Which composer wrote the melody of Germany’s “Deutschlandlied”?

Joseph Haydn wrote the melody used for Germany’s “Deutschlandlied.”

Haydn originally composed the melody in 1797 for “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser,” the anthem of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II and later the Austrian Empire. The tune became widely known as the “Kaiserhymne.”

August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the “Deutschlandlied” lyrics in 1841. Germany adopted the song as its national anthem in 1922, but since 1991 only the third stanza is officially used for state occasions. That stanza begins with “Unity and justice and freedom.”

The melody is therefore older than the German lyrics by several decades. A frequent mistake is to credit the entire anthem to Haydn: he composed the tune, while Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the words. The melody is also known through Haydn’s String Quartet in C major, Op. 76, No. 3.