Deutschland über Alles

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Deutschland über Alles. (Ger. ‘Germany beyond everything’ or ‘Germany before everything’), known also as the Deutschlandlied (‘Germany Song’). A poem of aspiration for the unity of the Ger. peoples written in the period which preceded the 1848 revolutionary disturbances, by August Heinrich Hoffmann (generally called Hoffmann von Fallersleben, 1798–1874). Sung to the tune Haydn wrote (or adapted, for there is a similar tune in Telemann) as Austrian national anthem, the Emperor's Hymn. Nat. anthem of German Fed. Republic from 1922 until 1945. Reinstated 1950 with 3rd verse (‘Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit’, ‘Unity and Right and Freedom’) replacing the first with its controversial reference to ‘über Alles’.

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