ARNDT, arnt, ERNST MourTz ( 1769-1860) . A distinguished German poet and patriot. He was born at Schmitz. which was then in Sweden, December 26, 1769. His father had been a serf, hut achieved a sturdy peasant independence, and designed Arndt for the ministry. He has de scribed his early years delightfully in Marehen and Jugenderinnerungen (ISIS). He studied at Creifswald and Jena,and was influenced especially by Onethe, Fichte, Klopstock, Biirger, and Voss. After he left the university he made journeys in Austria. Hungary, France, and Italy, and pub lished an account of these travels in 1802. The first of his many political services was rendered in his hook, Versueh ciner Gesehiehte der Leib eigensehaft in Pommern and Mitten (1803). which contributed greatly to (lie mitigation and partial abolition of serfdom. Ile became privat docent at Greifswald in 1800, and was made professor there in 1806. After the battle of Jena he Ned to Sweden, and there, in 1807, he began to issue stirring appeals against Napoleon, under the title Der Geist der Zeit. Pe returned after three years to his professorial work. In 1812 he sought refuge in Russia, called thither by Baron von Stein, the great German statesman, who was there organizing the agitation against Napoleon. .Arndt's finest poems--among them "Was ist des Dentschen Vaterland," and "Der Gott der Eisen •achsen liess"—belong to this period; also stir ring appeals in prose, such as Dcutscher Yolks katcehismus (1812) ; Was bedentet Land relic and Landstarmf (1313) ; Der Rhein, Denim-Hands Strom aber nicht Deutsehlands Grenz-e (1813); collated in Sehriften fur and an nicine lieben Deutschen (3 vols., 1845). After the French disaster in Russia (1812), he returned to Prus sia. in which his hopes of German unity centred, and gave himself up to the agitation that resulted in the War of Liberation, which culminated in the battle of Leipzig (1813). In 1517 he married
a sister of the great Liberal preacher and philo sophic theologian. Schleiermacher, and in ISIS was made professor of history in the newly estab lished university at Bonn. As his liberal views were at variance with the Government's reaction ary policy, lie was soon suspended (1820), and passed the next twenty years in honorable and honored retirement, writing historical essays of inimr value, and his interesting Erinacrungen nits meinem ausscra Leben. On his accession to the Prussian throne. Frederick William IV. re stored Arndt to his professorship (1840). Ger man units- was still his dream. He took a lively interest in the events of 1848, and was one of the deputation to ofl'er to the Prussian King the Imperial crown of Germany. The ninetieth birthday of Father Arndt, as he had conic to be called, was celebrated his still dis united country: a month later he died at. Bonn, January 29, 1860. Eleven years later the ideal of his life was realized by the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles. Arndt was neither a great scholar nor a great poet, but he was a noble character and a manly patriot. Editions of his war songs are numberless. His Erinneranyen form the basis of E. AI. Seeley's Life and Adrentures of E. 11. Arndt (1879). There are German Lives by Schenkel (2(1 ed., Elberfeld, 1869) ; Langenberg (Bonn, 1869) ; and Baur (Hamburg, 1882) ; and a volume of Arndt's Letters to a Friend (Briefe an eine Freundinl. edited by Langenberg (Berlin, 1378).