Hermann Lingg

Hermann (Ritter von) Lingg (22 January 1820 – 18 June 1905) was a German poet who also wrote plays and short stories. His cousin, Maximilian von Lingg, was Bishop of Augsburg.

Hermann Lingg, ca. 1860

He was born in Lindau. Lingg studied medicine at the universities of Munich, Freiburg, Berlin, and Prague, and became a doctor in the Bavarian Army. From 1839, he was a member of the Corps Suevia München.[1] His battalion was used to quell revolutionary uprisings in Baden; forced to act against his convictions, he fell into severe depression, entered a mental hospital in 1851 and soon submitted his resignation. From that point on, he lived in Munich and devoted himself to historical and poetic studies, financially supported by King Maximilian II. His marriage to a forester's daughter in 1854 improved his mental stability, and a pension (with occasional financial support from friends, such as Max von Pettenkofer and Justus von Liebig, and the German Schiller Foundation) improved their living standards.

Lingg first gained attention with a collection of poems introduced by Emanuel Geibel (Stuttgart 1853). His most famous work is Die Völkerwanderung ("The Great Migration", Stuttgart, 1866–68, 3 vols). He was ennobled in 1890.

His poem "Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer" was set by Johannes Brahms as No. 2 of his Fünf Lieder, Op. 105. His manuscripts are now located in the Bavarian State Library. There are streets named after him in both Munich and Lindau.