16. Ferdinand Freiligrath

Died on March 18, 1876

In the Württemberg town of Weinsberg, the jovial poet and rapturous spirit seer Justinus Kerner became chief medical officer in 1818. Since that time, the picturesque home of this strange man has been visited by countless artists, poets, scholars and spiritualists on their travels through southern Germany. On August 7, 1840, a man of simple appearance and unpretentious demeanor appeared in the hospitable house and introduced himself as the poet Ferdinand Freiligrath. Doubts arose in Kerner as to whether he could believe the visitor that he was the bearer of the name, which was already being pronounced with recognition in the widest circles at the time. Kerner knew from the first words that he was dealing with a dear, wonderful person; what the man held within himself only gradually became apparent. In this encounter with the Swabian poet, the essence of the great freedom singer Freiligrath is symbolically expressed. He himself slowly penetrated to his deeper nature, to that nature which was called to find the most captivating tones for man's sense of freedom. What happened in Freiligrath's heart when his true calling dawned on him can be seen in the words he prefaced his collection of poems "Ein Glaubensbekenntnis" (A Confession of Faith), published in 1844. "The most recent turn of events in my immediate fatherland of Prussia has painfully disappointed me, who was one of those who hoped and trusted, in many ways, and it is primarily to this that the majority of the poems in the second section of this book owe their origin. None of them, I can calmly affirm, was made; each has come about through events, as necessary and inevitable a result of their clash with my sense of justice and my convictions as the decision, taken and carried out at the same time, to return my much-discussed small pension into the hands of the King. Around New Year 1842, I was surprised by its award: since New Year 1844, I have stopped collecting it." - In January 1844, the man who, as late as 1841, expressed his confession in the words: "The poet stands on a higher vantage point than on the battlements of the party", concluded his freedom poem "Guten Morgen" with the words:

Good morning then! - Free I will stand
For the people and with them in time! With the people the poet shall go - ...

The Freiligrath who, with his fiery imagination, revelled in the glowing colors of distant lands in the thirties, who knew how to conjure up the life of the lush tropical world with such vividness before the souls, who sang of the desert king (in "Löwenrit") and of the sad fate of emigrants, could be considered worthy of a royal pension; Freiligrath, who in the forties felt the stormy urge for freedom of the time as the basic trait of his own heart, had to say of himself: "Firmly and unshakably I take the side of those who oppose reaction with forehead and breast! No more life for me without freedom!"

Lonely, eerie and dark
Is the distant, high sea! I love to see heather and broom
Growing around the dunes.

Freiligrath sees the ships coming and going. They tell him of distant lands and their wonders. And what he has never seen rises up in his imagination in glorious splendor. The poet transports himself to Africa, America and Asia, and vividly describes what his dreams tell him about these parts of the world.

In 1835, the world first became acquainted with what Freiligrath saw in his dreams, what he experienced in his innermost being during a strenuous, busy youth. Freiligrath's poems first appeared in the literary journals of the time, such as the "Deutscher Musenalmanach", published by Chamisso and Schwab, and the "Stuttgarter Morgenblatt". The poet's name was soon praised wherever there was an appreciation of genuine poetry. Freiligrath, who had meanwhile returned to Germany and found commercial employment in Barmen, was able to publish a collection of poems as early as 1838. Indeed, he could now even think of retiring from his grueling profession and living as a freelance writer. He settled as such in the small town of Unkel on the Rhine in 1839. It was here that he met the woman who would henceforth share the burdens of life with him. She was the daughter of a Weimar seminary teacher Melos. She had been friends with Goethe's grandchildren since childhood and could look back to a time when the old Goethe himself had enjoyed her games and joked with her. She had then worked as an educator in Russia and, through experience and energetic striving, had come to a high view of life. Freiligrath's meeting with Kerner took place on a journey he undertook in 1840, the main purpose of which was to make the acquaintance of his bride's father in Weimar and to talk to him. It was an eventful journey that the poet made to Weimar via southern Germany. He met Ludwig Uhland as well as many other important personalities. This poet with a soulful mind became a dear friend to him.

Ferdinand Freiligrath was not granted the leisure to devote himself to poetry, through which he won more and more hearts, and to enjoy the beautiful marriage he had made in 1841. Difficult life worries kept coming back to him. How could it be otherwise, since at a time when the creations of his youth were bringing him steadily growing recognition, he was moving away from the ideas that had established his young poetic fame? Time showed him new paths. What meant the air of life to him, freedom, which he had always sought to conquer in fierce battles, he saw as oppressed and ostracized in public life.

Germany is Hamlet!
Serious and silent
Within its gates every night
Goes the buried freedom around,
And beckons the men on the watch.

So he laments in April 1844, when he compiles the poems that are united in his "Creed" and gives them as a preface on the way:

To Aßmannshausen in the Kron'
Where many a thirsty man has already drunk,
There I make for a crown'
This booklet for the print!

Freiligrath loved the Rhine region. That is probably why he was drawn to St. Goar in the difficult days of his inner struggles, when he sought and found union with the struggling soul of time, where he spent a short time in quiet seclusion and contemplation. There is no question that it became easier for others to hear the call of time. Freiligrath's feelings appear like a brittle element that does not want to come out into the light of day, but which then shines all the brighter when it has found its way there. Herwegh, who was one of the first to strike a revolutionary note, initially had a repellent effect on Freiligrath. Indeed, he had even spoken harsh words of censure against Herwegh when the latter had spoken derisively about E.M. Arndt, who had once been dismissed as a demagogue and then recalled by Friedrich Wilhelm IV. And what we read about Freiligrath in the "Einundzwanzig Bogen" published by Herwegh in Zurich shows us that at the beginning of the 1940s the freedom singers thought little of the "pensioner" of the King of Prussia. Since the publication of "Glaubensbekenntnis", no one could be in any doubt as to the state of affairs in the poet's innermost being, who until then had been seen from a "higher vantage point" than the battlements of the party. Herwegh, who had recently been derisively counted with Geibel in the "duet of the retired", now had to consider leaving Germany in order to escape the persecutors of the friends of freedom. Freiligrath sought asylum in Brussels. It has rightly been said that Freiligrath's desire for freedom grew to the point of religious fervor. How he understood the mood of the oppressed in the face of the powerful, how he was able to give it flaming words! With unparalleled boldness, he addressed his voice to the hearts of those whose freedom can only be taken away from them as long as they are not aware that the edifice of power that is crushing them is constantly being built up by themselves, stone by stone. This mood finds words in his "Phantasie an den Rheindampfer" that are not often found in world literature. The collection of poems from 1846, to which the aforementioned poem also belongs, is one great hymn to freedom. And the "New Political and Social Poems" published in 1849 can be read with the feeling that the shrill cry of pain of the entire national soul for freedom and an existence worth living can be heard from a poet's heart on which all the suffering of the time has been heaped.

In Germany, Freiligrath had not been able to find a home since the mid-1940s. The revolutionary poet could lose his freedom any day, the man struggling with life could not find the means for his material existence. In 1846, he moved to London, where he had once again found a commercial position. He was constantly drawn back to Germany. In May 1848, he moved into the headquarters of German democracy in Düsseldorf. Here he worked with Marx and Engels on the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" in the service of freedom. An accusation that he had incurred because of the poem "Die Toten an die Lebendigen" (The Dead to the Living) showed how deeply his tones had penetrated the people's hearts. The ruling powers would probably have liked to have been able to strike a major blow against the bold poet. After all, in the aforementioned poem he had let the dead who had fallen for freedom speak, calling on the living to prove themselves worthy of their dead champions. Freiligrath's wife was prepared for the worst. She herself feared being sentenced to death. The jury returned an acquittal. The acquitted man was met with unparalleled jubilation as he stepped out of the courthouse into the crowd, which numbered in the thousands. It was unthinkable for Freiligrath to remain in Germany permanently. He had to decide to seek his fortune in exile for the time being. So he returned to London in 1851. He had to work hard as a merchant from early morning until late evening. His house became a place of refuge for political refugees from all countries. Freiligrath had advice and help for anyone who turned to him. He left no stone unturned to ease the lot of those who had to seek refuge in the cosmopolitan city for the sake of their convictions, where life was certainly not easy for such personalities at the time. However, Freiligrath's poetic energy was now flagging. The difficulties he encountered in life and the great tasks he was set had probably caused the spring from which such powerful things had flowed to gradually dry up in later life. Freiligrath was also a personality who only spoke when he had something important to say. But when such a significant occasion presented itself, he also found words that could be rivaled by little in terms of depth of feeling and beauty of expression. How heartfelt are the words in which he expressed the pain felt by the "scattered men" at the death of Gottfried Kinkel's wife when they "silently buried the German woman in the foreign sand".

In 1867, Freiligrath was able to return to Germany. The Geneva bank he represented in London had fallen into ruin. The old man once again faced the possibility of having to fight the bitterest battle for his life once more. His friends and admirers in Germany rallied to spare him that. A collection for an honorary gift, which could relieve the poet of all worries for the rest of his life, had the most favorable success. Freiligrath spent the rest of his life in Cannstatt near Stuttgart. From then on, wherever he went in Germany, he saw the echoes of his fame. He now devoted himself to translating American and English poets, Longfellows, Burns and others. In addition to his own creative activities, he always endeavored to convey foreign poetry, to which his heart was devoted, to his people.

The fact that Freiligrath made valuable contributions to the war poetry of 1870 has led some circles to believe that the great freedom singer had more or less turned his back on the ideals of his youth in old age and reconciled himself to the new political circumstances. Treitschke even found the words: "When, years later, all his republican ideals lay shattered on the ground and the dream of his youth was fulfilled by monarchical powers, he cheered gratefully, without small-mindedness, at the new greatness of Germany, and his bright poet's greeting answered the trumpet of Gravelotte." Whoever says this should also not forget to mention that Freiligrath returned a Mecklenburg medal sent to him by return of post and that he refused to accept the Order of Maximilian, which had been terminated by Fritz Reuter's death. He was only able to follow the development of the "New Political Conditions" until 1876. He died on March 18 of that year. It can hardly be assumed that Treitschke's followers would also have rejoiced if Freiligrath had witnessed the further development and passed judgment on it. Whatever the case may be, however, if the freedom singer once said of his poems in later life: "These things have become historical and are no longer intended to agitate", he was probably doing himself an injustice. His songs of freedom have an inherent power that is far from being doomed to be merely "historical".