The son of a merchant and Mayor of his native city, he was educated at the classical schools of Helmstedt and Braunschweig, and afterwards at the universities of Göttingen and Bonn.
In September 1837, Hoffmann von Fallersleben visited the library of Valenciennes with the intention of unearthing the lost text of the Ludwigslied.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Otto von Bismarck | August Strindberg | Alexander von Humboldt | Heinrich Himmler | Wernher von Braun | Carl Maria von Weber | Herbert von Karajan | August | Heinrich Heine | Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher | John von Neumann | Lars von Trier | Heinrich Schütz | The Tales of Hoffmann | Ferdinand von Mueller | Paul von Hindenburg | Alexander von Humboldt Foundation | Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi | Heinrich von Kleist | Anne Sofie von Otter | Erich von Stroheim | Papal conclave, August 1978 | Max von Sydow | Justus von Liebig | Stanisław August Poniatowski | Hermann von Helmholtz | Heinrich Böll | Franz von Papen | Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg |
He was the author of the influential Altdeutsches Wörterbuch (Old German Dictionary), and with August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798-1874), was co-editor of the Weimarisches Jahrbuch für deutsche Sprache, Literatur und Kunst (Weimar Annals of German language, literature and art).