1618–1677
Johann Frank

Introduction

Born: June 1, 1618, Gu­ben, Bran­den­burg, Ger­ma­ny.

Died: June 18, 1677, Gu­ben, Bran­den­burg, Ger­ma­ny. In 1877, on the bi­cen­ten­ni­al of his death, a tab­let to his me­mo­ry was af­fixed to the out­er wall of the Stadt­kirche at Gu­ben.

Biography

After his fa­ther’s death in 1620, Franck’s un­cle by mar­ri­age, town judge Ad­am Tielck­au, adopt­ed him and sent him to schools in Gu­ben, Cott­bus, Stet­tin (now Szcze­cin, Po­land) and Thorn (now To­ruń, Po­land).

On June 28, 1638, Franck en­rolled at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kö­nigs­berg (now Ka­lin­in­grad, Rus­sia), the on­ly Ger­man uni­ver­si­ty left un­dis­turbed by the Thir­ty Years’ War.

Here his re­li­gious spir­it, his love of na­ture, and his friend­ship with such men as Si­mon Dach and Hein­rich Held pre­served him from shar­ing in the ex­cess­es of his fel­low stu­dents.

He re­turned to Gu­ben at East­er, 1640, at his mo­ther’s ur­gent re­quest. She wished to have him near her in those times of war when Gu­ben fre­quent­ly suf­fered from the pre­sence of both Swed­ish and Sax­on troops.

After re­turn­ing from Prague in May, 1645, Franck be­gan prac­tic­ing as a law­yer.

In 1648, he be­came a bur­gess and coun­ci­lor, a Bur­ger­meis­ter in 1661, and in 1671 was ap­point­ed the de­pu­ty from Gu­ben to the Land­tag (Di­et) of Low­er Lu­sa­tia.

Works

Franck’s hymns ap­peared most­ly in the works of his friends Weich­man, Crü­ger, and Pe­ter. They were col­lect­ed in his Geist­lich­es Si­on (Gu­ben: 1674).

Sources

Lyrics

Translations

Help Needed

If you know where to get a good pic­ture of Franck (head & shoul­ders, at least 200×300 pix­els),