Simon Dach (29 July 1605 – 15 April 1659) was a German lyrical poet and hymnwriter, born in Memel, Duchy of Prussia (now Klaipėda in Lithuania).
[1] In 1626, he left Magdeburg to escape both the plague and the Thirty Years' War, and returned to his Prussian homeland, settling in Königsberg, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Part of his official duties as Chair of Poetry was to create poems for various University celebrations, programs, debates and funeral services of his colleagues – all of these written either Latin or Greek.
The summer-house of organist and composer Heinrich Albert became the meeting place of this group of poets, hymnists and musicians, who met in to create new hymns as well as to give readings of their own poetry.
He sang the praises of the house of the Electors of Brandenburg in a collection of poems entitled Kurbrandenburgische Rose, Adler, Lowe und Scepter (1661), and also produced many occasional poems, several of which became popular; the most famous of them is "Anke von Tharaw öss, de my geföllt" Anke van Tharaw (rendered from Low Saxon by Herder into Standard German as "Ännchen von Tharau"), composed in 1637 in honor of the marriage of a friend.