In 1850, Enno Hektor is said to have composed the song while on a trip to the Knieps restaurant in Dernau (south of Bonn an der Ahr, near Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler). He had previously had to leave his home in the East Frisian Dornum for economic reasons.
The song was originally called “Longing for home”, but is mostly called “In Oostfreesland is't best” or simply “Ostfriesenlied”. The text is both sentimental and self-deprecating and targets various East Frisian peculiarities. It is believed that Enno Hektor may have written it as a kind of parody of Hoffmann von Fallersleben's Song of the Germans , which was written on Heligoland in 1841 .
song lyrics
In Low German
In standard German
In Oostfreesland is best,
Aver Freesland doesn't work,
Was sünt woll the Wichter mojer,
Was the boys want so fast ?
I may be in Oostfreesland,
Anners nargens lever be,
Aver Freesland does nothing.
Nargens lead de Saat so moje,
Nargens is de Buur so riek,
Nargens sünt de bunks fatter,
Nargens geit de Ploog so liek,
Nargens poison so fast Knaken,
Weet one delicious to make botter
, Kees' un Karmelkbree.
Nä, t is nargens, nargens bäter
As was high de Dieken stahn,
Was upt island on the dunes
high henup de Bulgen slaan;
Was so luut de Noordsee bullert,
Was I
able to see the Dullert Dreemast-Schepen drive up.
Was in the wagon Törf un Kinner,
Worden held up high moor;
Was the whole world happy and happy
Makt upt Ihs bid 't Geneva berries;
Was s' int field with Kloten scheten,
Was se Bookweit-Schubbers eten,
Harm up Freёrsfoten geit.
Before Oostfreesland, before Oostfreesland
Laat ick Bloot un Leven gladly,
Weer ick one would be in Oostfreesland,
Was so mennig sould Dern.
In de Frömde wünsk ick faken:
Kunk but Moders Breetpott smaken
hearing would be in the horn please for.
In East Friesland it's best
over Friesland, nothing works!
Where are the girls more beautiful?
where are the boys so capable?
I like to be in East Friesland,
not better anywhere else,
via Friesland, nothing works there.
Nowhere
does the seed bloom so beautifully, nowhere is the farmer so rich,
nowhere are the cows fatter,
nowhere does the plow go so straight,
nowhere are bones so solid,
do you know how to make
butter, cheese and buttermilk porridge tastier .
No, it is nowhere, nowhere better
than where the dikes are high,
where
the waves beat high up on the dunes on the island ,
where the North Sea rumbles so loud,
where you can
see three-masted ships sailing on the Dollart
Where in the car Peat and pine wood
are fetched from the high moor
where the whole world has fun
on the ice with egg beer;
where they shoot logs in the field,
where they eat buckwheat pancakes , where
Harm goes free.
For East Friesland, for East Friesland,
I like to give blood and life,
if only I were back in East Friesland
where so many sweet girls!
In a foreign country I often wish:
I could taste my mother’s porridge pot;
I'm sitting in my father's chair by the fire again!
literature
Johannes Georg Adalbert Diekhoff: "In Oostfreesland is' t best ...!" 150 years ago Enno Hektor wrote the text for the "Ostfriesland-Lied". In: Our East Frisia. Supplement to Ostfriesen-Zeitung , No. 4, 2000.
↑ Enno Hektor. Harm Düllwuttel un all, what's more. Newly published in the 2nd edition by W. van Neß. Verlag von W. Schwalbe, Emden, 1906, p. 27, Longing for home
