Ernst Moritz Arndt (26 December 1769 – 29 January 1860) was a German patriotic author and poet. Early in his life, he fought for the abolition of serfdom, later against Napoleonic dominance over Germany, and 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 movement for German unification. After the Carlsbad Decrees, the forces of the restoration counted him as a demagogue and he was only rehabilitated in 1840.
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 war propaganda was used again in both World Wars. This together with some strongly antisemitic statements has led to a rather ambivalent view of Arndt today. Text source : Wikipedia (Hide extended text) ... (Read all)
