Jan Hinnerk

A political song turned folksong
— answers, questions, guesses

by Reinhard F. Hahn, Seattle, USA, 2008

This article is featured in our history series as well.

ne of the better-known traditional Low Saxon songs of my native Hamburg, Germany, is Jan Hinnerk (Low Saxon for “John Henry”). Apparently it is known all along the German Baltic Sea coast and in the eastern parts of the Netherlands as well. Most people think of it as a folksong about a man that can magically create things and people. I am not claiming that today we understand all of the metaphors that made sense at the time the song was created, but before I present the song itself below, I can share a little bit more about it than most people know. However, I have at least as many questions as answers.

Hamburg’s Citizen Militia marching at the Dammtor in 1800, six years before Napoléon’s first of two occupations of the “free” city state. (Watercolor painting by C. Suhr)

One thing we know about the song from its contents is that it was created some time after 1799, when Napoléon Bonaparte I crowned himself emperor, and some time before 1806, the earliest known date in whose connection this song was first mentioned in writing.

Surprise, Ridicule, Fear

This was a period in which Napoléon’s outrageous self-aggrandizement met with surprise and ridicule all over Europe—surprise and ridicule mixed with fear.

Little did the creators of the song know that very soon Napoléon’s troops would occupy Hamburg twice: 1806–1813 and 1813–1814—briefly, compared with other places, but all the more ruthlessly. Or did they? Did they create the song as the troops came marching in, or just after they had marched in? Was it a protest song under foreign occupation?

In the song we hear various Europeans expressing their outrage and finally the Hamburg Hanseat calling for Napoléon’s demise.
 

Who Was This Mighty Jan?

But who was this mighty Jan? A fictitious chap with supernatural powers? Well, yes, in a way. It was Hamburg’s protective spirit, Hamburg’s Golem of the time, if you will. It seems to be the personification of Isern Hinnerk (“Iron Henry”), a once formidable bulwark that guarded the city state between 1587 and 1728. Was it situated at a street called Lammerstraat? Another source has it that the Isern Hinnerk was a tower, also known as “Blue Tower” at what is now the Gänsemarkt area of Inner Hamburg, that it was built in 1548. Was it a defensive structure consisting of a bulwark and a watchtower?

This knowledge may suggest that the song was created before the invasion, when there was still hope that the French forces could be fended off.

Are those the blue tower and the bulwark known as Isern Hinnerk northeast of St. Nicholas Church? (from a Hamburg vista produced by Braun and Hogenberg between 1572 and 1618, Wikimedia Commons)

Might the name Jan Hinnerk in the song have started as Isern Hinnerk? Or—though this may be a long shot—as mispronounced “Iron Hinnerk” with an English twist in reference to hopes of Britain rushing to the rescue of its important trading partner?
 

Vive l’Empereur « Napolium » !

“Prospect of the Imperial French City of Hamburg,” watercolor painting by Johann Marcus David, 1811 (Wikimedia Commons)

In fact, one of the first things the French forces did after invading was cut off all trade with Britain and confiscate all British goods that happened to be in Hamburg at the time, that and all silver in the possession of the Bank of Hamburg (a measure Napoléon is said to have considered apt punishment for a town of merchants). Hamburg was now an arrondisement within the Département des Bouches de l’Elbe, while an alliance of mostly German, Russian and Swedish troops besieged the city. Hamburg families were required to provide free lodging to Napoléon’s soldiers. Houses were torn down to create shooting ranges, and their inhabitants were sent packing. Turned into horse stables were the main churches of this mostly Lutheran city that had provided refuge to thousands of Dutch and French Protestants. In their desperation, many people fled to then neighboring Danish territory, in many cases just a short walk away. Others engaged in cross-border smuggling to make up for lost trade with Britain and other parts hostile to France.
 

Katrin … Catherine … The Catherine?

Aged Catherine the Great who had assumed the throne of her incompetent, also North-German-born husband Tsar Peter III (Painting by Vladimir Borovikovsky, Wikimedia Commons)

Was Jan’s girlfriend Katrin perhaps meant to be a reference to hoped-for support from Russia, the country of North German Catherine (1729–1796) who had died just a few years earlier—“Catherine II the Great, Empress and Autocrat of All the Russias, Mother of the Fatherland, et cetera, et cetera” (Екатерiна II, Велiкая, Императрица и Самодержица Всероссiйская, Мать Отечества, и так далее, и так далее ...)?

It was Russian forces under German General Count Levin August Theophil von Bennigsen (Леонтий Леонтьевич Беннигсен) that eventually liberated Hamburg.

The French soldiers disappeared, but some French loanwords and the song Jan Hinnerk remained.

Sources: The Folk Songs of Ashkenaz, Philip Vilas Bohlman & Otto Holzapfel, p. 112, Recent Researches in the Oral Traditions of Music No. 6, 2001. Stadt Hamburg : Der Gänsemarkt Hamburger Franzosenzeit (Wikipedia)