Inverted minor literature: August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben's poem “Rotwälsch” and the naturalization of the German language

Abstract

In 1829, August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, who was later to write “Das Lied der Deutschen,” published one of the first scholarly articles on what was known as the Gaunersprache (rogues’ language), Rotwelsch. His article included a poem in Rotwelsch he had written himself. Against the backdrop of Hoffmann's nationalist persuasion and participation in the nationalist project of Germanistik, this paper discusses the question of why he turned to writing in a language he portrays in the same article as hybrid and criminal. Informed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of minor literature, this analysis of the poem itself and of its publication context concludes that Hoffmann participates in an older tradition of inverted minor literature in Rotwelsch, that is, a literature that a majority constructs within a minor language. Thus, Hoffmann's poem appears as an attempt at naturalizing Germanness by ascribing the artificial and deterritorializing aspects of any language to the Other.