Deutschlandlied

The Song of the Germans, also known as the Deutschlandlied, was written by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben on 26 August 1841 on Helgoland. Its third stanza is the text of the German national anthem.

The specific occasion for Hoffmann to write the song was French territorial claims to the Rhineland during the Rhine crisis. He rejected these claims with the song, as he did with other German Rhine songs of the time. He supplemented this with other ideas, especially that of German unity, which alone could provide the prerequisite for repelling enemy attacks of any magnitude (first stanza). The poet created his work expressly to the tune of the older song Gott erhalte Franz, den Kaiser by Joseph Haydn (1797). The song was written on a trip Hoffmann took to the then British island of Heligoland. For a long time, however, it was only one of the many songs of the German national movement.

The song only gained greater significance during the First World War when the Supreme Army Command (OHL) announced that it had been spontaneously sung by German soldiers during a battle near the Belgian town of Langemarck, north of Ypres. On the following day, the OHL commented on the events of November 10, 1914, in an obviously propagandistically formulated, momentous report that was printed on the front page of almost all German newspapers:

This report by the OHL was received uncritically by large sections of the German public and triggered the creation of the so-called myth of Langemarck about the heroic sacrifice of young soldiers. It was not until 11 August 1922, during the Weimar Republic, that the Deutschlandlied with all three stanzas was designated Germany's official national anthem at the instigation of the Social Democratic Reich President Friedrich Ebert.

Shortly after the lost First World War, an additional "fourth verse" was created, which was never part of the national anthem. It was included, among others, in the Weltkriegs-Liedersammlung (1926), in the Liederbuch der Deutschen Kriegsmarine (1927) and in the Schlesier-Liederbuch (1936). There Albert Matthai is named as the author. Matthai wrote this stanza under the impression of the Versailles Peace Treaties, which entailed harsh sanctions for Germany such as cessions of territory and high reparation payments. It was sung until the 1930s in front-line fighter associations such as the "Stahlhelm" and among German nationalists.

During the time of National Socialism (1933-1945) only the first verse was sung, which was always followed by the Horst-Wessel-Lied.

After 1945, there were discussions about the further use of the song until 1952, when an official exchange of letters between Federal President Theodor Heuss (FDP) and Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (CDU) decided that Das Lied der Deutschen remained the national anthem overall, but that only the third verse should be sung on official occasions. After reunification, the third verse was declared the national anthem of Germany in 1991, following another exchange of letters between Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker (CDU) and Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU).

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Rhine crisis and Rhine songs

In the summer of 1840, France suffered a foreign policy defeat in the Oriental crisis against a coalition of Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia. The French public felt humiliated; there was talk of a "diplomatic Waterloo". The government of Adolphe Thiers directed the growing national indignation against the treaties of the Congress of Vienna of 1815 and against the neighboring German states: Instead of conquests in the Orient, the Rhine now became the target as France's "natural frontier." France had seized the entire territory on the left bank of the Rhine in the Revolutionary Wars and established four départements there (Left Bank of the Rhine); however, the Congress of Vienna in 1814 had restored the pre-revolutionary border, so that the Rhine only formed the Franco-German border in Alsace - which had already been French since the 17th century - while the territories further north on the left bank of the Rhine did not belong to France.

Now Thiers demanded the entire territories on the left bank of the Rhine. For months, the German Confederation was threatened with war, both officially and in the press, and armed itself militarily and morally. French intellectuals such as Edgar Quinet and Victor Hugo joined in the demand for the Rhine border. This Rhine crisis caused a revival of the German national movement, which called for the defense of both banks of the Rhine. In the style of the Rhine Song by Nikolaus Becker, other so-called Rhine songs were written, such as Die Wacht am Rhein by Max Schneckenburger or Ernst Moritz Arndt's war song against the Wälschen.

The Lied der Deutschen (Song of the Germans), the lyrics of which Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote in 1841, was also written in this context. Unlike the Rhine songs, however, neither France nor the Rhine is mentioned in the Lied der Deutschen; Hoffmann does, however, list four other bodies of water that outline the German-speaking area of the time.

In 1922, on the other hand, the Rhine appeared in a persiflage from the National Socialist point of view: "Alles, alles über Deutschland. Enemies all around the world, because it does not hold together as a brother for protection and trust. The Rhine is Welsh, the Vistula Polish, the German sea is no longer German, Germania wears slave chains ignominiously without defence and honour. […]“