Heil dir im Siegerkranz

The story

The words began as a song by Heinrich Harries, written in 1790 in honour of King Christian VII of Denmark. In 1793 Balthasar Gerhard Schumacher (1755–1805) adapted Harries's text for Prussia, shortening it and putting "king" where the Danish king's name had stood. From 1795 it was the royal anthem of Prussia, sung to the melody of the British anthem "God Save the King".

When the German Empire was proclaimed in 1871, the song stayed the Prussian royal anthem and came to be used for the empire too, with "emperor" in place of "king". It is often called the national anthem of the German Empire, but the empire never had an official anthem; "Heil dir im Siegerkranz" and "Die Wacht am Rhein" both served as unofficial ones. Because it praised a Prussian monarch and borrowed a British tune, it never became popular across all of Germany: most German nationalists did not take to it, and southern states such as Bavaria and Württemberg never recognised it. Bavaria had its own royal hymn, sung to the same British melody.

The emperor the song named was at first William I, who reigned until 1888. His son Frederick III reigned for only 99 days and was followed by Wilhelm II, whose frequent journeys led to a joke of the time that the title had become "Heil dir im Sonderzug" ("Hail to thee in thy royal train"). After the First World War began in 1914, Hugo Kaun set the text to new music to remove its likeness to "God Save the King".

At the end of the First World War the German Empire was overthrown, and its successor, the Weimar Republic, adopted "Das Lied der Deutschen" as its national anthem.

What it says

A hymn of praise to the monarch, first the king of Prussia and later the German emperor, hailing him as a victor and wishing him and his realm well. The mood is stately and loyal, in the manner of the British anthem whose tune it borrowed.

The words

The words of this song are in the public domain, but no free, reliable edition of them has been found yet to import them from, and the Institute never types a song’s words from memory. “What it says” above tells what they are about.