Ok, so Imperial Germany’s national anthem was the Kaiserhymne, which I’m sure you’ve heard…you know, “Heil dir im Siegerkranz, Herrscher des Vaterlands, Heil Kaiser, dir!”
And, of course, it’s just God Save the King with new words. Then the Imperial government is overthrown, and the Weimar government is set up, and so they need a new anthem. They choose the Deutschlandlied “Deutschland, Deutschland, ueber alles, ueber alles in dem Welt…”, and that remains Germany’s anthem to this day, although only the last verse is used now because after World War II, everybody’s scared of the first few verses.
And, of course, that’s just a version of Imperial Austria’s national anthem, “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser” with revised lyrics.
So what’s going on here? Is Germany unable to come up with its own national anthem? East Germany managed to. Auferstanden aus Ruinen was an independent composition. I realize Germany’s not the only country to take an existing melody and write an anthem round it…America’s “Star Spangled Banner” is to the melody of the song “To Anacreon in Heaven”, but at least “To Anacreon…” wasn’t already being used as an anthem at the time.