„Alle Vögel sind schon da, alle Vögel, alle…“ (in English: All the birds are already here, all the birds, all the birds...)
This song was composed by a very famous German poet of the 19th century and is still sung today. But not only children's songs belong to his repertoire! Of course we are talking about August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, the writer of our national anthem. As a professor of German language and literature in Breslau, which is called Wroclaw today, he had published a collection of poems titled "Unpolitische Lieder" (nonpolitical songs), which was, so to speak, a bluff. These songs were of course clearly political, especially because Hoffmann von Fallersleben was an avowed supporter of the idea of a unified and liberal German state. But exactly that was considered a crime at the time!
In the first half of the 19th century, many German dukes feared that a revolution would break out in Germany like in its neighbouring country France. For this reason, any statement calling for freedom and unity was forbidden. The Prussian government was so annoyed by Fallersleben's "Unpolitische Lieder" that he was removed from his professorship without a pension and lost his Prussian citizenship in 1843. Two years later, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, who became a politically persecuted and stateless refugee, made a stop in Otterndorf. Despite these difficulties, he enjoyed his visit, according to his written notes from 13th to 16th September 1845: “The houses are clean and comfortably furnished and the fields are fertile. Reed grows in the canals, which is used as cattle fodder or for roofing. The gardens near the houses are quite nice. The air has a sea-like quality with west and north winds. The people here are very down-to-earth, so it shouldn't surprise you that they believe in the simple concepts of freedom and justice.”
His host had built him a wooden cabin on the beach so that he could easily change his clothes for bathing. In a way, this is where the origins of today's Otterndorf beach cabins can be found. But his departure from Otterndorf had to be very abrupt because the Royal Hanoverian Gendarmerie finally ordered him to leave the country. The freedom-loving Hadlers were upset and indignant about this order. Another very important fact is that Fallerleben's visit was no coincidence. He was visiting his friends Lange and Schmoldt, who had their farms here in Otterndorf. The poet had met with them to celebrate, drink and exchange ideas in the summer of 1841 on the island Heligoland. As soon as his friends had left, Fallersleben got into a big hangover mood. He wrote: “The weather was beautiful, but even more beautiful was the memory of these dear people from Hadeln. I had a strange lonely feeling, I had to write poetry, even if I didn't want to.” So he did exactly what an artist always does when he is suffering: he started creating. And so he began to write poetry: “Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland…” (in English: Unity and justice and freedom for the German fatherland).
Without his acquaintance with the Hadler people, Fallersleben would probably never have composed the Song of the Germans. Only a few years later, in the year of the great German revolution of 1848, the poet was rehabilitated in Prussia, without, however, regaining his professorship in Breslau.