on Heligoland in 1841.

Three stanzas that were supposed to change Germany, and that did it in completely different ways, and of which the third today is the national anthem of the Federal Republic.

As clear as the title of this “song of the Germans” is, its history of reception and impact is entwined.

It starts with the place of origin.

Hoffmann, professor at the University of Breslau, had come to relax on the island in the North Sea, which at the time was by no means part of Germany.

It was remote British property and was not to come to the German Empire until 1890.

To the poet, Heligoland seemed "extinct ... but loneliness soon made me feel good".

Just three days after completing the poem, Hoffmann met his publisher Julius Campe on the beach and read the work to him.

He immediately paid the required four louis dor (around 800 euros today) and foresaw a bestseller: as a “Rhine song”, as a patriotic wake-up call against France's dreaded urge to the Rhine.

Liberal spirits could hide their real concern behind such titles without coming into conflict with the censor.

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Because Hoffmann von Fallersleben was considered a critical mind.

In the years leading up to the revolution of 1848, he was one of the growing community of critics who turned against Germany's many states and their authoritarian governments.

The first verses of the song "Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles / über alles in der Welt" - later understood as nationalistic exaggeration - had a downright revolutionary thrust: the around 40 kingdoms, grand duchies, principalities and Hanseatic cities of the German Confederation, the 1815 had taken the place of the old empire should merge into a united nation-state.

That this demand was followed with suspicion not only by the ruling elites, but also beyond the borders, is shown by other verses: “From the Meuse to the Memel” and “from the Adige to the Belt”, this new state was supposed to reach also include areas in Belgium, Italy and Denmark where people spoke in German.

How much the German question affected the stability of Europe was painfully experienced by the members of the Frankfurt Paulskirche parliament in 1848/49.

Title page of the original edition from 1841. In the subtitle the reference to Haydn's "Kaiserquartett"

Source: picture-alliance / akg-images

Hoffmann also did the rest.

Underlying his song was the melody of Joseph Haydn's “Kaiserquartett”, which varied one of the Austrian imperial hymns.

Their opening verses "Gott preserve Franz, the Kaiser, our good Emperor Franz!" Were unmistakably emblazoned on the cover of the print version and made it clear that the "Song of the Germans" should be understood as a biting caricature of the real Germany, whose highest representative the Was emperor in Vienna.

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The Prussian government saw it too.

Hoffmann lost his chair at the University of Breslau in 1842 and was dismissed without a pension.

A year later, his Prussian citizenship was revoked and he was expelled from the country.

Hoffmann was expelled 39 times and roamed restlessly through Germany.

What it meant in the Vormärz to be a radical liberal and democrat, however, reveal other verses.

The French reviled Hoffmann as "the horrors of humanity" and "great dogs".

In his poem “Emancipation”, he confronted the Jews: “If you do not want to give up this God, Germany will never open its ear to you.” It is not easy to understand the bourgeois liberalism of the 19th century today.

For the unitary state that Bismarck launched in 1871, the “song of the Germans” was above all a revolutionary beacon.

An official hymn was dispensed with and on official occasions they sang “Heil dir im Siegerkranz” as an homage to the emperor - with the melody of the British national anthem “God Save the Queen / King”.

Only raised to the national anthem in 1922

It was then a Social Democrat, Reich President Friedrich Ebert, who declared Hoffmann's “Song of the Germans” on August 11, 1922 the national anthem of the Weimar Republic.

Since the “Song of the Germans” had been popular as a battle cry during World War I, it should now help to level the deep rifts between the political camps, which, as is well known, did not succeed.

Among the destroyers of the first German democracy, the anthem was reinterpreted.

The National Socialists reduced the hymn to the first stanza and combined it with the "Horst-Wessel-Lied", the battle song of the NSDAP.

After the end of the war, the Allied Control Council banned this unholy bouquet of hymns.

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When a new anthem was sought after the founding of the Federal Republic, various proposals failed to find a majority.

Finally, an exchange of letters between Federal President Theodor Heuss and Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer came to the conclusion that the “Song of the Germans” should remain the national anthem - but only the third verse.

It stayed with the reunification in 1990, although there had been votes to take over the GDR hymn by Johannes R. Becher with the music of Hanns Eisler "Resurrected from ruins", the text of which, however, had already been suppressed by the SED in good time.

How sensitive the German soul still reacts was discovered a few years ago by discus thrower and gold medal winner Christoph Harting when he swayed to the national anthem on the podium.

Sports colleagues accused him of a lack of respect, and Harting tried to apologize with difficulty with a "flow" in his head.

Sarah Connor had similar trouble a few years ago when she inadvertently performed “Brüh im Licht der Glücks” instead of “Bloom in the shine of this happiness” in the Bayern stadium.

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This article was first published in 2016.