Ernst Moritz Arnd was born on the 26th of December 1769 at Gross Schoritz (now a part of Garz on the island of Rügen), then in Swedish Pomerania. He was the son of a prosperous farmer and emancipated serf of the lord of the district, Count Putbus. His mother came of well-to-do German yeoman stock.
In 1787 the family moved to Stralsund, where Arndt was able to attend the academy. After an interval of private study he went in 1791 to the University of Greifswald as a student of theology and history, and in 1793 moved to Jena, where he came under the influence of the German idealist philosopher Gottlieb Fichte.
After the completion of his university studies he returned home, and for two years was a private tutor in the family of Ludwig Koscgarten (1758–1818), pastor of Wittow on Rügen, and having qualified for the ministry as a candidate of theology, he assisted in church services.
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 the Years 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.
He was summoned to St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1812 to assist in the organization of the final struggle against France. Here he continued to write political poetry that extolled patriotic themes.
When 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 1820 he was suspended.
He was reinstated in 1840 by King Frederick William IV of Prussia and was appointed rector of the university the following year.
After the revolutionary outbreak of 1848, he took his seat as one of the deputies to the Frankfurt National Assembly. He took part in the deputation that offered the imperial crown to Frederick William, 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 works in his Gedichte (1804–18, complete ed. 1860; “Poems”) are religious poems of great beauty.
Other important works are his autobiography, Erinnerungen aus dem äusseren Leben (1840; “Recollections from the External Life”), the most valuable source of information for Arndt’s life; and Meine Wanderungen und Wandelungen mit dem Reichsfreiherrn Heinrich Karl Friedrich von Stein (1858; “My Travels and Saunterings with the Baron Heinrich Karl Friedrich von Stein”). Notable editions of his works are those of H. Meisner and R. Geerds, 16 vol. (1908), and of A. Leffson and W. Steffens, 12 vol. (1912).
He died at Bonn in January 1860.
Ernst Moritz Arndt was a prose writer, poet, and patriot who expressed the national awakening in his country in the Napoleonic era. Early in his life, he fought for the abolition of serfdom, later against Napoleonic dominance over Germany. Arndt had to flee to Sweden for some time due to his anti-French positions. He is one of the main founders of German nationalism and the 19th century movement for German unification. After the Carlsbad Decrees, the forces of the restoration counted him as a demagogue.
Arndt played an important role for the early national and liberal Burschenschaft movement and for the unification movement, and his song "Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?" acted as an unofficial German national anthem.
Long after his death, his anti-French propaganda was used again, in both World Wars. This, together with some strongly antisemitic and anti-Polish statements, has led to a highly critical view of Arndt today.
There are monuments to his memory at Schoritz on Rügen, at the University of Greifswald, and in Bonn.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
(Excerpt from Reise Durch Schweden: Im Jahr 1804, Dritter ...)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
He was a Member of Frankfurt Parliament.
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Arndt was married twice, first in 1800, his wife dying in the following year; a second time in 1817. His youngest son drowned in the Rhine in 1834.
He married Charlotte Marie Quistorp, daughter of Professor Johann Quistorp , who died of childbirth in 1801 after the birth of son Karl Moritz .
In April 1817 in Berlin Arndt engaged with Anna Maria Schleiermacher, a sister of the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher. They married on 18 September of the same year.
She was a sister of the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher.
She was a daughter of Professor Johann Quistorp.
