THE POEM “HUNGERLIED” (Song of Hunger) otherwise known as “Verehrter Herr und König” (Dear Sir and King) was written by the committed socialist writer Georg Weerth in the period 1844–45. However, the three short verses expressing the misery of starvation were never published in Weerth's lifetime, and there is no record of any reception in the nineteenth century. The text was rediscovered in the context of the German folk revival of the 1970s, where it was set to music by various different artists.

The writer Georg Weerth (1822–56) was a close colleague of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. When he wrote the poem he was working as a commercial assistant at a worsted and wool factory in Bradford, England, and, as such, had first-hand experience of the working conditions of the poor. He observed:

Weerth's poem cycle Die Not (Poverty) from 1844–45 highlighted the plight of various craftspeople and workers in dealing with social misery and the structures of exploitation they had to endure. “Das Hungerlied,” as the closing text, assumes a prominent contextual role. This elevenpart cycle was never published in Weerth's lifetime, only five of its poems being issued after 1845 under the title Lieder aus Lancashire (Songs from Lancashire).