Carl Albert Hermann Teike (5 February 1864 – 28 May 1922) was a German

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

who wrote over 100

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

marches In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a state's "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which diffe ...

and twenty concert works.

Biography

Born the son of a

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

in Stettin-Altdamm,

Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...

, Teike was the fourth of 14 children in his family. He began studying music when he was 14, playing a variety of instruments. When he was 19, he joined the army of

Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Province of Hohenzollern, Hohenzollern, two other histo ...

as a musician in the 123rd König Karls Regiment. He was stationed in the

Swabia Swabia ; , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of ...

n city

Ulm Ulm () is the sixth-largest city of the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with around 129,000 inhabitants, it is Germany's 60th-largest city. Ulm is located on the eastern edges of the Swabian Jura mountain range, on the up ...

, where he played

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most o ...

and percussion for the orchestras of local theaters. Teike began writing military marches, including one in 1889 that would eventually be named ''

Alte Kameraden "" ("Old Comrades") is the title of a popular German military march by Carl Teike. It is included in the ''Armeemarschsammlung'' as HM II, 150. History The march was written around 1889 in Ulm, Germany, by military music composer Carl Teike ...

'' ("Old Comrades"). Upon his bandmaster's disapproval of that composition, Teike resigned from the army. A publisher purchased the song from him for twenty German Goldmark. ''Alte Kameraden'' later became one of the most popular marches in the world. Teike became a

police officer A police officer (also called policeman or policewoman, cop, officer or constable) is a Warrant (law), warranted law employee of a police, police force. In most countries, ''police officer'' is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. ...

in Ulm and married his landlord's daughter. They moved to

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...

in 1895, where he continued work as a police officer until illness led to his resignation in 1908. He eventually began working as a postal employee in

Landsberg an der Warthe Landsberg may refer to: * Landsberg family * Landsberg (surname) Places * Landsberg (district), Bavaria, Germany * Landsberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany * Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria, Germany ** Landsberg-Lech Air Base, Germany ** Landsberg Prison, a ...

East Brandenburg The Neumark (), also known as the New March () or as East Brandenburg (), was a region of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and its successors located east of the Oder River in territory which became part of Poland in 1945 except some villages of ...

, where he died in 1922. Teike is commemorated in Potsdam with a plaque on the exterior of the Mercure Hotel.

External links

* * * "The Graf Zeppelin March"
"Alte Kameraden" by Carl Teike
1864 births 1922 deaths People from Szczecin Musicians from the Province of Pomerania German composers German police officers Military music composers 19th-century German musicians {{Germany-composer-stub