Anastasius Grün was the forerunner. The period of the real dominance of political poetry began with 1840, when a petty official in a Rhenish village, Nikolaus Becker, electrified Germany with a martial poem, _The German Rhine_, inspired by French threats of war with Prussia and of the conquest of the Rhine territory. The same events inspired Max Schneckenburger's _Wacht am Rhein_, which at the time could not compete in popularity with Becker's poem, but in later years has quite supplanted it as a permanent national song. German officialdom, which had looked askance at all political poetry, easily saw the value to the national defense of such patriotic strains, and now encouraged these national singers with gifts and honors. But political poetry could not be kept within officially recognized bounds. Inevitably it became partisan and revolutionary in character. HEINRICH HOFFMANN (who styled himself VON FALLERS-LEBEN after his birthplace; 1798-1874), one of the most prolific lyric poets of Germany, had the knack of expressing the common feeling in poems that became genuine national songs; the most famous of these, _Deutschland, Deutschland über alles_ (1841), is still sung wherever those who love Germany congregate. But from this expression of the common German tradition Hoffmann went on to espouse the liberal cause, and he had his taste of martyrdom when he lost his professorship at Breslau because of his ironical _Unpolitical Songs_ (1840-42). Hoffmann was essentially an improviser, and sang only too copiously in all the tones and fashions of German verse. FERDINAND FREILIGRATH (1810-1876) gained immediate fame with the brilliant color and tropical exuberance of his early oriental lyrics, of which the much-declaimed _Lion's Ride_ is an excellent example. But Freiligrath's strongest work was in the field of political poetry. He, too, made sacrifices for the faith that was in him; he gave up a royal pension and twice went into voluntary exile in order to be free to express his liberal sentiments. He began, indeed, with the denial of any partisan bias; but when the Revolution of 1848 broke, no other poet found more daring and eloquent words for the spirit of revolt and of democratic enthusiasm than Freiligrath. And when the war of 1870 again brought new hope of German unity, Freiligrath sang in stirring measures this national awakening.