After the Second World War, Harald Reiner made another two-part epic film in which Hange is portrayed as a sort of Hitler-esque character. So he reclaims this nationalist myth for a more international audience. And we get even later retelling, so in 2004 we have a two-part film version in which the battle is this time that we know it's a sort of post-reunification story. Then we get a Quentin Tarantino international film version, Django Unchained, which features a black secret. The Nibelungenlied still has slightly controversial status in Germany today.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Song of the Nibelungs, a twelfth century German epic, full of blood, violence, fantasy and bleakness. It is a foundational work of medieval literature, drawing on the myths of Scandinavia and central Europe. The poem tells of two couples, Siegfried and Kriemhild and Gunther and Brunhilda, whose lives are destroyed by lies and revenge. It was extremely popular in its time, sometimes rewritten with happier endings, and was rediscovered by German Romantics and has since been drawn from selectively by Wagner, Fritz Lang and, infamously, the Nazis looking to support ideas on German heritage.
The image above is of Siegfried seeing Kriemhild for the first time, a miniature from the Hundeshagenschen Code manuscript dating from 15th Century.
With
Sarah Bowden
Reader in German and Medieval Studies at King’s College London
Mark Chinca
Professor of Medieval German and Comparative Literature at the University of Cambridge
And
Bettina Bildhauer
Professor of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews
Producer: Simon Tillotson