Friend Hein

Freund Hein (or Hain , Gevatter Hein , Brother Hein ) is a euphemistic and allegorical term in German for death ( personification ).

Engraving in the Wandsbecker Bote

The phrase first encountered in 1650 in a leaflet where it says

"Freund Hain can not be turned away
with force, with kindness, with loyalty and petition."

In 1775 Matthias Claudius dedicated his "Declaration of the copper and symbols" to the friend Hain in the Wandsbecker Bote :

"I dedicate my book to him, and he should stand at the front door of the book as the patron saint and house god."

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote to Claudius in 1778:

"By God dear Claudius, friend Hein is also beginning to win the senior position among my friends."

The saying has also found expression in the titles of literary works:

• Friend Hein's apparitions in Holbein's manner by Johann Karl August Musäus (1775)
• Freund Hein: Grotesques and Phantasmagorias by Eduard Duller (1833)
• Friend Hein of Emil Strauss (1902)
• Friend Hein von Wulf Sörensen (1936)

See also

• Death symbolism

literature

• Lutz Röhrich : Lexicon of the proverbial sayings (= Herder spectrum. Volume 4400). Volume 2: Easy - wrong way. Herder, Freiburg 1994, ISBN 3-451-4400-5 (wrong), DNB 942161637 , p. 693 f.
• Mathias Claudius : The Wandsbeck messenger. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-458-31830-5 ( E-Text in the Gutenberg-DE project ).
• Johann Karl August Musäus : Friend Hein's apparitions in Holbein's manner. Steiner, Winterthur 1785 ( digitized version ); new edition, Mannheim 1803 ( digitized version ).
• Eduard Duller : Friend Hein. Grotesques and phantasmagorias. With woodcuts by Moritz von Schwind . Hallberger, Stuttgart 1833 ( digitized version ).
• Hans-Peter Kraus: Freund Hain - The only true story of his friendship with the poet Matthias Claudius. Told by himself. Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7386-0715-4 .