Ferdinand Freiligrath

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Ferdinand Freiligrath lived in Unkel 1839/40

Ferdinand Freiligrath (17 June 1810 - 18 March 1876) was a German writer.

He was born in Detmold, Germany. He had to leave secondary school at an early age and was trained as a salesman. He worked in Amsterdam from 1823-1836. In 1837 he started working as a bookkeeper in Barmen. Already while working in Amsterdam he started translating from French. Later on, he started writing poems for the 'Musenalmanach' (eds. Chamisso and Schwab) and the 'Morgenblatt' (ed. Cotta). His first collection of poems was published in 1838 ("Gedichte"). In 1839 he became a professional writer. His early poems were inspired by Victor Hugo's "Orientales" (which he also partly translated into German); they often dealt with exotic subjects. The poem "Der Mohrenfürst" for example tells the story of a Black king or prince who was a fierce warrior. He is abducted by slave traders and finally ends up in a circus, in Europe. Even though at this time Freiligrath was not political, the poem clearly is anti-colonialist. Due to political repression (censorship) Freiligrath however became more political; "Ein Glaubensbekenntnis" was published in 1844 and was a huge success. He had to leave Germany and was contacted by Karl Marx in Belgium. In 1844 Freiligrath came to Switzerland, in 1845 "ça ira!" was published. After some time in London Freiligrath came back to Germany and worked for the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" (general editor: Karl Marx, editor of cultural pages: Georg Weerth). In 1847, Franz Liszt set Freiligrath's poem "O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst" to music--the song was later arranged by Liszt for solo piano as his "Liebestraume No. 3," which subsequently became one of his most famous piano pieces. In 1851 he had to leave Germany again and he became the director of the London branch of the Schweizer Generalbank. Back in Germany, Freiligrath finally became a nationalist, even publishing a patriotic poem "Hurra, Germania!", inspired by Germany's annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. He died in 1876.