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Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, and Ernst Moritz Arndt (Undated Woodcut)

Many writers and teachers banded together to foster German nationalism and mobilize popular forces to overcome French dominance. From left to right: Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) delivered his nationalist and highly intellectualized “Addresses to the German Nation” in French-occupied Berlin in 1807-08; philosopher and Protestant theologian Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) fused Christianity with the concerns of an increasingly nationally self-conscious German Romantic culture; Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852), a member of the Freikorps [Free Corps] and the founder of the nationalist gymnastics movement, focused on populist education (especially physical training) as a source of renewal; and Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769-1860) was a widely loved nationalist poet, publicist, and author of patriotic pamphlets and songs that roused the German public to anti-French resistance. Wood engraving by an unknown artist, undated.

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Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, and Ernst Moritz Arndt (Undated Woodcut)

© Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz