Freiligrath, Ferdinand: Complete Works, Original Edition 1858 – 1859
Ferdinand Freiligrath, the poet born in Detmold in 1810, sings about the “emigrants” to the USA at the age of 22, yet he never follows them. Even when he is sought by the police in Prussia for his political poems during the 1848 Revolution, he does not go further than London for exile. As the “Poet of ’48”, his fame nevertheless reaches the “New World”. He is particularly carried by the political refugees who want to escape persecution in the USA after the failure of the revolution. The “48ers” represent only a small group in numbers, but still exert great influence: Educated and engaged, they hold positions in universities, teach in schools, fill public offices, establish newspapers and learned societies, or lead social institutions. Ferdinand Freiligrath is able to return to Germany from his London exile twenty years after the revolution begins. By then, he is no longer a revolutionary. He welcomes the German Empire of 1871 with stormy “Hurrah, Germania” songs. When he dies in 1876 in Bad Cannstatt near Stuttgart – having avoided Prussia – a colossal bust is erected as a memorial grave by “the German people”.
