The landscape painter Franz Hoffmann-Fallersleben (1855–1927) gained special attention as an artist after his Berlin exhibition of the 1915 finished cycle of paintings ‚Aus deutscher Vorzeit‘ (‚From German prehistoric times‘). In his lifetime, Franz became almost as famous as his father, August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798–1874), the author of the German national anthem. Their father-son relationship was not always easy, primarily due to Franz’s poor performance at school. This article presents unreleased handwritten sources that shed new light on the family life of the Hoffmanns, as well as previously unknown letters from Franz and Heinrich, that contribute to a better understanding of the difficult, but in the end conciliatory relationship between father and son.