May the world recover from the German being
May the world recover from the German being is a political catchphrase that goes back to Emanuel Geibel's poem Germany's Profession from 1861. Geibel campaigns for the unity of Germany and calls on the individual states to unite under a German emperor , Wilhelm I , who has ruled as King of Prussia since 1861 , as it finally happened in 1871 after the " Wars of Unification " . The German nature , in which the world may recover, is to be understood as the unified German state , from which a peace effect on the European structure of states will emanate.
The catchphrase Am Deutschen Wesen may die Welt recover was later used by the political leadership and probably also reinterpreted. Kaiser Wilhelm II used it, for example, in a speech on August 1, 1907. If one understands beings as being in the philosophical sense , disregarding the historical context , it can be misunderstood, contrary to Geibel's intention, as an invitation to the world to "become more German" . This corresponded widespread escalation of Geibel'schen like to to : On the German character to the world recover. Federal President Theodor Heuss rejected this interpretation in 1952: “No people are better than any other, there is such and such in everyone. America is not 'God's own country', and the harmless Emanuel Geibel has caused some subordinate nonsense by saying that the world will be recovered once more with the German being. "
Germany's profession
The 7 stanzas of the poem:
Shall it |
A hoard is going to be set up, |
When the holy crown |
Power and freedom, law and custom, |
literature
- Winged words. Quotes, sentences and concepts in their historical context , ed. by Kurt Böttcher et al. Leipzig 1985, p. 501 f.
- Kurt Pätzold and Manfred Weißbecker : Keywords and battle calls . From two centuries of German history . Leipzig, 2002, pp. 279-283
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ulrich Roos, German Foreign Policy: A Reconstruction of the Basic Rules of Action , p. 177 fn. 202 books.google
- ^ Internet portal Westphalian history, Landesmuseum Münster / feast for the province of Westphalia
- ^ Duden - The great book of general education, page 286 books.google
- ^ Theodor Heuss: Address for the opening of the Bergen-Belsen memorial on November 30, 1952 http://www.zeit.de/reden/die_historische_rede/heuss_holocaust_200201
- ↑ Text source: Emanuel Geibel: Heroldsruf. Older and more recent time poems . Stuttgart 1871, pp. 116-118