{"id":46869,"date":"2024-08-22T22:55:14","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T20:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/44fd522e-09df-4a14-b854-38ebbd1eba9c"},"modified":"2024-08-22T23:07:16","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T21:07:16","slug":"german-national-anthem-lyrics-and-history","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/german-national-anthem-lyrics-and-history\/","title":{"rendered":"German national anthem: lyrics and history"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Thursday, 22 August 2024 at 20:55 PM<\/p>

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Here are the lyrics to, and some history behind, the German national anthem, also known as the Deutschlandlied.<\/p>

What is the German national anthem?<\/strong><\/h2>
Germany’s national anthem is ‘Deutschlandlied’ or ‘Das Lied der Deutsche’ (‘Song of Germany’\/’Song of Germans’) and has been used in some form since 1922. <\/p>
By the way, we have lyrics and brief histories for a whole host of other national anthems on our website. To take just three examples, here are the lyrics to the Swiss national anthem<\/a><\/strong>, to the Hungarian national anthem<\/a><\/strong>, and to the national anthem of Scotland<\/a><\/strong>. But why not browse all of our national anthem lyrics<\/a><\/strong>?<\/p>
‘Deutschlandlied’<\/strong> German national anthem: lyrics in German<\/strong><\/h2>
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit F\u00fcr das deutsche Vaterland! Danach lasst uns alle streben Br\u00fcderlich mit Herz und Hand! Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit Sind des Gl\u00fcckes Unterpfand \u2013 Bl\u00fch’ im Glanze dieses Gl\u00fcckes, Bl\u00fche, deutsches Vaterland! <\/p>
German national anthem lyrics in English<\/strong><\/h2>
Unity and justice and freedomFor the German fatherland!Towards these let us all striveBrotherly with heart and hand!Unity and justice and freedomAre the foundation of happiness;Flourish in the radiance of this happiness,Flourish, German fatherland!<\/p>
<\/div><\/figure><p\/><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-who-composed-the-music-of-the-german-national-anthem\"><strong>Who composed the music of the German national anthem?<\/strong><\/h2><p>The tune to Germany’s national anthem is considerably older. And, fascinatingly, it started life as an anthem for another country – Germany’s neighbour, Austria. Called the ‘Emperor\u2019s Hymn’ it was composed by <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/joseph-haydn\">Joseph Haydn<\/a><\/strong> in 1796 to celebrate the birthday of Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (Haydn also used the tune in the second movement of his <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-string-quartet\">string quartet<\/a><\/strong> Opus 76, No. 3).<\/p><p>The first lines of this anthem \u2013 \u2018God preserve Francis the Emperor, Our good Emperor Francis!\u2019 – echoes those of the British anthem ‘<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/god-save-the-queen-lyrics\/\">God Save The Queen<\/a><\/strong>‘. It was used as Austria’s anthem until the fall of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in 1918 <\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-and-who-wrote-the-lyrics\"><strong>And who wrote the lyrics?<\/strong><\/h2><p>The words of the German national anthem started life as a poem written by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1841. The poem was a call to unify Germany, as the country was then made up of principalities and ducal kingdoms. In 1922 the song was officially adopted as Germany’s national anthem by the Weimar Republic. <\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-happened-to-the-deutschlandlied-after-world-war-two\"><strong>What happened to the Deutschlandlied after World War Two?<\/strong><\/h2><p>But that’s not the end of the story. During the Nazi regime and the Second World War, the first verse – with its first line \u2018Deutschland, Deutschland \u00fcber alles\u2019 (\u2018Germany, Germany above all\u2019) – became heavily associated with the Nazi regime, meaning it was highly unsuitable as a national anthem in post-war Europe.<\/p><div class=\"wp-block-group highlight-box is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\"><ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/4-jewish-composers-suppressed-by-nazism-and-the-third-reich\/\">4 Jewish composers suppressed by Nazism and the Third Reich<\/a><\/strong><\/li><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/terezin-ghetto-how-the-persecuted-jewish-community-created-music-within-theresienstadt\/\">Terezin ghetto: how the persecuted Jewish community created music within Theresienstadt<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul><p>This was alright for East Germany following the division of the country, as they soon produced their own ‘Auferstanden aus Ruinen’ (‘Risen from Ruins’)<strong>, <\/strong>but West Germany was left anthemless until 1952 when the Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Theodor Heuss decided to reinstate the original anthem, using just the third stanza to avoid any Nazi association. When Germany unified in 1990 it was adapted by all of Germany. <\/p><\/div><\/div><p><strong>Top image credit: Getty Images<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Published: Thursday, 22 August 2024 at 20:55 PM Here are the lyrics to, and some history behind, the German national anthem, also known as the Deutschlandlied. What is the German national anthem? Germany’s national anthem is ‘Deutschlandlied’ or ‘Das Lied der Deutsche’ (‘Song of Germany’\/’Song of Germans’) and has been used in some form […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":46870,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/08\/german-national-anthem-lyrics-and-history.jpg",1890,1255,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/08\/german-national-anthem-lyrics-and-history-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/08\/german-national-anthem-lyrics-and-history-300x199.jpg",300,199,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/08\/german-national-anthem-lyrics-and-history-768x510.jpg",768,510,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/08\/german-national-anthem-lyrics-and-history-1024x680.jpg",800,531,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/08\/german-national-anthem-lyrics-and-history-1536x1020.jpg",1536,1020,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/08\/german-national-anthem-lyrics-and-history.jpg",1890,1255,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Thursday, 22 August 2024 at 20:55 PM Here are the lyrics to, and some history behind, the German national anthem, also known as the Deutschlandlied. What is the German national anthem? Germany’s national anthem is ‘Deutschlandlied’ or ‘Das Lied der Deutsche’ (‘Song of Germany’\/’Song of Germans’) and has been used in some form…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/46869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}