BAUMBACH, RUDOLF (1840–1905), German poet, was born at Kranichfeld on the Ilm in Thuringia, on the 28th of September 1840, the son of a local medical practitioner, and received his early schooling at the gymnasium of Meiningen, to which place his father had removed. After studying natural science in various universities, he engaged in private tuition, both independently and in families, in the Austrian towns of Graz, Brünn, Görz and Triest respectively. In Triest he caught the popular taste with an Alpine legend, Zlatorog (1877), and songs of a journeyman apprentice, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1878), both of which have run into many editions. Their success decided him to embark upon a literary career. In 1885 he returned to Meiningen, where he received the title of Hofrat, and was appointed ducal librarian. His death occurred on the 14th of September 1905.
Baumbach was a poet of the breezy, vagabond school, and wrote, in imitation of his greater compatriot, Victor Scheffel, many excellent drinking songs, among which Die Lindenwirtin has endeared him to the German student world. But his real strength lay in narrative verse, especially when he had the opportunity of describing the scenery and life of his native Thuringia. Special mention may be made of Frau Holde (1881), Spielmannslieder (1882), Von der Landstrasse (1882), Thüringer Lieder (1891), and his prose, Sommermärchen (1881).