German royal and state anthems based on the melody of the British royal anthem
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German princely and state anthems based on the melody of the British royal anthem were written in large numbers from the end of the 18th to the second half of the 19th century. They were inspired by the identity and community-building power of the English God save the King , which was compulsory for royal and national occasions since the middle of the 18th century and which soon became known in the German-speaking world. That not only the text, but also the melody is an exclusively British symbol, only became a common perception in the 20th century. The German texts were literarily interdependent in many ways.
First takeover: August Niemann
The first German-language counterfacture of the British anthem was made by August Christian Niemann (1761-1832) from Holstein . At the age of 21 he published it in his academic songbook in 1782 as part of a patriotic student celebration. The six-verse song begins with a cry of salvation for Joseph II as German emperor . This is followed by a prayer for him and an appeal to all “genuine Germans” to commit themselves to the “fatherland” represented by the emperor with “good and blood”.
Second takeover: Heinrich Harries
Heinrich Harries (1762–1802) created the second counterfactor . As a Schleswig-Holstein he was a Danish subject and with conviction. In 1790 he published his eight-verse song for the Danish subjects in the Flensburger Wochenblatt, which he edited , to sing on his king's birthday in the melody of the English folk song God save great George the King with the beginning of the text “Heil dir, the loving ruler of the fatherland! Salvation, Christian , you! "In a Prussian on the king Friedrich Wilhelm II. Reworked and abridged version of Balthasar Gerhard Schumacher , who concealed the actual author, it appeared in 1793 in Berlin as the" Berlin folk song "and became the starting point of all later versions of Hail in the wreath . In contrast to the English model and in Niemann's Joseph song, there is no talk of God , but of the "love" between ruler and people, on which the ruler's throne is based as on "rock in the sea".
Further development
In addition to Heil dir in the wreath in the Kingdom of Prussia and from 1871 in the German Empire , numerous other ruler's hymns to the same melody were distributed in the German-speaking countries. Several of them began following Niemann's example with the line "Heil unserm König, Heil" or "Heil unserm Fürsten, Heil", for example in the Kingdom of Bavaria , the Kingdom of Württemberg , the Grand Duchy of Baden , the Grand Duchy of Hesse , in Anhalt and in Schaumburg-Lippe . The ruler's hymns in the Kingdom of Saxony God bless the king and in Mecklenburg-Schwerin God bless Friedrich Franz with further transformations were more independent .
In addition to these, there were various more or less common texts to the same melody, which did not primarily sing of the ruler, but of the country and people. This also included the Swiss hymn Heil dir, Helvetia or Rufst du, mein Vaterland and the hymn of Liechtenstein . None of these hymns, not even Heil dir im Wreath , and none of the songs with other melodies received the status of a legally sanctioned “ national anthem ” in the 19th century . Therefore, their texts, whose authors or editors are largely unknown, remained open to variations.
literature
- Otto Boehm: The folk anthems of all states of the German Empire. Contributions to a story about their creation and dissemination . Wismar 1901 ( digitized version )
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