The first complete biography of the adventurous life of the poet und precursor of the 1848 revolution.
Hoffmann von Fallersleben is well known as the writer of the German national anthem, as well as many children`s songs. However there are many more facets of this man to discover. Hoffmann was a poet and a scholar, the discoverer of linguistic monuments and a collector of folk songs, a hymn researcher and a politically engaged singer-songwriter. As the editor and reviser of early Dutch literature, he became one of the founders of Dutch as an academic subject.
Because of his critical poems, Hoffmann was dismissed from his position as professor at the University of Breslau in 1843. The Prussian citizenship was taken away from him and he was expelled from the country. Following this, Hoffmann wandered through Germany, and was taken in by friends again and again. During these years his poems, which were published in large numbers, made him one of the pioneers of the 1848 revolution. He spent the last years of his life working as librarian for the Duke of Ratibor in Corvey.
August Heinrich Hoffmann, known as Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798-1874), a university lecturer on the German language, made a large contribution towards establishing the subject as an academic discipline. He was a poet and a collector and editor of old scripts. In 1841, on the island of Helgoland, he wrote what was later to become the German national anthem.
The Author
Bernt Türe von zur Mühlen, born in 1939, was a high school teacher and lecturer on the history of literature and publishing at the German school of the book trade in Frankfurt am Main. Numerous scientific literary publications. Most recently published: Napoleons Justizmord am deutschen Buchhändler Johann Philipp Palm (Napoleon`s judicial murder of the German bookseller Johann Philipp Palm, 2003).
