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Arndt Ernst Moritz
(1769—1860)

Arndt was educated at Stralsund, Greifswald, and Jena and qualified for the Lutheran ministry. At the age of 28 he rejected his clerical career and for 18 months travelled through Europe. On his return to Germany the sight of ruined castles along the banks of the Rhine River moved him to bitterness against the French who had destroyed them. He described the impressions of this journey in Reisen durch einen Theil Deutschlands, Ungarns, Italiens, und Frankreichs in den Jahren 1798/99, 6 vol. (1801-04; "A Journey Through Parts of Germany, Hungary, Italy, and France in 1798-99").

In 1800 Arndt settled in Greifswald as assistant lecturer in history and in 1803 published Germanien und Europa, in which he proclaimed his views on French aggression. His subsequent Versuch einer Geschichte der Leibeigenschaft in Pommern und Rügen (1803) is, as the title suggests, a history of serfdom in Pomerania and Rügen that resulted in its abolition three years later by the Swedish king Gustav IV. In 1806 Arndt was appointed to the chair of history at the University of Greifswald and published the first part of his Geist der Zeit (Spirit of the Times, 1808), in which he called on his countrymen to shake off the French yoke. To escape the vengeance of Napoleon, he took refuge in Sweden, from where he continued to communicate his patriotic ideals to his countrymen in pamphlets, poems, and songs.

Arndt returned to Germany in 1809. In 1812 he was summoned to St. Petersburg to assist in the organization of the final struggle against France. Meanwhile, he produced further patriotic songs and pamphlets. When, after the peace, the University of Bonn was founded in 1818, Arndt was appointed to the chair of modern history. In this year appeared the fourth part of his Geist der Zeit, in which he criticized the reactionary policy of the German powers. The boldness of his demands for reform offended the Prussian government, and in the summer of 1819 he was arrested. He was soon set free but was not allowed to teach. In 1840 he was reinstated and in 1841 was appointed rector of the university. After the revolutionary outbreak of 1848, he took his seat as one of the deputies to the national assembly at Frankfurt am Main. He took part in the deputation that offered the crown to Frederick William IV, but, indignant at the King's refusal to accept it, he retired from public life.

Not all of Arndt's lyrical poems were inspired by political ideas, nor was he a merely chauvinistic figure. Many of the Gedichte (1804-18, complete ed. 1860; "Poems") are religious poems of great beauty.

DDR, 1963, Arndt and Baron von Stein

German Federal Republic, 1969, E. M. Arndt

German Federal Republic, 1969.11.13, Bonn. Arndt