The Poet and Freedom Fighter Carl Gottlieb Hinkel was a contemporary of Theodor Körner, Ernst Moritz Arndt and Friedrich Rückert. He was born on 15th October 1793 in Chemnitz, a son of the merchant Gotthilff Hinckel (1747-1806) and the wife he married in 1784, Johanne Juliane nee Hänel from Annaberg-Buchholz (1761-1836). Carl Gottlieb Hinkel's father died when he was only 13 years old. A few months later, Johanne Juliane Hinkel's brother in Annaberg was also widowed. She moved with Carl and his sister Wilhelmine to Annaberg and helped her brother Christian Gottlieb Hänel, merchant in Annaberg, partner in the business Eisenstück & Co., Lord of the Manor of Tannenberg near Geyer to run his household and was known as "Aunty Hinkel", an ersatz mother for the children. The youngest thereof was only two years old. Unfortunately there is no known portrait of Carl Gottlieb Hinkel but there are miniatures of his parents and his eldest brother Gotthilf Heinrich Hinkel which have survived.
 
After attending the Fürstenschule Schulpforte near Naumburg, Carl Hinkel entered the University of Leipzig on 4th May 1812 as Student Number 59. He was a co-founder and Senior of the Leipzig Student Organisation Corps Saxonia Leipzig (founded on 4th September 1812) and wrote their Constitution which is still in force today (with the principles of tolerance, friendship, self-perfection and the choice of freedom). He was a friend of, amongst others, the poet Karl Friedrich Wildenhayn, of whom the Dresden sculptor Ernst Rietschel made an etching.
 
Carl Gottlieb Hinkel composed the "Bundeslied" (Song of the Alliance) "Wo Muth und Kraft" (Where Courage and Power flame in a German heart) as a song of welcome for King Friedrich August I. the Just, who returned to Dresden after Prussian captivity and a 20 month Exile on 7.6.1815, after the Napoleonic War. The Bundeslied contains the first literary mention of the then newly adopted Royal Saxon national colours of white & green.

As a child growing up in Johannesburg, South Africa, Roderick Hinkel started playing the piano at the age of five years, at first teaching himself on his older sister's instrument. He received piano tuition between the age of 8 and 17. Between the ages of 10 and 17 he also learned to play the violin. The children inherited a musical ability, including from their paternal grandmother Catherine who was a mezzo soprano and received a gold medal for her singing at the Royal Academy in London, being examined by the composer Tosti. Her granddaughter Ingrid Hinkel-Ciccolella (†22.03.2013) studied singing at the Conservatoire "Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella di Napoli", obtaining her diploma on 4th July 1990; her daughter Erika Ciccolella plays the violin. Another granddaughter, Ruth Chalmers, is a teacher of pianoforte in Cape Town.
 
On Sundays, Roderick Hinkel played hymns on the piano for the Sunday School at the Anglican Christ Church in Blairgowrie, Johannesburg, under the direction of Mrs. Jenny Clarke. Sometimes he accompanied his sister Ingrid who played the church organ, playing the violin, when the organist was on holiday.
 
When the organist Mrs. Blignaut, who came from the Cape Province, passed away, her daughter Jenny Clarke gave her collection of music books to Roderick Hinkel. To his great astonishment he found an old German Song Book, Edition Peters, and under Number 143 the "Bundeslied" by Carl Hinkel appeared. Although he was only 13-14 years old, he made enquiries by post to the British Library in London, which recommended writing to the German Library in Leipzig for more information. On the back of this research, Roderick Hinkel stumbled on the fascinating history of his grandfather's family. His grandfather was born in London in 1880, the son of emigrant Saxon parents.

In the family home "Bucklands" in London, the five brothers often sang songs during "Musical Evenings". Their father Kurt Hugo Eberhardt Hinkel (born in 1851 in Chemnitz) once sang in the Royal Albert Hall. The eldest sons Kurt and Hugo attended the Boy's High School in Chemnitz whilst the younger brothers were schooled in London. Lothar and Walther went to Cape Town in 1901. Leonhardt became a Dr. of Science at the University of London at the age of only 21. In 1914 he went with his mother Antonie nee Leonhardt from Reichenbach/Vogtland from London to the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth. Whilst they were there, WWI broke out but they managed to get the last train back to London. Thereafter, the London Hinkels were cut off from their Saxon roots.
 
The London relatives stated in the 1970s that Uncle Dr. Leonhardt Hinkel had carried out a search after WWI but there were no living relatives to be found in Germany and that Roderick should not even think about searching for any relatives as they would be in the communist zone. He was also warned that there would be communist cells in South Africa and contact with the GDR was not desired and could be potentially dangerous. This had the opposite effect than planned and he embarked on his research behind the Iron Curtain!
 
Although many documents had been destroyed in the bombing of Chemnitz, he was able to find two granddaughters of Sir Friedrich Otto Hinkel who had escaped to West Germany but were still sending maintenance payments for the upkeep of their grandfather's grave in the New Cemetery in Chemnitz. Fortunately, they still had their Grandfather's family tree that he had commissioned and which goes back to 1531 to Pobershau/Sorgau near Zöblitz in the Erzgebirge mountains near Chemnitz, almost on the Bohemian border. On Sir Friedrich's gravestone there is a poem which may have been written by him or by his famous uncle. He is also said by his granddaughter Vera Reinicker (who lived in Rottach-Egern in 1982) to have composed a poem which was under the clock on the tower of the City Hall in Chemnitz but it was bombed and no record of it has been found so far. The translated inscription on Sir Friedrich's grave is as follows:
 

 

In 1815 the publisher Karl Tauchnitz "von Doering" in Leipzig published Hinkel's "Leipziger Commersbuch" with many songs on its 155 pages. This book was no longer to be found in Europe and was presumed to be lost forever. A copy was digitalised in California in 2007 (from the library of Konrad Burdach which is in the possession of the University of California) and was found by Roderick Hinkel on the Internet on 28th June 2009. In the index of songs under I. Commers-Lieder (Students' Songs) are 26 songs, under II. Hospits-Lieder there are 36 songs including "Der Sänger sah" (The singer saw), "Leonora, Leonora"; under III. Vaterlands-Lieder (Fatherland Songs) there are 11 songs including "Herz voll Muth" (Heart full of courage), "Wo Kraft und Muth" (Where power and courage) and "Heil Dir im Rautenkranz" (We salute thee in diamond crown).

Carl Gottlieb Hinkel took part in a renewed attack against the newly strengthened troops in 1815 (Liegnitz, Courtrai, Lüttick) during which he was severely injured. He succumbed to his wounds and to tuberculosis on 22nd December 1817 at Gasthof Trebsens Hof (after 1822 called Gasthof Stadt Wien), house number 117 Petersstraße in Leipzig. The street address until 1885 was Petersstraße 38. From 1881 on this site was a new building, the "Ledig Passage", into which the land site of the Gasthof was incorporated. This building was destroyed in WW2 and today the new Petersbogen Shopping Centre with a Cinestar cinema stands on the site. The cand. philologiae student aged only 24 was buried on 25th December 1817, accorded the second-highest class of funeral. Interments at the time were generally at the Johannisfriedhof cemetery, today called the Alten Johannisfriedhof.

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

Roderick Hinkel later contacted Corps Saxonia Leipzig, which was then in Augsburg. Aged 20, he was a guest of honour at their 170th anniversary festivities in 1982, for three days. He was also present at their 190th anniversary - in Leipzig! In May 2003 at the 50th birthday party of one of the members he had met in 1982, who arranged for the Corps to move to Leipzig after the Peaceful Revolution, he met another member who found Schloss Börln for him a few weeks later.
 
The Bundeslied should be sung "strongly and rapidly". In this case, it was more of a case of "prestissimo". Already by July 2003, Roderick Hinkel had bought Schloss Börln and in September he moved there - as had Count Julius von Zech-Burkersroda in 1940 - from Holland, where he had lived for 14 months. He was accompanied by his Blüthner grand piano which was tuned shortly after arrival by Blüthner of Leipzig. This instrument was manufactured in Leipzig in 1900, purchased in France in 2001, when Roderick Hinkel lived in Paris, and transported to Amsterdam in 2002. Finally, after a long journey, after 103 years the piano came back to Leipzig. Many concerts have been played on this instrument in the castle, from classical music to improvisations.
 
"He who pays, chooses the music" is an old German saying but in this case, the music seems to have decided everything!

Oaks rise, oaks fall
After life follows peace.
After the pilgrimage to earth,
the spirit sweeps home.