Carl Gottlieb Hinkel

Poet and Napoleonic Wars Freedom Fighter - Founder member of Corps Saxonia Leipzig

The Poet and Freedom Fighter Carl Gottlieb Hinkel was a contemporary of Theodor Körner, Ernst Moritz Arndt and Friedrich Rückert. After attending the Fürstenschule Schulpforte near Naumburg, he entered the University of Leipzig on 4th May 1812 as Student Number 59. He was a co-founder and Senior of the Leipzig Student Organisation Corps Saxonia Leipzig (founded on 4th September 1812) and wrote their Constitution which is still in force today (with the principles of tolerance, friendship, self-perfection and the choice of freedom).

He was a friend of, amongst others, the poet Karl Friedrich Wildenhayn, of whom the Dresden sculptor Ernst Rietschel made an etching.

He composed the "Bundeslied" (Song of the Alliance) "Wo Muth und Kraft" (Where Courage and Power flame in a German heart) as a song of welcome for King Friedrich August I. the Just, who returned to Dresden after Prussian captivity and a 20 month Exile on 7.6.1815, after the Napoleonic War.

The Bundeslied contains the first literary mention of the then newly adopted Royal Saxon national colours of white & green. A year before his death the poetry collection "Erste Saitenklänge" was published by Carl Friedrich Franz (1816) from which especially "Wo Muth und Kraft in deutscher Seele flammen" which was also printed in the Leipzig Commersbuch is the best known. It was first sung on 7th June 1815 by students from Leipzig in Dresden as a song of greeting for King Friedrich August I who had returned from Prussian imprisonment. The melody was adopted by many student fraternities and the text slightly altered.

The melody is based on the French song by Souvent (Le Voltigeur Francaise, Mouvement de Marche, le Chant, Luth in C#). In 1815 the publisher Karl Tauchnitz "von Doering" in Leipzig published Hinkel's "Leipziger Commersbuch" with many songs on its 155 pages. In the index of songs under I. Commers-Lieder (Students' Songs) are 26 songs, under II. Hospits-Lieder there are 36 songs including "Der Sänger sah" (The singer saw), "Leonora, Leonora"; under III. Vaterlands-Lieder (Fatherland Songs) there are 11 songs including "Herz voll Muth" (Heart full of courage), "Wo Kraft und Muth" (Where power and courage) and "Heil Dir im Rautenkranz" (We salute thee in diamond crown).

He took part in a renewed attack against the newly strengthened troops in 1815 (Liegnitz, Courtrai, Lüttick) during which he was severely injured. The cand. philologiae student aged only 24 was buried on Christmas Day, accorded the second-highest class of funeral at the Johannisfriedhof cemetery, today called the Alten Johannisfriedhof. The grave is no longer to be found, cleared away along with many others by the Communists in the 1980s.

History researched and text copyright by Roderick Hinkel. All enquiries to: info@schloss-boerln.com Author: Roderick Hinkel www.schloss-boerln.com (copyright 2014)

http://www.geni.com/projects/War-Poets/18763 http://www.geni.com/projects/Deutsche-Dichter/8999