“Man stellt Denkmäler nicht auf den flachen Asphalt” – and Narrative in Commemorative “Siegfried” Monuments in Weimar- and Nazi

Thesis

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Caleb Benjamin Davis, B.A.

Germanic Languages and Literatures

The Ohio State University

2020

Thesis committee:

Adviser Dr Katra A. Byram

Adviser Dr Anna A. Grotans

Copyright by Caleb Benjamin Davis 2020

Abstract

The study of monuments has been a widely researched topic in the context of nineteenth-century

German nationalism, as well its role in national remembrance. Monuments are physical representations of collective understandings of an event, person or cultural object. Oftentimes, these physical representations of the past are instituted by larger, governmental or national bodies and are guided through the use of narrative. This master thesis engages with nationalist narratives and the presentation of these narratives through physical space and commemoration; focusing on the narratives that guided much of Nazi-Germany’s political development in the 1930s as well as the beginnings of these narratives in early Weimar-Germany. In particular, the myth of the

Dolchstoß1 and its utilization to explain Germany’s loss of will be analyzed in connection with the portrayal of sacrificed and heroic soldiers through the mythic figure

“Siegfried” in the form of commemorative monuments.

1 Stab-in-the-back

ii

Dedication

Dedicated to Lisa Klotzsche, Alexandra Wößner, Robert Koller, Qian Qing Hu, Lucas Todesco

Toledo Barros, Selim Ben Hadj Ali, Jules Hendrik Volker Georges Gilbert, Anne Orthmann and

Анна Александровна Сухорукова.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to first thank my advisers Anna and Katra for their patience, advice and motivation in writing this thesis. Anna, thank you for your invaluable assistance that lead me to my topic in the first place, and Katra, thank you for your constant advice and help to make me a better writer.

Second, I could not have finished this project without the enthusiasm and support of my family, proofreaders, colleagues, cheerleaders and DJs: Dennis Schäfer, Johannes Vith, Jan Schmieding,

Maddie Kindig, Ann-Sophie Röhm, Bill Baker, Elizabeth Keith, Caroline Waller, Meredith Spaid,

Caralyn Evans, Devon Moore, Jorge Ernesto Clavo-Abass, Genevieve Berendt, Inhalt der Nacht,

Tham and Ellen Allien. All of whom contributed in various ways to make sure that this project was completed, and that my sanity remained intact.

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Vita

2013…………………………………………………………..Mount Pleasant High School

2017…………… B.A. Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, UNC-Chapel Hill

2017 to present…………...Graduate Teaching Associate, GLL, The Ohio State University

Publications

Fields of Study

Major Field: and Literatures

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Table of Contents Abstract ...... ii Dedication...... iii Acknowledgements ...... iv Vita ...... v List of Figures ...... vii Introduction ...... 1 Chapter 1: Nationalism and narrative ...... 5 1.1 What is a ‘nation’? ...... 7 1.2 National Identity ...... 11 1.3 Identity formation through narrative...... 13 1.3.1 Romantic-tragicomedy narrative structure ...... 14 1.3.2 Sacrificial narrative structure...... 15 1.3.3 Heroic narrative structure ...... 17 1.4 The myth of the ‘Dolchstoß’ ...... 18 Chapter 2: Narrative encapsulated...... 24 2.1 Monuments of Siegfried in Germany ...... 24 2.2 National Monuments and Nationalism ...... 27 2.3 The Siegfried statues and their narratives ...... 31 2.4 Commemorative monuments ...... 33 2.4.1 Sacrificial monuments ...... 33 2.4.2 Ambiguous: Siegfried and the Dragon Fafner ...... 44 2.4.3 Heroic monuments ...... 50 2.5 Siegfried’s contemporaneity ...... 60 Conclusion ...... 63 Bibliography and Works Cited ...... 69

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Campaign Poster for the 1924 Reichstagswahl, DNVP (1924) ...... 21 Figure 2: Nibelungenhalle Worms ...... 25 Figure 3: Siegfriedbrunnen Odenheim...... 25 Figure 4: Drachentöter von ...... 33 Figure 5: Siegfriedbrunnen Worms ...... 33 Figure 6: Siegfried Statue in ...... 33 Figure 7: "Standbild des jungen Kriegers" ...... 37 Figure 8: "Siegfried" of Hangelar ...... 40 Figure 9: Inscription on the west face ...... 42 Figure 10: Inscription at the base of the monument ...... 42 Figure 11: "Der Drachentöter" of Obermylau...... 46 Figure 12: "Siegfried" of Frankenthal ...... 48 Figure 13: "Siegfried" of Frankenthal July 13, 1957 ...... 50 Figure 14: "Siegfried" of Dülken ...... 52 Figure 15: Kriegerdenkmal Viersen...... 53 Figure 16: "Wehrfreiheitsdenkmal" or "junger Siegfried"...... 56 Figure 17: Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) Siegfried with sword (19:14) ...... 60

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Introduction

Following the resolution of World War I, much of Europe was in a state of ruin. Casualties from the war were reported at over thirty million, approximately ten million soldiers were killed, another twenty million were wounded and approximately nine million civilians were injured or killed during the four-year war (Prost 2014). The holes these losses left in families and communities were especially palpable. The conclusion of the war was met with intense peace treaties and negotiations that had lasting impacts all over Europe. Although, one could argue that no country was as politically and economically ruined from the loss of the confrontation than the nation of Germany. Despite having avoided much of the violence on German soil from either front, the were nonetheless devastated.

The famed treaty of Versailles played a large role in this devastation, with Article 231 placing full blame on Germany for having started the conflict. Many Germans believed this claim of the “Kriegsschuld” 2 to be wildly false and misleading, causing much of the nation to internalize deep feelings of shame, weakness and betrayal (Hunt 365). This last emotion of betrayal became a feeling utilized and instrumentalized by Nationalists and National Socialists in the following years in their campaigns and movements of nationalism. The nation betrayed was a narrative perpetuated as an explanation to the loss of the war, as well as a basis for assigning blame to the guilty party(-ies).

This critical period following the end of World War I in 1918 to the end of World War II in 1945 saw some of the most consequential political movements in German history, namely the movements which made nationalism an integral part of their platform. During the Weimar- and

2 War guilt

1

Nazi-periods, several nationalist monuments3 were erected in Germany paying respect to fallen soldiers who had died in World War I. Many of these monuments make use of narratives of sacrifice and betrayal to portray a greater nationalist narrative known as the myth of the

Dolchstoß.4 The myth of the Dolchstoß, and the narrative of sacrificed soldiers for their country was especially potent with the mythic figure of Siegfried, a seminal figure of Germanic myth and legend for centuries.

In the early 1920s and ‘30s, several towns and villages in Germany erected monuments to their fallen soldiers exploiting the Siegfried figure to commemorate the deaths and sacrifices these soldiers had made. Evoking the Siegfried myth in these monuments was instrumental in connecting an already understood and known narrative to an implied one of sacrifice and betrayal. Siegfried, a fictional character of Germanic myth and legend has been part of German cultural memory ever since the medieval version Das was rediscovered in the eighteenth century. The story of the Nibelungs and Siegfried is also found in its Norse forms as “Sigurð” in the Poetic- and

Prose Eddas, the Volsunga , and Þiðreks saga af Bern.

The story of Siegfried begins in the Rhineland, where he becomes known as the indomitable dragon slayer and winner of the Nibelungenhort, the treasure of the Nibelungs.

Siegfried’s role as the perfect warrior is reinforced with the near indestructibility he attains after bathing in the blood of the dragon and becoming invincible except in one place between his shoulder blades, where the leaf of a linden tree falls. After Siegfried’s victory over the dragon and the dwarf Alberich, Siegfried learns of the beautiful princess Kriemhild of Burgundy, and makes his way to the Burgundian court to gain her hand in . After much wooing, deception and scheming, Siegfried finds himself murdered at the hands of a trusted confidant, of the

3 See Gunnar Brands, Totenburgen (fortresses of the dead) in Tannenberg and Kriegerdenkmal in Bad Berka 4 Stab-in-the-back

2

Burgundians. On a hunt with Kriemhild’s brothers and Hagen, Siegfried is deceived and stabbed in the back while sipping water from a brook. It is this event, Siegfried’s stab in the back, that becomes the chosen narrative for utilization and instrumentalization for the myth of the

Dolchstoß—a scene that is evoked in several of the Siegfried monuments from 1921 to 1938.

Since the rediscovery of the Middle High German epic in 1755, Das Nibelungenlied has taken on several forms. Theatrical plays, translations and modern re-writings, operas, works of art, sculptures, pornographies, monuments and films have all told the story of the Nibelungs in their own way to German and international audiences. Of these transformations, the two embodiments of the Das Nibelungenlied which have experienced the greatest permanence in the German cultural memory have been Wagner’s three-day opera Der Ring des Nibelungen, and Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou’s filmic adaptation, Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924). Wagner’s opera is credited by scholars such as Ulrich Müller as becoming the greatest and most influential of the Nibelungen re- creations, and its relevance has hardly subsided (Müller 282). Apart from being the beloved composer of the Nazis, Wagner himself was also quite a nationalist and anti-Semite (Kurbjuweit

2017). Much of Wagner’s nationalist influence came from Der Ring des Nibelungen, in which he attempted to bring Germany’s greatest story to its people.

Though Lang’s intentions for the Siegfried film were less nationalistic, he still wanted to to create a “Zeitdokument.”5 In Kitsch-Sensation-Kultur und Film Lang states that “Er [der

Mensch] braucht den Sockel der Stilisierung ebenso, wie ihn die vergangenen Jahrhunderte brauchen. Man stellt Denkmäler nicht auf den flachen Asphalt. Um sie eindringlich zu machen, erhebt man sie über die Köpfe der vorübergehenden”6 (Kiening 200). Lang’s intention to create a

5 Document of the times 6 Man requires the pedestal of stylization just as he needed it in the past centuries. You do not place monuments on the flat asphalt. In order to make them relevant, one must raise them over the heads of the ones that came before

3 monumental film for the German people is a theme initiated within the first few moments of part one of the Nibelungen film with the intertitle: “Dem deutschen Volke zu eigen.” 7 In comparison to Lang’s monument to the Siegfried legend, the physical monuments commemorating fallen soldiers in the image of Siegfried make use of this theoretical sockle on which they stand. In both cases, the sockle is narrative.

It is the goal of this thesis to analyze the way in which these commemorative monuments of Siegfried utilize certain narrative structures explained by Patrick Hogan in his book

Understanding Nationalism to make a larger statement on nationalism in Germany, past and present. Monuments to nationalism in Germany, especially those erected in Nazi-Germany, have widely been removed and etched out of German memory. In the case of Siegfried monuments from the same period, all apart from one still stand today. Some have been placed under federal protection, and some of them remain relevant among right-wing fascist groups as well as memory preservationists. Ultimately, these monuments pose a larger question regarding German national identity: how do these nationalist sites of memory fit into a post-World War II nation, still coming to terms with its past?

7 Property of the German people

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Chapter 1: Nationalism and narrative

The study of nationalism tends to draw from select political movements in history, e.g.

Indian independence, Italian and German unification, and current movements in -wing political sectors in the United States. A very popular and well-documented case for the study of nationalism is the National Socialist movement that took place from the mid 1920s until 1945 in late Weimar- and Nazi-Germany. Though existed well before this time frame, the extreme nationalism the Nazis made use of was certainly unique. Though this case is often the most cited and researched in the study of nationalism, it is certainly not the only modern movement to make use of nationalism. Into the 1990s, member states of the United Nations continued to experience issues with ‘sub’- within their borders (Anderson 3). Just as recently as

October 2019, nationally motivated political protests held by Catalan nationalists led to violence in Catalonia, over Catalonian independence (“The Coming Surge of Separatism”8).

On the first page of Patrick Hogan’s book, Understanding Nationalism, Hogan states that

“nationalism has been one of the most important social forces in recent history” (Hogan 1). Within the last two hundred years, nationalism played an increasingly larger role as more complex economic, social and political systems develop (Hogan 2). Through the course of this analysis, I will be operating with Hogan’s definition of nationalism: “any form of in-group identification for a group defined in part by reference to a geographical area along with some form of sovereign government over that area” (Hogan 4). Essentially, for nationalism to exist three things are required: a group of people, a perceived identification among those people that is in some way

8 The Economist Dec 22, 2019

5 bound to a physical space, and some ruling body to govern the area and the people who reside in that space.

Often, nationalism takes on a negative connotation due to the movements with which it is associated. Though nationalism does not necessarily have to be prejudiced and exclusionary, most nationalist movements operate on a sense of pride. As Liah Greenfeld writes in Nationalism: Five

Roads to Modernity, “national identity is fundamentally a matter of dignity. It gives people reasons to be proud” (Greenfeld 487).

Such national pride can be quite emotional. This emotional component of nationalism is based on arbitrary occurrences and facts. By arbitrary, I mean that the place in which one is born, one’s race or ethnicity and the language(s) one acquires—the components that make up one’s national identity—are completely out of the control of the individual who will go on to adopt a national identity. I find similarities in this arbitrary emotional connection, for example, in taking pride in a sports team. My father was born the youngest of four children in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1967. He grew up learning to love the University of Tennessee football, just like my father’s older brother and their father, my late grandfather did. Four years later, when half of the family moved to North Carolina, they continued to root for the Volunteers win or lose—a tradition that was passed on to me, my brother, my sisters, and even my mother, my aunts, uncles, their children and their children’s children. Regardless of the fact that none of us live in Knoxville, have ever studied at the University of Tennessee, and that some of us did not even know my grandfather, the man who instilled a love for Tennessee football in all of us, we are all still avid Tennessee fans.

UT has not won a championship since 1998, and rarely has a good season, which gives hardly any occasion for us to be proud, yet the love for this team has remained in my family. On days when

Tennessee plays and loses, the emotions can be felt throughout the house. This is a sure-fire way

6 to sour the mood at the Davis household. My family’s infatuation with the University of Tennessee football has nothing to do with how good the players are, how many trophies the team has, what the color of the jerseys are or even who the mascot of the team is. The emotional connection stems from a pride in a perceived home, Tennessee, and a long history of family members’ devotion to the team. Many of us in the family never questioned once why we root for the Volunteers and not the Buckeyes; it was simply something we grew up doing.

In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson quotes the Czech-British anthropologist

Ernest Gellner who stated that nationalism “is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist” (Anderson 6). Anderson goes further to claim that nationalism, rather than being understood as a political ideology, should be understood as something closer to a “kinship” or “religion,” due primarily to the emotional component of pride that nationalism often entails (Anderson 6-7).

To make a further comparison with sports pride and national pride, both can operate on similar notions such as adherence to a family legacy, identification with a geographic location, or veneration of some player or leader. Devotion to either requires a sense of legitimacy, a reason for the devotion. Why do I feel so strongly about this team, why do I love this nation? To begin this study of nationalism, national identity and narrative, it is imperative to question what is a ‘nation’?

1.1 What is a ‘nation’?

It is general consensus among scholars that nation, nationality, and nationalism are all very difficult terms to define (Anderson 3). Hugh Seton-Watson, an author of one of the most thorough

English-language texts on nationalism, posits that no “scientific definition”9 of the nation can be established, though the nation exists nonetheless (Seton-Watson 5). Authors Geoff Andrews and

9 Term used by Hugh Seton-Watson quoted in Anderson p. 3

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Michael Saward of Living Political Ideas claim that ‘nation’ can denote several overlapping things.

First, the authors note that there are two ways to approach the task of defining a nation: subjectively and objectively (Andrews and Saward 9). What may seem to be quite a simple definition based on objective characteristics—observable differences like geographic location, race and citizenship— is actually very difficult. Andrews and Saward differentiate their “objective” characteristics into three subgroups: “statehood, ethnicity and naturalness” (Andrews and Saward 9). Statehood refers to the official documentation of a person’s national belonging; ethnicity refers to the shared genealogical and physical features among a group of people; and naturalness refers to the location or natural features that define a nation in opposition to another. To define a nation objectively would be to say “[a nation is] a group of people that possesses a shared and distinct, historically persistent cultural identity, and which makes up a majority within a given territorial area”

(Andrews and Saward 9).

A nation defined in this way cannot be physically experienced, and as Andrews and Saward write, it is impossible that the member of a nation would be able to come in contact with every one of its present members. Current Native American nations could challenge this notion due to their relatively small size and concentration, but for most, if not all nations, it is very unlikely. Both

Hogan and Anderson note that, as a result, we often operate in terms of abstraction in order to conceptualize the nation, and Anderson states that “the nation is an ‘imagined community,’ not an experiential one” (Anderson 6).

The obvious problem one encounters when attempting to define a nation objectively, based on its statehood, ethnicity or naturalness, is determining any “sound criteria by which one might judge which groups form nations, and which do not” (Andrews and Saward 10). Defining a nation, which is made up of a heterogenous mix of people, according to such terms would be fairly

8 difficult. A nation is made up of a multitude of diverse individuals, and defining a nation based on characteristics such as statehood, ethnicity or naturalness would be extremely hard to pin down.

The nation of the United States, for example, consists of a multitude of nationalities and ethnicities and covers a large geographic area, which is not even continuous. Defining ‘nation’ objectively seems unrealistic, especially when one considers what Anderson refers to as its imagined nature.

Therefore, as Andrews and Saward state, in actuality, nations are defined subjectively.

Andrews and Saward note, based in part on the writings of Anderson, that the definition of

‘nation’ must include an imaginative component, i.e. the subjective part (Andrews and Saward

11). The nation is imagined by its members and is asserted through an insistence upon its existence.

This insistence upon existence then begs the question whether the awareness “X is a nation, because X is a group, and I am a part of the group” constitutes the group, or the contrary, whether the creation of the group leads to an awareness and the insistence of a nation’s existence. Anderson insists that it is nationalism that invents nations, rather than the reverse. Margaret Moore writes:

The term ‘nation’ refers to a group of people who identify themselves as belonging to a

particular nation group, who are usually ensconced on a particular historical territory, and

who have a sense of affinity to people sharing that territory (Moore 905).

Due to the vast nature of the nation, we attempt to understand the concept of a nation in ways that are more digestible (Hogan 12). Since a nation is not a single entity that can be confronted, a nation is conceived through models (Hogan 12). One of the simplest models Hogan describes is metaphor.

An example of a nationalist metaphor could be as modest as a plant and its roots. The members of the nation could consider themselves the plant, while the soil is the geographic location and the its history there the roots. Another example, one that is very often used, is the metaphor of the family.

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The forefathers represent those who helped found the country, or the nation, acting in a parental role.

As Hogan explains, however, metaphors organize our thoughts and feelings in connection to a nation but are not complex enough to develop nationalism (Hogan 10). Like metaphor, narrative also helps to guide the way we understand and respond to the nation (Hogan 11-12). The national narratives that are created by those who identify as members of the nation are grounded in a shared history, and these narratives are conceived around what Hogan refers to as “happiness goals” (Hogan 13). The development of nationalism involves elaborate sequences of events in the pursuit of goals, and as Hogan explains, narrative functions to help conceptualize the sequence that leads up to the attainment of these goals (Hogan 11). “Happiness goals” as Hogan understands them, are found in every type of national narrative and are the desired result that drives the narrative. The power of these narratives is affected by two crucial variables: first, the extent to which the goal is shared by different people, and, second, the degree of importance the goal has for individuals who share it (Hogan 13). A narrative’s happiness goal has a much greater influence when shared by a large group of people.

Narrative provides a context for the individual to conceive of himself with respect to the nation: “narrative too guides the way in which we understand and respond to the nation'' (Hogan

11-12). Simply put, a narrative is a story with a beginning and an ending. This framing of beginning and ending influences the way in which we think of causality and consequences, which tends to simplify understandings of historical events told through narrative as well as influencing our future actions (Hogan 12). As the end of this chapter explains, for instance, the myth that Germany was betrayed from within at the end of World War I, the myth of the Dolchstoß10 was used by some

10 Stab-in-the-back

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Germans and the Nazis after World War I and is a prime example of how narrative is used to understand and respond to a nation and its situation.

1.2 National Identity

As Hogan lays forth in his first chapter: “Understanding Identity,” the construction of the nation is based on the intrinsic human desire to construct an identity for oneself (Hogan 23). Hogan explains that identity exists in two forms, the practical and the categorical. These two forms of identity operate in non-complementary distribution, that is to say, that there is some overlap in their operation. Practical identity, as Hogan understands it, is “a way of life” (Hogan 23). This way of life is unique to every society and is by nature diverse. Practical identities are the sets of habits, abilities, skills or concepts that allow people to physically and mentally operate with one another in society (Hogan 25). Categorical identities, on the other hand, are sets of identities asserted by the individual. Categorical identities are the types of identities consciously affirmed by an individual in order to identify oneself or set oneself apart from others.

There are many practical identities at work within a society, and several practical identities can be taken on and combined by an individual. Some examples of practical identity that enable members of a society to interact with another can be language, cultural cuisines or driving habits.

Simply put, practical identities are types of mutual understanding grounded in objective abilities that enable members who share the practical identity to associate with one another. Hogan points out that a prime example of practical identity is language (Hogan 28). Referring to Noam

Chomsky’s concept of Universal Grammar and individual language construction, Hogan brings up

Chomsky’s assertion that language is the grammar represented individually in one’s own mind.

The socio-linguist R.A. Hudson, too, writes that “no two speakers have the same language”

(Hudson 12). In the same way that no two speakers of the same language have the exact same

11 mental grammar, the same goes for practical identities. No two speakers of English, a practical identity, speak the same English. They will indeed overlap in a variety of ways such as vocabulary and cultural competence but may differ in pronunciation or word usage.

While practical identities remain for the most part unconscious to those who assume them, categorical identities rely on a conscious assumption of individual group membership. As Hogan puts it, “it is the way I locate myself socially” (Hogan 29). Categorical identities depend on identifying with an in-group, which may be based on observable distinctions between practical identities. Take for example, Hogan’s illustration of sexual identity. Taking a very elementary binary stance on biological gender, where a female is described as carrying XX chromosomes and a male XY, one can observe clear distinctions in which heterosexuals and homosexuals act in accordance with their biological gender. A homosexual male will (usually) find other biological males sexually attractive, and a heterosexual male will (usually) find biological females sexually attractive. These two distinctions represent the practical identities relating to homosexual and heterosexual males. However, each male will consider himself ‘straight’ or ‘gay’ based on how he considers himself socially. The practically homosexual man may never consider himself as ‘gay,’ but merely as being sexually active with other males. Other categorical identities, for example the distinction between pansexuality and bisexuality, may have no bearing on practical differences at all. To refer back to Hogan, “[the label, the categorical identity] is critical for one’s self-concept, and it defines an in-group—along with an out-group of people who do not share the quality in question” (Hogan 29).

If individuals construct these categorical identities out of a desire to assert themselves in society, nations construct categorical identities to assert themselves with respect to other national groups. Regardless of the existence of an observable difference in practical identity, the categorical

12 categories used in constructing national identity are useful in delineating between in- and out- groups.

Take, for example, “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland that began in the late 1960s and lasted until the late 1990s. During this time, Northern Ireland was plagued with separatist violence by paramilitary groups, such as the IRA. The IRA was responsible for several terrorist attacks in

Ireland and the UK, as it advocated for a unified Ireland free of British rule and influence. Within

Northern Ireland, a deep divide and prejudice between Protestants and Catholics had developed, in which Catholics identified as Irish unionists and Protestants as British loyalists (Melaugh 2006).

Among Northern Irish, a mutual abhorrence between Protestants and Catholics developed, regardless of the fact that they shared an abundance of practical identities with one another (e.g. language, cultural competency, geographic space, race and ethnicity, not to mention Christianity).

Despite all these shared practical identities, and Catholicism, and by extension unionist vs loyalist, became the categorical identities that were the basis for in-/out-group identification.

The preference for one’s own self and those who match the identity of the self has often been a matter of survival. Preferring one’s offspring, and those who resemble those offspring, seems inevitable in the survival of an individual’s genetics and the survival of the group. Preferring those who share the same practical identity traits as oneself can, as Moore points out, lead to an affinity with the in-group as opposed to the out-group (Moore 905). The assertion of the group’s existence based on an expression of categorical identity is a key element of national identity.

1.3 Identity formation through narrative

As previously mentioned, due to the abstract nature of the nation and the sheer unknowable scope of its members, we tend to mediate this abstraction through the use of metaphor and

13 narrative. Metaphor provides a way to respond to an object or situation, but fails at providing a context, background, or legitimacy that can provide the foundation for national identity (Hogan

11). Therefore, to give this national identity a footing, and the nation a legitimacy, a narrative is created or adopted. Although humans have specific memories and individual emotions attached to the defining events that have molded their identity, the nation cannot rely on singularity of experience. According to Rudy Koshar, author of From Monuments to Traces: Artifacts of German

Memory, 1870-1990, the nation relies on a shared experience or story to help shape this identity:

“just as one’s memory defines a sense of one’s past and future, collectivities such as towns, voluntary groups, churches, and nations also rely on the past to orient themselves in time” (Koshar

8). Narrative creation or adoption serves not only to represent the past, but also to legitimize current situations in which the nation finds itself. Certainly, the type of narrative that is used can reveal a lot about the values of a nation, its perceptions of itself, and its hopes (Hogan 12). In his study of nationalism, Hogan posits three prototypes of nationalist narrative structures that are used cross- culturally: the romantic-tragicomedy, the sacrificial, and the heroic narrative structures.

1.3.1 Romantic-tragicomedy narrative structure

Described as what can be understood as the “end of nationalism,” the romantic- tragicomedy narrative structure challenges the idea of national divisions in the first place (Hogan

306). Romantic narratives act as an ‘end to nationalism,’ in that they serve to unite two groups across national divides to create a new unit. The romantic structure is seen as a “fairly ordinary love story,” where two nations or “lovers” are forbidden by a host of societal pressures or

“oppressive parents” from uniting (Hogan 12-13). These types of narratives also serve goals of unification, especially inside the nation, going across social boundaries such as class, caste, ethnicity and religion (Hogan 306-307). For this reason, the romantic-tragicomedy narrative

14 structure can be considered as having anti-nationalist implications, as it does not strictly rely on in-and out-group classifications.

1.3.2 Sacrificial narrative structure

The second narrative structure, the sacrificial narrative, finds its beginning with a sin committed by the in-group that leads to some devastation within the in-group society (Hogan 264).

To end this devastation caused by the sin, there must be some sort of sacrifice offered. In its most elemental form, the narrative is a story of falling out of the graces of God (Hogan 264). In addition,

Hogan notes that most often, the out-group tempter is compared to the devil or described as devilish (Hogan 264). The biblical story of the fall of man through Adam and Eve acts as the prototypical structure for this type of narrative. Eve let herself be tempted by the devil into committing a sin, eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam’s sin was letting himself be seduced by his wife into also eating the apple. After Adam and Eve ate the apple, they immediately became aware of their nakedness, and hid their bodies from God. The punishment for their actions was complete separation from God. They were banished from the garden of Eden, they and their offspring were cursed with mortality and the pains of childbirth, and Adam was cursed with having to struggle to till the earth for crops. In summary, Adam and Eve’s original sin introduced sin into every aspect of life, effectively destroying the goodness in all of God’s creation.

In the biblical tradition, the only way to enter back into the presence of God is by atonement; this atonement takes the form of animal sacrifice until the coming of the messiah, Jesus, who serves as the ultimate sacrifice.

In this case, for the German in-group in the postwar years directly following 1918, the conditions became conducive to producing a sacrificial narrative. To end the suffering of pride due to a loss of sovereignty, a weakened international stance, hunger, and lack of energy resources, a

15 sacrifice was in order. The sacrifice in a sacrificial narrative can take many forms. Often, a member, or members of the in-group must be willing to make a sacrifice (including themselves) to end the devastation. Hogan writes, “for many Germans, the experience of collective hunger almost certainly served to prime the sacrificial prototype, thus a narratively organized sense of sin, punishment, and the need for salvation through social penance in sacrifice” (Hogan 269). One of these types of sacrifices is a purgative sacrifice, whereby an out-group is found at fault and purged from society. Hogan states: “this version in effect seeks to end devastation by sacrificing the enemy who destroyed the home society from within and the collaborators who allowed that destruction.

As we will see, this is the prototype of ” (Hogan 265).

Hogan uses the nationalism in Nazi-Germany as a prime example of the sacrificial narrative. Hitler’s Mein Kampf promotes such a narrative. Addressing Germany’s capitulation and acceptance of the treaty of Versailles in World War I, Hitler claims that the war was lost due to a betrayal of trust. Hitler makes references to the mutinies by sailors in the city of , and the revolutions in and other cities that occurred in the autumn and winter of 1918, claiming that they influenced further demonstrations around Germany that ultimately subverted the war effort and caused Germany to surrender.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler directly blames the ultimate loss of the war and the devastation of

Germany on the way that Germans acted towards the end of the war effort. According to Hitler, the sin responsible for Germany’s devastation was allowing itself to be seduced by the enemy of internationalism. The enemy was not external but was a “form of identification reaching across national and racial divisions” (Hogan 270). That is to say, the seductive enemy was not or

England. The enemy was not a rival national group. Rather, the enemy was a specifically international group, an “international race” as Hitler referred to it: the Social Democrats, the

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Communists, and the Jews. Hitler claimed this group was the origin of Germany’s devastation. To end the devastation, the seducers, the out-group, had to be purged from society (Hogan 270).

1.3.3 Heroic narrative structure

The heroic narrative structure is the idealized nationalist narrative. It is the type of narrative that every nation aspires to tell about itself. The heroic narrative always involves a hero and an enemy. Heroic nationalism always seeks to heighten the position of the nation in regard to the enemy, overcome some adversary, or triumph in some sort of conflict. The heroic narrative ends in victory over an enemy, whether that enemy is internal or external. Hogan writes that, in contrast to the heroic narratives, sacrificial narratives arise due to specific types of devastations. Certain social conditions such as famine and military defeat tend to trigger sacrificial narratives, as they are inherently seen as punishments for committing a sin (Hogan 216). Heroic narratives, in contrast, stem from two social happiness goals: “authority and esteem of the in-group over out- groups and authority and esteem for a given individual within the in-group” (Hogan 216). There are several examples of this type of heroic narrative. Some of the most well-known heroic narratives come from American nationalist contexts, for example, the type of nationalist feeling that arose after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. After being attacked, nationalist narratives of the hero (the U.S.) fighting against Iraq and Afghanistan (the aggressor and enemy) were perpetuated by media, film and even country music. The nationalism of heroic narratives leads to the type of aggression that begins wars, since the heroic narrative structure is the desire to vanquish an enemy and arise victorious as the hero (Hogan 216).

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1.4 The myth of the ‘Dolchstoß’11

One of the primary nationalist narrative structures utilized in Nazi-Germany was the myth of the Dolchstoß, or the stab-in-the-back myth. The myth of the Dolchstoß was used by right-wing parties in order to explain Germany’s loss of World War I. Following the end of World War I and the signing of the treaty of Versailles, Germany was faced with the uncomfortable reality of defeat.

Losing the war was bad enough, but Article 231, which placed the sole blame on Germany for starting the war, was a prospect intolerable for most Germans (Hunt 60). The claim that Germany had instigated the conflict was humiliating and gave rise to long-lasting emotional reactions of shame and embarrassment. Hunt writes that the “War Guilt” clause in the treaty of Versailles instituted an “overwhelming sense of communal shame” for the German nation (Hunt 365). The shame did not stem from the feeling of having committed a wicked act, such as starting the war, but rather a feeling of weakness from losing the war (Hunt 365). Hunt argues that, to many

Germans, “losing was a greater sin than any of the accusations asserted by the allies” (Hunt 366).

The myth of the Dolchstoß was thus developed as a defense strategy to shift blame from a weak military front to a treasonous home front. This story, of course, was preferable to many of the country’s military leaders, such as Leader of the General Staff Erich von Ludendorff, who held the belief that Social Democrats and Communists had sabotaged the war effort by seducing

Germans with their political ideologies (Hunt 363). This was of course, far from the reality that had taken place. Many historians believe that sweeping military defeats on both fronts, in addition to an attrition in general morale, was to blame for the ensuing military defeats and ultimate capitulation to the Allies (Barth 2014). However, since much of the confrontation did not reach

German territory, civilians were not aware of the conditions on the front. The 1918 revolutions

11 Translation: stab-in-the-back

18 and the Kiel mutinies at the end of the war were much more apparent and showed the decline of the home front to a greater degree than was obvious to everyday citizens regarding the military fronts (Barth 2014).

Due to these intense emotions of collective shame and humiliation, Hunt claims, the myth of the Dolchstoß was given credence as a defense mechanism against the “War Guilt.” The myth of the Dolchstoß was nothing more than an extension of this conception of “War Guilt,” as it explained plausibly that the reason Germany had been defeated was not due to a larger, more formidable external opponent, but rather an internal one. In a sense, it was an attempt at self- preservation; in plain terms it said that the only opponent worthy enough to defeat a German was another “German” (Hunt 366).

The beginnings of the myth of the Dolchstoß are attributed to military leaders Paul von

Hindenburg and Erich von Ludendorff, who both played integral roles in disseminating the myth that Germany had been betrayed at home. The newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung is quoted using the phrase in reference to Ludendorff’s statements regarding the armistice as early as December

17, 1918 (Wunderlich 306). The sentiment was echoed by , who used the myth of the Dolchstoß to justify Germany’s loss in World War I in autumn of 1919, when he was interrogated by an internal investigating committee of parliament (Barth 2014). Additionally, Paul von Hindenburg is quoted comparing the German army to Siegfried, each of whom had been dealt a “treacherous blow from behind” (Wunderlich 306). However, as outlandish and false as the claim that Germany had been stabbed in the back was, it offered in any case a plausible enough explanation to Germany’s military defeat. In the end, as Hunt states, the myth of the Dolchstoß supplied psychological security as a device to maintain national self-respect (Hunt 366-8).

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Though von Hindenburg and von Ludendorff are credited with giving the myth its footing in the German cultural sphere, was the most masterful in propagating the myth of the

Dolchstoß. In Hitler’s Mein Kampf, he claims that Germany had let itself be seduced and betrayed by internal enemies. Hitler made use of the myth of the Dolchstoß in many of his political speeches, where he swore to avenge Germany’s integrity and pride. In one such speech, Hitler addresses his own SS and SA at the rallies of 1933, and claims that the treacherous “men of

November” have been overthrown and their power extinguished, going further to claim that the

“guilt of our people is blotted out, the crime is atoned for, the shame is removed” (Hunt 369).

Hitler claims that the victory of the National-Socialists in the Reichstag marks the overcoming of the internal enemy, “the men of November,” whom Hitler identifies as the Bolsheviks

(Communists), Social Democrats, and wealthy Jewish business owners. Hitler’s claim that this group of traitors has been overcome represents Hogan’s notion of the happiness goal of sovereignty, an essential element to the sacrificial narrative’s development. Overcoming an enemy, whether internal or external, marks the dénouement where the in-group claims victory and begins fashioning heroic narratives for the happiness goal of autonomy and strength.

In addition to Hitler, other right-wing German political parties disseminated the myth of the Dolchstoß widely. The myth of Dolchstoß was used by the Deutschnationale Volkspartei

(DNVP),12 for example, in identifying the responsible party for the devastation of their wounded pride and nation. The idea of Germany betrayed and attacked from behind was utilized by the

DNVP, who adopted the narrative in some of their campaign materials for the Reichstagswahl13 in

1924. Some of their campaign posters depicted a soldier being stabbed from behind by a man in

12 German National People’s Party 13 Reichstags election

20 all red, used to represent the Social Democrats (Figure 1) (Wunderlich 306; Lebendiges Museum

Online).

14

Figure 1: Campaign Poster for the 1924 Reichstagswahl, DNVP (1924)

The myth of the Dolchstoß was insinuated not only through the imagery of the campaign poster, but also through the accompanying text. The text narrates the myth of the Dolchstoß by claiming that the party secretary of the Social Democrats took responsibility for having sent members of the party to distribute false information in order to wear down the front’s will to keep fighting. Then, the myth of the Dolchstoß was extended to the 1924 Reichstagswahl, as the

“zweiten Dolchstoß,”15 of the German people. The DNVP claims that the Social Democrats and

Democrats wish to make Germany ‘slaves’ to the Entente. To avoid this further destruction and

14 Lebendiges Museum Online 15 Second Dolchstoß

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‘enslavement’ of the German nation, citizens should vote for the German Nationals: “Wollt ihr das nicht, dann wählt deutschnational!”16

The undeniable similarities between the death of Siegfried and the myth of the Dolchstoß became apparent to many who were familiar with the story of the death Siegfried. Germany’s already existing obsession with its beloved national narrative, the Nibelungenlied, provided an easily manipulable story known to most Germans. The story of the fall of the Nibelungs became central to some of Germany’s most beloved works of art and most lucrative and profitable production ventures. Of these, the most successful and beloved re-creations are ’s

Der Ring des Nibelungen and Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924).

It seems that Wagner’s opera, had a much greater cultural impact than Lang’s film (Müller

282). Wagner’s three-day opera cycle remains to this day one of the most well-known and continually reproduced German operas (Kurbjuweit 2017). The opera’s influence reached far and wide: military maneuvers used in World War I were named after some of Wagner’s characters, the western German offensive was called the “Siegfried Linie,” and many street names in German cities were renamed for specific characters in Wagner’s rendition. The cities of Braunschweig and

Bernau include street names such as Gudrunstraße, Kriemhildstraße, Walkürenring and

Fafnerstraße.

While the cultural effects of Wagner’s opera were widespread and long-lasting, Fritz Lang’s

Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) provided a unique transformation of the Nibelungen story for

1920s Germany. For the first time in German history, a single story of Siegfried and his death was projected on screen for virtually all to see. Unlike plays and operas—the film screen allowed the masses to experience a uniform visual representation of the hero Siegfried. The artistry of Lang’s

16 If you don’t want this [the second Dolchstoß] to be the case, then vote for the German nationalists!

22 film was accessible to a more socioeconomically and geographically diverse audience than previous iterations and performances.

Building off of the well-known narrative of the death of Siegfried in the Nibelungenlied, several commemorative monuments erected in the years 1921 to 1938 made use of the figure of

Siegfried to honor German soldiers who had fallen in World War I. These monuments, which I discuss in the next chapter, all attempt to portray a nationalist narrative that is in some way connected to the life and death of Siegfried. Several of these narratives show sacrificial aspects connected to the myth of the Dolchstoß and portray a country unwilling to forget the devastation of its losses. Some of these monuments also portray a country prepared to fight and avenge the wrongs done to the defeated nation.

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Chapter 2: Narrative encapsulated

2.1 Monuments of Siegfried in Germany

Most monuments of the figure Siegfried, aside from the Siegfried monument in , have been relatively under researched in studies on national monuments and nationalism in Germany.

Apart from a few Wiki-pages, some outdated websites, articles in local newspapers and groups on

Facebook, the Siegfried monuments in Germany have not been given much critical attention. Any significant information about the monuments and their histories could potentially be researched in local and federal German archives, but due to the time constraints of the project, I was not able to visit the statues nor any archives personally. The relatively under-researched nature of the

Siegfried monuments could be due to the fact that all of the Siegfried monuments are in relatively small villages, and towns. Due to their somewhat small sizes and rural locations, many of these monuments do not receive much foot traffic. In addition, one monument is no longer even displayed publicly. For this particular monument, the only information concerning its physical portrayal was from archived photographs.

After some digging into the history of the Nibelungenlied several months prior to beginning this project, and a nudge from my advisor, Dr Anna Grotans, I was directed to an online resource:

“Nibelungenlied Gesellschaft.”17 Perusing the website, I came across a bit of information on monuments of Siegfried and other Nibelungen-related sculptures in Germany and Austria. These sculptures ranged from large public art pieces like the Nibelungenhalle18 in Worms (Figure 2) to smaller stone reliefs such as the Siegfriedbrunnen19 in Odenheim (Figure 3). I began to notice a trend among many of these Nibelungen sculptures, particularly in those that featured the figure of

17 Nibelungenlied Society 18 Nibelungen Hall 19 Siegfried fountain

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Siegfried. Most of the Siegfried statues created after World War I were intended to commemorate fallen German soldiers in World War I. What immediately struck me about these monuments were their carefully portrayed and staged scenes of Siegfried, ranging from victory to defeat. Not only this, but many of the inscriptions and histories of the monuments, in conjunction with the scenes of Siegfried, appeared to be framing a narrative surrounding the loss of World War I.

Figure 2: Nibelungenhalle Worms20 Figure 3: Siegfriedbrunnen Odenheim21

Before beginning, I selected monuments for analysis using the following criteria: first, the statue or sculpture had to portray the figure of Siegfried. Using a list of Siegfried statues and sculptures compiled by Busso Diekamp, a former museum director in Mönchengladbach, I was able to whittle down a set of potential monuments to examine. Some of the statues Diekamp listed were included due to their connection with the Nibelungen story and Siegfried, but not all the statues had a concrete signifier such as a plaque to identify the referent as Siegfried. The criteria whereby the statue or sculpture was determined to be portraying Siegfried often came down to the reception of the object as representing the likeness of Siegfried—which was supported by the intention of the sculptor, or other symbolism such as a dragon, or literary allusions to Siegfried.

As Frederico Bellentani and Mario Panico state in their article, “The meanings of monuments and

20 Photo by Christiane Rossner, Monumenteonline.de 21 Photo by StromBer, Wikimedia Commons

25 memorials: toward a semiotic approach,” the reception of monuments as portraying certain meanings depends not solely on the creator or some intentionality set out by political elites, but relies on processes of reception by observers (Bellentani and Panico 28). In a semiotic understanding, the artist and observer work mutually to produce meaning from publicly raised monuments. War monuments in the image of Siegfried leave significant room for interpretation, and reflect not only the intentionality of the sculptor, but also the interpretation of the observer.

Second, to meet the objective of a public monument, the object must have originally been placed or displayed in a public space; this factor ruled out any privately-owned sculptures or artworks. There are several artistic creations of the Siegfried figure that are in private hands, and by this fact alone have been excluded from this analysis. Third, the monuments I chose to analyze all express an intention to commemorate loss of male life in World War I, with the exception of the “Wehrfreitheitsdenkmal”22 in Nordhausen, which I chose to keep due to its uniqueness in commemorating the restoration of the “Wehrmacht.”23 The monument in Nordhausen was inspired by the murder of an assassinated young Nazi in 1930, who later became a symbol of nationalistic and military pride. In an analysis of nationalism and narrative, it seemed leaving out this monument would be counterintuitive.

The statues and sculptures I left out of the analysis give the impression of serving no commemorative purpose. These monuments especially do not have any connection with commemoration of World War I nor do they honor the life and death of German soldiers.

Therefore, the six Siegfried monuments I have chosen, listed in chronological order are:

• “Kriegerdenkmal24 am Kaiserberg” in Duisburg (Figure 7)

22 Military freedom memorial 23 German armed forces 24 Warrior monument

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• “Der Drachentöter”25 in Obermylau (Figure 11)

• “Der Siegfried” of Frankenthal (Figure 12)

• “Kriegerdenkmal” in Dülken (Figure 14)

• “Der junge Siegfried”26 or “Wehrfreiheitsdenkmal” Nordhausen (Figure 16)

• “Kriegerdenkmal” of Hangelar (Figure 8)

Regarding the six monuments I have selected, it is evident that each monument does not portray a uniform representation of Siegfried. For example, the positioning of the body, the height of the statue, the material from which it is made, the mise-en-scène, and the respective histories all construct a unique reception of the monuments. As previously mentioned, the monuments I am particularly interested in are those that were intended to serve as a monument to World War I. In a way, the only unifying aspect to these statues is the way in which they implement the figure of

Siegfried to portray a greater nationalist narrative. The goal of this chapter is to analyze the ways in which these Siegfried monuments use the aforementioned qualities of physical portrayal and history to depict Hogan’s notions of sacrificial and heroic narrative structures and to investigate, moreover, how these qualities impact their reception.

2.2 National Monuments and Nationalism

The study of national monuments to examine nationalism in Germany can be traced back to

Thomas Nipperdey’s ground-breaking article published in 1968 and titled “National Idee und

Nationaldenkmal in Deutschland im 19. Jahrhundert.” Since the late 1960s, several books and articles have been written on the subject, the most notable and exhaustive work was written by

Reinhard Alings in 1996, Monument und Nation: Das Bild vom Nationalstaat im Medium

25 Dragon slayer 26 Young Siegfried

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Denkmal; zum Verhältnis von Nation und Staat im deutschen Kaiserreich 1871–1918. Studying monuments to understand nationalism and its narratives is particularly advantageous, especially in the German context. Through analyses of the abundance of monuments erected in nineteenth- century Germany, we are able to analyze physical representations of national ideals and collective representations of the past predating the nation state. In the case of nineteenth-century Germany, several national monuments were erected prior to the states’ unification in 1871. Monuments of figures such as Luther, Schiller, Lessing and Gutenberg became sites where German culture was commemorated and celebrated before the existence of the formal nation-state. Following unification in 1871, national monuments were more important than ever to the newly unified state.

Rudy Koshar, author of From Monuments to Traces: Artifacts of German Memory, 1870-1990, writes that national monuments became the central piece of a larger framing strategy of enhancing national loyalties in an “uncertain and still youthful state” (Koshar 11).

The study of national monuments and nationalism has introduced a fundamental, yet very essential question: what is a national monument? Thomas Nipperdey claims that:

“Nationaldenkmal ist, was als Nationaldekmal gilt”27 (Nipperdey 532). National monuments provide insights into the nation’s conception of itself and more importantly show the process at shaping a national identity. Monuments, as Koshar describes them, are “tangible symbols of cultural continuity,” where a nation confronts its own history and memory, as well as its vision for the future (Koshar 29).

In his book, National Monuments and Nationalism in 19th Century Germany, Hans Pohslander analyzes and provides a historical context for many of the larger influential German national monuments such as the Johannes Gutenberg monuments, the many monuments of ,

27 National monuments are what are accepted as national monuments

28 the “Völkerschlachtdenkmal”28 in , the “Siegessäule”29 in Berlin Charlottenburg, the

“”30 in the and the “Bismarckdenkmal”31 in Berlin Tiergarten, to name a few. Pohlsander’s monograph does not address any of the Siegfried monuments analyzed in this thesis. The only mention in Pohlsander’s analysis of a Siegfried monument is the nineteenth- century Bismarck monument. The Bismarck monument in Berlin-Tiergarten consists of four figures at the base of the statue of Bismarck: Sybille, Atlas, and Siegfried. Much critical attention has been paid to the multitude of cultural and commemorative monuments of the nineteenth century and their influence on the study of German nationalism.

Significant monuments of German cultural figures were some of the first and most often reproduced monuments throughout the German-speaking regions. On October 31st, 1821, twenty years after being first proposed, a monument to Martin Luther was erected in the Marktplatz of

Wittenberg, the city where Luther allegedly nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the castle. Luther’s cultural importance to German national identity, according to Pohlsander, superseded the constraints of confession or religion and had become an independent symbol for German national identity (Pohlsander 107). Luther was such a beloved figure across Germany, that from the years

1821 to 1899 over fifteen statues commemorating Luther and his memory were erected. Not to mention several others that were constructed outside the borders of the German nation. The majority of these statues were raised after the complex installation of the Luther monument sculpted by Ernst Rietschel in Worms in 1868.

Another particularly influential group of monuments that is essential to the study of German nationalism and national monuments are those dedicated to Johannes Gutenberg. Johannes

28 Battle of Nations monument 29 Victory column 30 Hermann/ monument 31 Bismarck monument

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Gutenberg is credited with creating the first moveable type press, along with Johannes Fust, and became known as the fathers of the printing revolution in Europe. Gutenberg’s contributions to the spread of religious texts leading to the Reformation cannot be understated. Gutenberg’s invention altered every succeeding revolution and political movement in European history (see

Eisenstein). Prior to the early 1800s, not much attention was paid to the memory of Gutenberg and the consequences of his monumental invention. However, in 1804 Bonaparte decided that a public plaza in —the city where Gutenberg was born and died—should bear his name.

Years later, after a private monument was constructed at the “Hof zum Gutenberg”32 a larger, more public monument was called for. The unveiling of the monument was met with a three-day celebration, whereby delegations from all over Germany were present. The sockle, written in , first thanks the donors, who were from all over Europe, and expresses a nationalist claim on the inscription on the rear face: “The art which remained unknown to the Greeks and the Romans was invented by the keen mind of a German. Whatever the ancients and the moderns now know not for themselves but for all peoples”33 (Pohlsander 110). Following the erection of the 1837 Gutenberg monument, large cities in several German states followed suit raising their own Gutenberg monuments. , Hannover and commissioned and erected Gutenberg monuments in 1858, 1890 and 1901 respectively (Pohlsander 111). Gutenberg monuments, as

Pohlsander claims, were some of the prototypical nationalist monuments celebrating the ‘German- ness’ of Gutenberg’s invention and its long-lasting effects on the entire world.

32 Gutenberg dwelling 33 Pohlsander’s translation

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2.3 The Siegfried statues and their narratives

The character “Siegfried” has a very long and convoluted history. Siegfried, or Sigurð in the

Norse version, is foremost a mythic character whose medieval history is recorded in Icelandic and

Middle High German literature. The “German” character, Siegfried, made his way to parchment in the Middle High German epic the Nibelungenlied. After being composed in its present form ca.

1200, the Nibelungenlied was forgotten in the “German” cultural memory for hundreds of years until its rediscovery in 1755 (Wunderlich 195). Since then, the Nibelungenlied has occupied an important space in “German” cultural memory. The Nibelungenlied was declared Germany’s Iliad in the early nineteenth century by German Philologist Johannes von Müller and others (Brackert

345). Nineteenth-century scholars praised its potential to raise a German people in treasured values of manliness and that it was the “Evangelium deutscher Tapferkeit und Treue”34 (Brackert 350).

The Nibelungenlied, alongside Grimms’ fairy tales, rapidly became popular with the educated,

German-reading public (Brackert 346). Although the Nibelungenlied was experiencing newfound popularity and scholarly attention in the nineteenth century, Wagner’s opera Der Ring des

Nibelungen35 is considered the most effective iteration of the Nibelungen Saga at reaching wider

German audiences (Müller 282).

Prior to World War I, two Siegfried monuments were erected in Germany. Beginning in 1890 the first statue of the image of Siegfried was erected in the city of Bremen (Figure 4) at the

“Nordwestdeutsche Gewerbe-, Industrie-, Handels-, Marine-, Hochseefischerei und

Kunstausstellung,”36 a trade fair, comparable to the World’s Fair that took place from May 31st to

October 15th. At the time, the trade fair was the largest such exposition to be held in Germany.

34 Gospel of German bravery and loyalty 35 The ring of the Nibelung 36 Northwest German industry, art and trade fair

31

Five years later the city of Worms set out to construct a Siegfriedbrunnen in the town center, which was erected in 1913 (Figure 5) (Diekamp 2017). These statues differ quite starkly from the monuments that arise after World War I in presentation as well as utility. Prior to World War I, the statues of Siegfried were cultural monuments to the German warrior. While these Siegfried figures were important symbols of German culture, their utility was atop public fountains as pieces of art. Both the Siegfried statues in Bremen and Worms were features of a larger public sculpture, though the Siegfried of Bremen was relocated after some time to the courtyard of a hotel in

Bremen. The Drachentöter von Bremen and the Siegfriedbrunnen in Worms exist without any supplementary information. Absent of any inscription or historical significance to their location, these two monuments appear to exist as remnants of an art exhibition and in the case of the

“Siegfried” of Bremen a decorative yard piece.

Even after World War I, the Nibelungen-Wohnbau GmbH in Braunschweig erected a young

Siegfried statue (Figure 6) and placed it in the park central to the “Siegfriedviertel.”37 This statue and the Walkürenring38 that surrounds the neighborhood, are believed to be tributes to Wagner’s opera. Though these statues do not lend themselves directly as objects for my analysis, they present a distinguishable contrast with the commemorative Siegfried monuments constructed from 1921-

1938.

37 Siegfried quarter 38 ring

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Figure 4: Drachentöter von Bremen39 Figure 5: Siegfriedbrunnen Figure 6: Siegfried Statue in Worms40 Braunschweig41

2.4 Commemorative monuments

2.4.1 Sacrificial monuments

The Siegfried monuments in Duisburg and Hangelar make use of elements of the sacrificial narrative through their connection to the death of Siegfried. Both monuments function as commemorations for World War I soldiers who perished in combat and are located in non-central and secluded, forest-like locations. The locations of the Siegfried monuments in Duisburg and

Hangelar are reminiscent of the forest scene in the Nibelungenlied where Siegfried is murdered by

Hagen.

In the years following World War I, towns, cities and villages all over Germany were devastated due to the ramifications of the war. The devastation was vastly indirect, since much of the confrontation did not occur in German territories. Resource scarcity due to decrease in production, high inflation, widespread political uncertainty, and the tremendous loss of life were

39 Photo by Florian Fortescue, Wikimedia commons 40 Photo by René and Peter van der Krogt, statues.vanderkrogt.net 41 Photo by Verograph, Wikimedia commons

33 among the greatest contributors to a weakened and fraught Germany (James 119-120). Regions across Germany began to officially recognize their losses and honored their dead with funerals, ceremonies and commemorative sites. The relative proximity to the “West Front” also known by

German soldiers as the “Siegfriedlinie,” meant that many northwest German cities such as

Duisburg, Düsseldorf, and saw more soldiers in their sickbays and hospitals than in other parts of the country. 42 The so-called “Siegfriedlinie” was one of the many monikers used in World War I from Wagner’s opera Der Ring des Nibelungen. The 1917 troop withdrawal from the “Siegfriedlinie” was given the codename “Alberich,” and other offensive maneuvers were called the “Brünhild-Stellung,”43 the “Hagen-Offensive” and the “Kriemhild-” and “Gudrun-

Verteidigungslinien”44 (Nissen 91).

The increasing number of dead soldiers became quite apparent to the city of Duisburg, which in 1914 had originally set aside a plot of land for about 100 graves for German soldiers who had died at the start of the war (VB Duisburg-Kaiserberg-Kriegsgräberstätte). But, due to the ever- increasing number of bodies of dead soldiers returning to Duisburg, in addition to those from other regions who perished in the Duisburg sickbays, more land was allocated for more graves (VB

Duisburg-Kaiserberg-Kriegsgräberstätte). What was originally only supposed to offer a final resting place for 104 soldiers, held more than 800 by the end of the war (Küst 2017). It was not until after the war had ended that a monument for the fallen was commissioned and constructed

(Küst 2017).

Construction on the Siegfried monument in Duisburg in began in 1919, which was located in the surrounding Ehrenfriedhof am Kaiserberg (Figure 7). In December 1919, the Volksbund

42 The “Siegfriedlinie,” also known as the Hindenburg line by the Allies, was the name of the German line of fortification that ran from France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands 43 formation 44 Defense lines

34 deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge45 was established to take charge of construction and maintenance of war cemeteries, and quickly became the central authority over the remembrance of the fallen in

World War I (Brands 226). Although the organization was founded prior to the establishing of the

Ehrenfriedhof am Kaiserberg, it did not play an active role in financing the cemetery or the monument, which were funded both privately and locally.

The monument was funded by Hermann Ingenhamm from Meiderich, the father of Johann

Ingenhamm, a soldier from Duisburg who had died in the war (Rheinland Siegfriedsfigur,

Duisburg). On October 28, 1921, two years after construction on the monument began, “Standbild des Jungen Kriegers”46 was inaugurated. Through the years, the statue came to be known by locals as the “Siegfriedfigur” (VB Duisburg-Kaiserberg-Kriegsgräberstätte). A year later, when the statue was erected in the cemetery, the sculptor, Hubert Netzer, described the statue as “the statue of a young warrior, defiantly giving up the fight” 47 (Küst 2017). Despite the sculptor’s naming of the statue as “Standbild des Jungen Kriegers” the Siegfried association preceded the statue. A smaller replica of the statue had already been unveiled at the “Große Kunstausstellung 1920”48 in

Düsseldorf with the name “Siegfried.” Apart from Netzer’s 1920 original title of “Siegfriedfigur,” there is no explicit information on the statue, such as a plaque or any other signifier that indicates the monument is a statue of the figure Siegfried. According to the Volksbund deutsche

Kriegsgräberfürsorge, the monument has continually been brought into debate among residents of

Duisburg, who question whether the figure is to be understood as Siegfried or simply just a young man who had grown tired of war (VB Duisburg-Kaiserberg-Kriegsgräberstätte). Another critical component of debate that has followed the monument is whether the “Siegfried” figure is sheathing

45 German War Graves Commission 46 Statue of the young warrior 47 Original: [ein] Standbild eines jungen Kriegers, der trotzig den Kampf aufgibt 48 Great Art Exhibit 1920

35 or unsheathing his sword. This subtle detail has quite large implications for the interpretation of the monument. Should Siegfried be understood as putting away his sword, as the sculptor claims, then it would suggest a resolution of action. The battle or the danger in which the warrior was entrenched has passed. Or as Netzer suggested, a warrior who has had enough of war, and is putting his sword away for good. Harald Küst, a writer for the Rheinische Post writes: “the sculpture is culturally and historically interesting, because it symbolizes a break in thinking, not the exaltation of war from Wihelmine Germany, but rather presenting the horrors thereof”49 (Rheinland

Siegfriedsfigur, Duisburg). The reception of the statue’s portrayal does not glorify the act of war, an interpretation that became associated with Wilhelmine German statues and war monuments; but instead symbolizes the vulnerability of the soldier, his defeat and the tragedy of it all.

The “Standbild des jungen Kriegers” stands with his shoeless foot propped on a stone, in a relaxed posture, peering off into the horizon. His body is just barely covered so that his chest and arms are visible. The statue does not portray a dying warrior, or a wounded one, but a weary warrior. The “Siegfried” of Duisburg stands representative for those who were sacrificed for the nation. On both sides of the monument are the 800 graves marking the burial places for German soldiers who perished in World War I in Duisburg. The warrior’s clothing, though somewhat tattered, seems to suggest that some confrontation has occurred, but he has escaped mostly unscathed. The muscularity of the man should not be ignored, as the statue’s musculature is reminiscent of an ideal male form from the sculptures of Greek antiquity.

49 Original: Die Skulptur ist kulturhistorisch interessant, weil sie einen Umbruch im Denken symbolisieren kann: Nicht die Kriegsverherrlichung der wilhelminischen Zeit, sondern der Schrecken des Krieges wird hier mitgesehen

36

50

Figure 7: "Standbild des jungen Kriegers"

One of the important aspects of the “Siegfried” monument in Duisburg is its location. Located in the middle of Duisburg’s largest park, known as the Kaiserberg, the “Siegfried” monument stands in front of a five-pillar pergola, surrounded by large trees and grass. The setting is very green in the summer and spring months, and the abundance of trees provides a large bit of coverage from the sun. In his analysis of many World War I cemeteries, Gunnar Brands claims that several

German cemeteries for fallen soldiers integrate “German trees,” such as oaks and beeches, in order to reinforce a link with an age-old Teutonic infatuation with the woods (Brands 228). Brands argues that this connection to the mythic forest represents a symbol of national endurance and helped create a closer connection to contemporary nationalism (Brands 228). Of course, a war monument surrounded by the graves of those who died in the said war would surely have a different interpretation if the cemetery and monument were in a less trafficked or wooded area.

The sereneness and quiet of the woods fashion a space away from everyday life, introducing a certain mystic quality to the space in which they are remembered.

50 Photo by Harald Molder, Lokalcompass.de

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A sculpted Siegfried figure standing among the greenery in thick woods evokes the scene of

Siegfried’s death, in which he is stabbed in the back. In the Nibelungenlied, after Hagen and his men invite Siegfried to go on a hunt with them in the woods and Siegfried has more than filled his bounty, Hagen challenges Siegfried to race for a drink of water. The one who reaches the water source first, gets the first drink. Hagen and Siegfried set off, and Siegfried reaches the water first and bends down to take a drink. In Âventiure 16, Siegfried expresses his desire to lay in the grass after reaching the water source, to rest at the feet of his companions.

974 „Nu welle ouch wirz versuochen,“ sprach Hagene der degen

dô sprach der snelle Sîfrit: „so wil ich mich legen

für die iuwern füeze nider an daz gras“.

dô er daz gehôrte, wie liebe ez Gunthere was!51

Siegfried reaches the brook first, he takes a sip of water. As he is still leaning over the brook,

Hagen stabs him the back with his spear at the ‘x’ placed by Kriemhild, marking Siegfried’s only spot of vulnerability. Additionally, the blood that sprang from Siegfried’s wounds spilt on Hagen’s clothing and on the flowers surrounding him,

998 Di bluomen alltenhalben von bluote wurden naz.52

I do not mean to argue that the “Siegfried” monument in Duisburg was placed in the Kaiserberg park with the intention to recall this specific scene, merely that the association can be easily made by anyone familiar with Siegfried’s death in the Nibelungenlied, Wagner’s opera, and even Fritz

Lang’s Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924).

51 Translation: “well let’s try it,” says Hagen, the knight. Then the brave Siegfried said: “I will go forth before thine feet and lie in the grass.” As Gunther heard this, he was pleased 52 The surrounding flowers were wet with blood

38

The “Siegfried” monument at Duisburg was the first commemorative reference made to

Siegfried and the fallen German soldiers of World War I. Of course, the sentiment of Germany having been stabbed in the back was made as early as 1918 in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and was propagated by prominent German political figures such as Erich von Ludendorff and Paul von

Hindenburg before becoming a central tenet in Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf (Wunderlich 306). A connection between a betrayed Siegfried and the betrayed German nation was far from understated. Several more monuments honoring fallen German soldiers in the form of Siegfried were erected during the Nazi-German regime but took on far more nationalistic undertones than the “Siegfried” in the Kaiserberg park in Duisburg. It would even seem that Hubert Netzer’s

“Standbild des jungen Kriegers” would become something of a prototype for many of the succeeding monuments.

Almost fifteen years after the Siegfried in Duisburg was erected another monument, the

Siegfried of Hangelar, was constructed in 1934, and finally erected in 1938 (Figure 8). The monument was placed on what is now Konrad-Adenauer-Str. outside the city of

(Denkmalpflegeplan Sankt-Augustin 30). The monument is now surrounded by overgrowth, despite being located near the road, and is barely visible to traffic. The statue stands approximately five meters tall and rests on a rectangular sockle (Mylonas 2017). Though the statue has been vandalized and damaged several times throughout the years, it has been cared for and restored after each incident. At first glance, the only sustained damage to the monument has been to the statue’s nose.

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Figure 8: "Siegfried" of Hangelar53

The Siegfried of Hangelar’s right fist clutches the sword with his left fist balled. The shoeless Siegfried of Hangelar holds a wide stance, resembling a soldier standing at attention, and is almost completely naked. The only cover hiding Siegfried’s genitalia are his belt and sheath.

For this reason, the statue found its current resting place off of the now Konrad-Adenauer-Str. Jill

Mylonas writes that Siegfried’s controversial portrayal of almost complete nudity, caused many concerned community members to advocate for the statue not to be displayed in an overtly public location. Therefore, the statue was planted just outside of the eastern edge of the village of Sankt

Augustin, in Hangelar (Mylonas 2017). The statue of Siegfried stands quite tall in comparison to the other Siegfried statues, at approximately five meters. The Siegfried of Hanglar’s relatively private setting at the edge of a wooded area means that the monument is not seen by a large number of people. Siegfried of Hangelar’s masculinity and overstated manhood played a large role in the

Siegfried of Hangelar’s location in the forest. The Siegfried of Duisburg and the Siegfried of

53 Photo by argus1972, waymarking.com

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Hangelar are both located in forested almost wild areas. Each setting is thick with aged trees, and lots of vegetation.

Authors Bellentani and Panico note in their article: “The meanings of monuments and memorials,” that extracting meaning from the materiality of a monument, such as its materials, location and dimensions is not a one-for-one transmission of meaning. The authors cite the scholarship of Abousnnouga and Machin on war memorials in the United Kingdom, who claim that the material design of these statues is able to clearly transmit specific meanings (Bellentani and Panico 37). For example, Abousnnouga and Machin claim that stone stands for “longevity and ancientness,” but also “naturalness” and “softness” (Bellentani and Panico 37). The danger,

Bellentani and Panico recognize, in claiming that certain physical attributes imbue a monument with a certain interpretation can be too simplistic and does not adequately represent other complex relationships between content and expression (Bellentani and Panico 37). To argue that a statue or monument represents power because it stands fifty meters or represents longevity or ancientness because it’s made out of basalt lava, in the case of the Siegfried of Hangelar, ignores the

“routinized patterns” from which interpretation is created (Bellentani and Panico 37). In this case, routinized patterns would mean precedents of certain types of reception being laid forth. In the two cases of Hangelar and Duisburg, the interpretation of the forest as evocative of mythic links to

Teutonic origins is a reception presented by Brands, supported by his work on German cemeteries.

On the Hangelar monument there are three separate sets of inscriptions engraved into the sides of the sockle. Of the three inscriptions, the first two have accompanied the statue since its inauguration. The first set of inscriptions are the dates 1914 and 1918, which are located on the right and left facades respectively, referencing the beginning and end of World War I (Figure 9).

The second set of inscriptions on the monument is located at the forefront of the sockle and run

41 left to right (Figure 10). The inscription written in capitalized block letters reads “HELLE WEHR

- HEILIGE WAFFE - HILF MEINEM EWIGEN EIDE” (Mylonas 2017). This inscription comes from the final opera cycle of Richard Wagner’s opera, Der Ring des Nibelungen;

Götterdämmerung.54

55

Figure 9: Inscription on the west face

56

Figure 10: Inscription at the base of the monument

The inscription, “HELLE WEHR - HEILIGE WAFFE - HILF MEINEM EWIGEN EIDE,” comes in Act II of Götterdämmerung, just after Brünnhilde sees the Nibelungen ring on Siegfried. This ring she forfeited the night of her betrothal to Gunther, the king of the . Seeing the ring, Brünnhilde realizes she has been deceived by Siegfried, who took the form of Gunther to

54 Twilight of the Gods 55 Photo by Iris & Harry, waymarking.com 56 Photo by Matteo Omied, Alamy stock photos

42 overpower her, and is humiliated. In her frustration and betrayal, she accuses Siegfried of this deception, which prompts Gutrune—the wife of Siegfried and sister to Gunther—to demand a response from Siegfried and make an oath of his trustworthiness. Siegfried makes his oath and says the famous line:

Helle Wehr! Heilige Waffe! Hilf meinem ewigen Eide! – Bei des Speeres Spitze sprech’

ich den Eid: Spitze, achte des Spruchs! – Wo mich Scharfes schneidet, schneide du mich;

wo der Tod mich trifft treffe du mich…57 (Götterdämmerung 1241-52)

Critical to the Siegfried of Hangelar monument is this inscription that references the scene in Götterdämmerung. Wagner’s Opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, out of all of the transformations of the Nibelungen saga, is perhaps the most widely known. Ulrich Müller claims

Wagner’s re-creation of the Nibelungen story as the most influential of all the re-creations and made a greater effort to familiarize modern audiences “than entire generations of philologists with their scholarly publications” (Müller 282). It is no secret that the operas of Richard Wagner were among the most treasured pieces of German art by the Nazis, not to mention Adolf Hitler himself

(Kurbjuweit 2013). Those familiar with Wagner are aware of his intense nationalist and anti-

Semitic beliefs, temporally preceding the nationalist and anti-Semitic beliefs adopted by the Nazis in their party ideologies. Siegfried’s oath foreshadows his coming death with the very spear he uses to make the oath.

In the succeeding act, a member of the Burgundian court and confidant of Brünnhilde,

Hagen, learns of Siegfried’s untrustworthiness and stabs Siegfried in the back with his spear. While this monument does not make any specific mention of soldiers killed in the war, the etched dates

57 Bright weapon! Holy Weapon! Keep me to my sacred oath! I swear by the spear’s tip, be wary of my words! Where the sharpness cuts, may you cut me, where death me greets, may it meet me…

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1914 and 1918 mark the Siegfried of Hangelar as a war monument. This literary reference to

Wagner’s opera, a pivotal moment foretelling the death of Siegfried, points to clear indication of the stab-in-the-back myth and gives it a distinctive sacrificial narrative structure.

Sacrificial structures, as Hogan claims, are narrative structures that emphasize previous sacrifices, as well as future ones. Siegfried’s position in the German political imaginary was a fierce Germanic warrior, slain in his prime. The betrayal of Siegfried and the stab in the back that killed him was a convenient narrative instrumentalized by German nationalists to conceptualize a bitter loss of power. Through the portraying of this defeat as treasonous, those who caused it were designated as the enemy, the next sacrifice. After all, Hogan’s sacrificial structure often involves two sacrifices: the in-group for its own sake, and the out-group as atonement. Much of Nazi regarding the loss of World War I was based on this premise that German soldiers were betrayed and stabbed in the back, an idea that was also translated to Germany having been betrayed by internationalist Communists and Jews. Both Siegfrieds in Duisburg and in Hangelar project sacrificial narratives by means of their locations, mise-en-scène, inscriptions and histories.

2.4.2 Ambiguous: Siegfried and the Dragon Fafner

Between the years 1921 and 1931, political movements in Germany made use of increasingly nationalistic platforms. Parties such as the German National People’s Party and the National

Socialist Democratic Workers Party represented very small minorities in the Reichstag. However, this changed drastically just after the global economic crisis sparked by the 1929 stock market crash. Overnight, loans that had been dealt out to German businesses by American banks under the Dawes Plan were being called back for repayment. A sudden break in investment capital led to job losses, decreased output, and a host of other economic difficulties. Growing from 1.4 million unemployed workers at the end of 1929 to close to six million in 1933, almost a third of the male

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German population was unemployed and looking for work (Dimsdale et. Al 788). As unemployment rose, the number of members and supporters for the National Socialists rapidly expanded. The number of seats won by the Nazis in the Reichstag from 1928 to 1933, a jump from a mere 12 to 288, paints a pretty clear picture: the German people were being won over to the appeals of nationalism (Kolb 224-5). Hogan claims that the types of economic conditions such as drought, famine, and epidemic disease are perfect environments for breeding nationalism, especially that of the sacrificial type (Hogan 264). Societies that are hungry and struggling to provide basic necessities for themselves view their plight as symptomatic of someone else’s wrongdoing. Life-threatening situations such as these occur so infrequently that they require a moral explanation to make sense of the devastation (Hogan 264). To go back to the biblical analogy, when Adam and Eve fell out of the favor with God it was because they had sinned—this was the punishment for their immoral actions.

Considering the economic hardship Weimar Germany was experiencing in the early 1930s, it certainly seems unexpected that any amount of discretionary funds would be used for anything nonessential to life. However, this was not the case for the village of Obermylau in Reichenbach.

On August 31, 1931 “Der Drachentöter” (Figure 11) was placed in the center of town, where it still remains to this day. At the time of its inauguration, several high-ranking members of the community were in attendance, as well as the local council, the monument committee, family members of the fallen, associations and various others such Konsul Schreiterer and Graf von

Metzsch-Reichenbach (Gemeinsam für Reichenbach und Mylau 2015). The installation of the town’s first and only war monument was a spectacle celebrated by the entire community.

45

58

Figure 11: "Der Drachentöter" of Obermylau

The “Siegfried” monument of Obermylau stands on a rectangular sockle, its height is greater than that of the Siegfried figure on top of it, which is depicted holding a sword over his head, with his foot placed on the neck of a dragon. Siegfried does not wear any shoes and appears to be moments away from striking the head of the dragon with his sword. The face of the figure is relatively expressionless, and his torso is mostly visible, but much less muscular in comparison with the Siegfried in Duisburg. Though I unfortunately do not have much information in regard to the history of the monument, including details regarding the context of its construction, the

Siegfried here is portrayed a heroic warrior overcoming the dragon.

On the front facing facade of the monument an inscription reads: “DEM EHRENDEN

GEDENKEN UNSERER IM WELTKRIEG GEFALLENEN SÖHNE—GEMEINDE

OBERMYLAU 1914-1918.”59 In the scene depicted by the monument, Siegfried is fighting the dragon, Fafner. After the slaying of Fafner, Siegfried will bathe in his blood and become invincible. It seems that the inscription on the monument and the presentation of the “Siegfried”

58 Photo by Reinhold Möller, Wikipedia 59 IN HONOR OF OUR FALLEN SONS IN THE GREAT WAR—COMMUNITY OF OBERMYLAU 1914-1918

46 statue are portraying two conflicting messages. The inscription reminds the observer of the war, and those who died in it, yet Siegfried is portrayed moments before his famed victory over the dragon, a hero on the cusp of triumph. With the Siegfried in Obermylau, it would appear that the inscription on the monument suggests a sacrificial understanding for the soldiers lost in World

War I. The phrase “gefallenen Söhne” denotes a familial tie. These men were not just soldiers who perished in the war, but a mother and father’s sons, and by extension Germany’s sons. This statue places the commemoration of the victims of the war at the forefront, with the inscription taking up a large area in comparison to the rest of the monument.

In contrast to the inscription, the Siegfried portrayed atop the rectangular sockle is not dying, and is he not shown as a ‘fallen son.’ This statue in Obermylau seems to be operating on two levels.

From the inscription it seems quite clear that the soldiers being remembered are seen as treasured members of the community lost too soon; the sons of Obermylau were sacrificed for the sake of war. From the Siegfried statue itself, Siegfried is shown moments before defeating Fafner and arising victorious. The interesting facet to the Siegfried character and his portrayal in these monuments is that he can be portrayed in both sacrificial and heroic circumstances. As we have seen in the statues in Duisburg and Hangelar, the sacrificial elements of his death are portrayed by the inscriptions, mise-en-scene and histories; but in Obermylau, this “Siegfried” monument utilizes heroic elements of Siegfried and the inscription’s allusion to dead sons to commemorate the sacrifice of dead soldiers.

In the town of Frankenthal, south of Hangelar on the Rhein river, another Siegfried monument was built in 1933 (Figure 12). After its construction was completed in 1933, the statue was moved several times before it was placed at its originally intended spot before the entrance of the

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“Frankenthaler Strandbad”60 in 1957. It is unclear where the statue resided from the years 1933 to

1957, or whether it was displayed in a public space at all. Despite intentions of placing the

Siegfried statue in front of the entrance to the public beach and naming it after Siegfried, the beach was referred to by Frankenthalers as just the “Strandbad” (Altertumsverein Frankenthal 2017). The

Siegfried of Frankenthal stands to this day before the public beach, just over two and half meters high. Siegfried faces away from it and looks headlong into the distance. The Siegfried of

Frankenthal is clothed, wearing a cloak of some sort, and standing barefoot straddling a slain dragon. Siegfried’s left hand is balled in a tight fist. His right hand grasps his sword with the blade resting on the neck of the dragon, displayed vertically.

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Figure 12: "Siegfried" of Frankenthal

Like the “Siegfried” monument in Obermylau, the “Siegfried” of Frankenthal portrays

Siegfried triumphant over the dragon Fafner. The “Siegfried” of Frankenthal shows a heroic warrior straddling a defeated dragon, prideful and victorious. This statue shows the resolution of the battle between the hero and his defeated enemy. Unlike the “Siegfried” of Obermylau, the

“Siegfried” of Frankenthal is devoid of any indication as serving as a war monument. The

60 Public Beach Frankenthal 61 Photo by wikiwand.com

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“Siegfried” of Frankenthal does not have an inscription, or any explicit information that would suggest its purpose as commemorative. The reception of this statue as portraying a sacrificial or heroic narrative remains ambiguous for this reason. I would like to note, however that in my internet research on the “Siegfried” of Frankenthal, I was able to find some helpful information by the way of a Facebook group “Altertums Verein Frankenthal.”62 A Facebook post from July 13,

2017, sixty years since its placement in front of the public beach, includes a scanned photograph of the statue’s erection in 1957 including a few sentences of background information, and the speculation that the Siegfried of Frankenthal was originally supposed to serve as a war monument

(Figure 13) (Altertumsverein Frankenthal 2017). But, without any other supporting evidence, it does not seem sensible to label this statue a war monument just from a Facebook post. It could be just as plausible that the Siegfried of Frankenthal is no more than a larger than life, mythic garden gnome.

Both of these monuments in their portrayals of Siegfried and the dragon show a hero. In

Obermylau, this hero is moments before conquering his most formidable opponent, and in

Frankenthal, he has won the battle. In the case of Obermylau, the conflicting message of dead sons and a victorious dragon slayer makes use of both a sacrificial and a heroic narrative. This shows the complexity and versatility of the figure of Siegfried; the staging of his story plays a very significant role in the reception of the monument he represents. In the case of Frankenthal, the

Siegfried monument lacks any historical or physical connection to soldiers lost in World War I, which complicates its reception of a particular narrative. Though it is said it was originally intended to serve as a war monument, this cannot be definitively ascertained by any explicit information apart from a Facebook post.

62 Antique association Frankenthal

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Figure 13: "Siegfried" of Frankenthal July 13, 195763

2.4.3 Heroic monuments

The last set of monuments I analyze in this chapter are united by their heroic qualities. Both

Siegfried monuments in Dülken and Nordhausen portray warriors on the cusp of battle. Though only one is a war monument commemorating fallen soldiers, both monuments utilize histories and presentation to portray a heroic narrative.

In the village of Dülken, a small settlement outside the city of Viersen in the Rhineland, the community erected a war monument on October 21, 1934 to their fallen soldiers lost in World War

I. According to Busso Diekamp, citing the Viersener- and Westdeutsche Zeitung from October

21,1934, the war monument in Dülken went beyond commemorating the lost sons of the region

(Diekamp 2017). The monument was to serve as an “Ehrenmal”64 or a symbol of the warrior. With this monument, a generalization can be attributed beyond specific weaponry or uniform. To put it

63 Photo from Altertumsverein Frakenthal 2017, Facebook 64 Honorary memorial

50 differently, the “Siegfried” of Dülken was to be a monument that embodies the spirit of the soldier without a direct reference to a single warrior (Diekamp 2017). In addition, the Oberbürgermeister of the city of Viersen, Heinz Gebauer—a staunch National Socialist and early supporter of the

Nazis—was quoted referring to the statue as the “Reckengestalt”65 of the Germanic warrior

(Diekamp 2017). For the Nazi mayor, more importantly, the “Siegfried” figure stood as a symbol of “Germanness”66 (Diekamp 2017). Interpretation behind the statue’s referent and its meaning also comes directly from the Culture Bureau of the city of Viersen, which wrote in their log of monuments in and surrounding the city of Viersen that the figure represented a young “Siegfried,” who stands as a symbol of power and strength (Kriegerdenkmal Dülken 1989). Though the monument is listed today as a “Kriegerdenkmal,” it was perceived as Siegfried, nonetheless.

The Siegfried monument in Dülken (Figure 14) is located southwest of the present-day town center, where the monument stands facing away from the medieval west-wall of the city in front of the former “Gefangenenturm.”67 The monument, made from Tuffstein,68 stands just over three meters high on a rather modest sockle. The Siegfried statue stands in the middle of five rectangular stone plaques, comparable to the height of an average headstone. On these five stones are the names of all 451 soldiers from greater Viersen who were lost due to World War I. In addition to the stones bearing the soldiers’ names, the Siegfried figure itself serves as a very idiomatic representation of the narrative being presented.

65 Knightly character 66 Originally: “Deutschtum” 67 Prisoner tower 68 Tufa stone

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69

Figure 14: "Siegfried" of Dülken

When one encounters the statue of Siegfried head on, one would find the posture and physical positioning of Siegfried’s limbs somewhat threatening. Siegfried is shown with his right foot in front of the other and a visible tension in his body, suggesting a ready and willingness to attack.

As Nadja Becker of the Rhenischer Spiegel notes, “it looks almost as if the statue will jump from his sockle at any moment and spring into action” (Becker 2020). The two arms of Siegfried are sculpted to give the observer a clear indication of his musculature and propensity to inflict destruction. Siegfried’s left fist is balled, his arm muscles are taut, and his right hand is gripping his sword seemingly just as hard. Shoeless, Siegfried is clothed in a medieval garb, a belt separating his waist from his torso, and his hair is somewhat blown back. The figure of Siegfried becomes even more daunting when one considers the eeriness of the 451 names etched in stone behind him, hauntingly confronting the viewer.

The Siegfried figure stands before a large tree with his back to the village of Dülken, staring out to the west, almost as if he is defending the soldiers and city before which he stands. It seems also important to note that Siegfried is facing the west, as opposed to the east. After all, most of

69 Photo by Frank Vincentz, Wikimedia commons

52 the countries who were involved in the fateful signing of the Treaty of Versailles, and who were seen as the cause for Germany’s humiliation were geographically to the west.

While the Siegfried monument in Dülken honors the soldiers lost in conflict, from not only

Dülken but greater Viersen, it was not the only World War I monument erected in Viersen for the purpose of commemorating fallen soldiers (Figure 15). Prior to its inauguration in 1926, the funds for a war monument honoring the fallen sons of Viersen were raised by a local entrepreneur, Otto

Pongs (Kriegerdenkmal Viersen 2005). Due to the hyperinflation the Reichsmark experienced in the early 1920s, most of the money Pongs had raised was lost. In 1925, after the introduction of the Rentenmark and somewhat stabilization of the German economy, Pongs was able to donate

10,000 Marks for the erection of a war monument. In addition to Pongs’ donation, more money was raised from the citizens of Viersen to fund the monument. In contrast to the Siegfried of

Dülken, the Viersen war monument portrays a grieving mother with her dead son draped over her lap. The Viersen monument is a direct reference to Michelangelo’s Pietà, where Mary is depicted mourning over the death of her son, Jesus. The Viersen monument also includes two inscriptions,

“F Ü R S V AT E R L A N D” and “1914-1918” (Kriegerdenkmal Viersen 2005).

70

Figure 15: Kriegerdenkmal Viersen

70 Photo taken from Nadja Becker, Rheinischer Spiegel

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Using Michelangelo’s Pietà, the Viersen war monument draws a direct connection to the death of Jesus and the deaths of German soldiers as sacrifices. Jesus is known as the ultimate sacrifice for the Christian world, offering up his own life as penance for the sins of many. As Hogan writes in Understanding Nationalism, the prototype for the sacrificial narrative is precisely this biblical narrative of offering up someone’s life for the atonement of others’ sins. In the case of the Viersen monument, the soldier is the subject of grief, the sacrifice given up for the ‘Vaterland.’ Critical to the Viersen monument is an emotion of dejection and deep sadness for the lives that were lost, a sentiment that is completely left behind in the Siegfried of Dülken. The warrior monument in

Viersen as well as the “Siegfried” monument in Dülken both pay homage to the sacrifices made by German soldiers, but the monument in Dülken goes beyond this sacrificial portrayal.

The Siegfried of Dülken displays a double message – one of sacrifice and another of revenge.

Representing and standing guard in front of the 451 names of the fallen German soldiers, the

“Siegfried” of Dülken brings light to their sacrifice for the German nation. Even more so, the

“Siegfried” of Dülken portrays Germany’s willingness to avenge these lost soldiers in the future, by fighting for their memory, and the cause of the German nation. This becomes especially clear when one considers the inscription etched into the foundation stone of the monument, “Für

Deutschlands Größe! Für Deutschlands Freiheit! Für Deutschlands Ehre!” 71 (Diekamp 2017). The

Siegfried of Dülken simultaneously brings attention to a sacrificial narrative through its recognition of the sacrificed warriors he stands in front of, as well as it portrays the nation’s desire to overcome and conquer. To fight for Germany’s greatness, freedom, and honor implies a future conflict, whereby these fallen soldiers may be avenged. In this manner, the “Siegfried” of Dülken, like the “Siegfried” of Obermylau share a uniqueness in comparison to other iterations of the

71 For Germany’s greatness! For Germany’s freedom! For Germany’s honor!

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Siegfried monuments, in that their portrayals can be perceived as having both sacrificial and heroic qualities. Yet when considering Hogan’s concept of sacrificial narratives, this does not seem to be unique in the slightest, since all sacrificial narratives are fashioned to reach a heroic ending. In this case, the sacrifice made by the German soldiers for their nation will not be in vain; a “strong

Germanic warrior” portrayed by the figure of Siegfried will fight for the nation’s greatness, freedom and honor. This happiness goal of overcoming adversity for honor drives the sacrificial narrative into a heroic one.

The last Siegfried monument I analyze no longer exists in its original, physical form. In the town of Nordhausen, a city located in the German state of Thuringia, a monument in the likeness of “Siegfried” was erected on the Theaterplatz on March 16, 1936 (Figure 16). In opposition to the previously discussed monuments, though still questionable for the “Siegfried” of Frankenthal, the Siegfried monument at Nordhausen was not erected for the commemoration of fallen German soldiers in World War I. The Nordhausen Siegfried monument operated in a very different manner, not serving as a site for grief and contemplation, but as a site for celebration.

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72

Figure 16: "Wehrfreiheitsdenkmal" or "junger Siegfried"

On March 7, 1936, the remilitarization of the Rhineland occurred. Violating the terms of both the Versailles and Locarno Treaties, which called for the demilitarization of the Rhineland region,

Adolf Hitler ordered thousands of troops to re-enter the Rhineland, thus restoring the German military presence in the west. This event caused a large celebration of national importance, with parades and celebrations taking place all over the country. Remilitarizing the Rhein became a symbol for Germany’s re-emergence as a European power, and asserted Nazi-Germany’s will for self-sovereignty (Eisfeld 2017). Nazi-Germany’s desire to reclaim its lost territory and affirm their sovereignty over it is an example of one of the defining happiness goals Hogan lists as characteristic of the heroic narrative structure (Hogan 216).

The Siegfried monument had been given by a citizen of Nordhausen, Otto Kruse, as a gift to the city in 1934 (Frank 2014). Interestingly, the sculptor of the statue, Hubert Netzer, also created

72 Photo from Vincent Eisfeld, Nordhausen Wiki

56 the “Siegfried” statue in Duisburg. During the statue’s life on the Theaterplatz on the now Käthe-

Kollwitz Str., the Siegfried figure was depicted as a victorious hero. From available photographic material and Wiki pages, we see Siegfried portrayed barefoot with very minimal covering of his genitalia standing with both arms raised in triumph. In his right hand, he is clutching a sword, and -hand palm faces up. Of the four Siegfried statues erected after 1933, the Siegfried in

Nordhausen lived the shortest life. Just nineteen days after V-E day, the Siegfried in Nordhausen was toppled by its own citizens after the Bürgermeister, Otto Flagmeyer, decreed all monuments erected during the time of National be removed (Eisfeld 2017).

However, the monument’s history did not begin with the town of Nordhausen. The “junger

Siegfried”73 statue gifted by Otto Kruse was originally conceived as a monument to the assassinated Horst Wessel, a young NSDAP member who was murdered by two members of the communist party in 1930 (Baird 105). After Horst Wessel, a 22-year-old devoted Nazi and member of the ,74 was shot in his apartment in , he became known as

“Germany’s best son” (Baird 73). quickly capitalized on the murder of Wessel for propaganda purposes (Baird 73). Goebbels was determined to rewrite the narrative of Wessel’s murder into a resurrection story, one that would ensure his soul a place among the living in the form of monuments, commemorations, and songs. Horst Wessel was immortalized in all of these forms. Bülowplatz, the home of the former KPD75 headquarters in Berlin was renamed Horst-

Wessel-Platz. A day of national remembrance of Horst Wessel was instituted in 1933 and was to be celebrated on January 22th, the anniversary of his murder. Factions of the SA were named after

73 Name given by Netzer 74 Storm trooper faction 75 Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands

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Wessel. Most notably, the Horst-Wessel-Lied, lyrics Wessel had written, became one of the two national anthems for Nazi-Germany (Baird 79).

After Wessel’s murder, the Nazi party began using Wessel as a , and utilized his murder as a major propaganda symbol for . Even Hubert Netzer dedicated his last Siegfried statue to the honor of the young Nazi. In his book To Die for Germany: Heroes in the Nazi

Pantheon Jay Baird writes that the newspaper, Münchner Neuste Nachrichten, called the work: “[a] symbolic embodiment of the youthful hero and warrior. Aflame with the fire of his convictions” (Baird 104-5). In the image of Siegfried, Wessel was immortalized as the martyr he was meant to represent, a sacrifice to be avenged. The parallels between Wessel’s murder by the

KPD members and the myth of Dolchstoß are certainly striking. Both Wessel and the “German” in-group were seen as victims of one of the internal enemies, the Communists.

Though the statue found its genesis in the image and memory of a young, murdered member of the Nazi party, the “Siegfried” monument became the image of a heroic nationalist narrative in

Nordhausen. Propagandizing Wessel’s death as sacrificial, a martyr for the Nazi-German cause,

Goebbels was able to construct a clear and convenient narrative portraying the evilness of their communist enemies. Wessel was seen as a martyr for the Nazi’s, a real-life Siegfried, though this time not stabbed in the back but shot in the head. Wessel’s connection to an ancient Germanic past went further than just the Siegfried sculpture Netzer created. Memorials to the murdered Nazi were even placed in the Teutoburg Forest, conjoining him with the “heroes of the epic Germanic past”

(Baird 105). Additionally, the connection of Wessel to the mythic Siegfried was reiterated through the modern embodiments of the Nibelungen story. At Wessel’s funeral, and the following yearly memorials commemorating his death, Siegfried’s funeral march from Götterdämmerung was

58 played to conjure up imagery of the hero of Siegfried, and parallel that to the life of Horst Wessel

(Baird 88).

As “Wehrfreiheit” in the “Wehrfreiheitsdenkmal” suggests, the monument was first and foremost a celebration of a victory. The victory was not over a physically confrontable enemy, as there were no bodies as spectacle. Having directly violated the terms of an international peace treaty without reprimand from any of the European powers was cause enough for a victory.

Depicted in the Siegfried of Nordhausen is the happiness goal that Hogan writes of, a strong and powerful Germany ready to make itself great again, no longer the victim of war, but a hero.

Siegfried stands valiantly; hands held high and sword in hand he provides a concrete representation of this.

The young Siegfried in Nordhausen marks new territory in regard to the Siegfried statues analyzed thus far. The Siegfried in Nordhausen, more so than the other Siegfried monuments, is the best illustration of Hogan’s heroic narrative structure. In the “Siegfried” monument in

Duisburg, Siegfried is shown in a moment of resolution. In Dülken we see Siegfried enraged, and in Hangelar betrayed. This Siegfried in Nordhausen is displayed as just having won. The Siegfried of Nordhausen bares his entire chest and in one hand holds his weapon high in triumph. At first glance, the resemblance between the monument and the Siegfried in Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen:

Siegfried (1924) is quite striking. The Siegfried in the Nordhausen portrayal strongly resembles the frame in “Gesang 1: Wie Siegfried den Drachen erschlug,”76 just before Siegfried slays the dragon, bathes in its blood and thereby becomes invincible (Figure 17).

76 Canto 1: How Siegfried slew the drag

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Figure 17: Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) Siegfried with sword (19:14)

2.5 Siegfried’s contemporaneity

In his 1989 article “Between Memory and History,” French historian and pioneer of cultural memory studies, Pierre Nora writes about sites of memory and their significance for societies that uphold them. Places of memory, or “les lieux de mémoire,” are sites (not necessarily physical locations) where memory crystallizes itself (Nora 7). According to Nora, societies erect places of memory, because lived environments of memory no longer exist. Therefore, days of remembrance, moments of silence, parades, monuments, museums and archives are built to store and save the memories of the past (Nora 9). It is due to a lack of “spontaneous memory,” in addition to a fear of forgetting, according to Nora, that places of memory are erected. The commemorative Siegfried monuments, as well as other war monuments that honor fallen soldiers in Germany were installed partly with this idea of permanence in mind. As we have seen, all but one of these monuments still stands today.

The implementation of places of memory implies a desire to hold on to a certain interpretation of the past, especially on behalf of the nation when done on a large scale. Setting aside national

60 holidays such as Holocaust Remembrance Day or constructing monuments like the “monument to the murdered Jews of Europe” on public property imbues a collective understanding, interpretation and manipulation of the past. This is precisely the case with the commemorative Siegfried monuments. While not every monument was financed by public funds, or erected by a distinct federal body necessarily, each one was planted in a public space to pay tribute to the World War I

German soldiers or honor future ones. Superficially, the citizens of Duisburg, Obermylau, Dülken, and Hangelar erected their commemorative Siegfried monuments out of a desire to have their sons, brothers, fathers, neighbors and friends remembered. But, upon further inspection, this is not the only way in which these monuments operate. Staging, location, histories, mise-en-scène and inscriptions tell the observer a story that is bootstrapped onto the widely known story of slain

Germanic warrior, Siegfried.

An obsession with the Siegfried figure in twentieth century Germany did not manifest itself simply in the form of monuments. Many iterations of the figure can be found in the forms of other narratives, films, and works of art. None of these embodiments were safe from nationalist reception or utilization. Fritz Lang’s Nibelungen films (1924), for example, were quite an important cultural event, and became films beloved by both Goebbels and Hitler (Eisner 78). What the Siegfried monuments accomplish, in contrast to these other embodiments, is their layer of institutionalization. Referring back to Nora, the institution of places of memory in physical space is a reflection of our own identities, “we buttress our identities upon such bastions,” we see ourselves as consequences and reflections of the past that they represent (Nora 12).

In 2014, Neo-Nazis used the monument in Duisburg as a place of meeting to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the beginning of World War I and the “heroes” who served (Böhne

2014). The day after their vigil, the infamous black-white-red flags associated with the Third Reich

61 were hung on the sockle, and candles and roses were placed around it (Böhne 2014). Yet, Siegfried monuments are not the only sites of memory where ultra-conservative right-wing groups meet; other national monuments also serve as meeting spots for these groups. The Kyffhäuserdenkmal,77 a mere 30km from Nordhausen, has served as the meeting place for “Der Flügel,”78 a sub- organization of the AfD.79 The party leader of the Thüringen faction of the AfD, Björn Höcke, has used the monument and its mythic history as the background for his nationalist speeches for

“taking back the past” (Göppfarth 2017). These sites of memory continue to serve not only as places of remembrance and constructions of a collective, nationalistic historical narrative, but they also provide context and ammunition for the development of further nationalism in the present day.

77 Kyffhäuser monument 78 The wing 79 Notorious right-wing party in German, Alternative für Deutschland

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Conclusion

Before writing this thesis, I was deeply intrigued by the connections between the

Nibelungenlied and German nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Several early nineteenth- century philologists were convinced of the Nibelungenlied’s propensity to become Germany’s version of the Iliad, and to raise generations of Germans in its specifically “German” ideals

(Brackert 348). The influence of the Nibelungenlied, including its many re-creations and reimaginations, played an integral role in creating a national consciousness in the German “Volk.”

As it turns out, early nineteenth-century Nibelungenlied philologists such as Friedrich von der

Hagen and Johannes von Müller would be far from disappointed in the amount of attention this medieval epic has been paid in the last 150 years. The story of the Nibelungs, and more importantly of Siegfried, has remained a constant obsession in German cultural memory for over a century.

Throughout the course of this thesis, I attempted to explain the complexities of defining a nation, nationality and national identity as well as how they relate to identity formation and narrative creation. Attempting to come up with objective definitions for any of these terms has caused a lot of headaches for scholars and has shown to be ultimately inconclusive in pinning down concrete definitions. Consensus among scholars such as Anderson, Moore, Andrews and

Saward is that the concept of a ‘nation’ is something that is envisaged among its members rather than something imposed. Due to the imaginative nature of the ‘nation,’ the concept of nationality is built off of some ideation of an “imagined community,” to use Anderson’s terms. A nationality is constructed from perceived similarities within “imagined communities,” whereby enough shared practical identities become asserted as categorical identities. National identity relies firstly on a sense of nationality and asserts itself as a categorical identity. Though these practical identities prove useful enough to assert a national categorical identity, for a robust and long-lasting national

63 identity, a sense of legitimacy is required to establish the self-determinative conception of an individual’s role in this shared history. This sense of legitimization in the shared history is accomplished through the use of narratives.

In the case of Weimar and Nazi-Germany, the “Great War” became a huge benefit for German nationalism. Finally, there was a war to complete the nation (James110). Experiences like war are advantageous for creating feelings of national pride, and national feelings in general. It was hoped by many leaders in Wilhelmine Germany that World War I would be a quick, and easily winnable war (James 110). When this proved not to be the case, and Germany lost the war entirely, a sacrificial nationalist narrative was fashioned to explain the situation. The social conditions for creating a nationalist narrative were astoundingly consistent with the conditions that generate sacrificial narratives: an embarrassing military defeat, an overwhelming amount of debt and destruction, tremendous loss of life, widespread hunger and poverty among Germany’s lower classes were all small reactants contributing to the powder keg of sacrificial nationalism (Hogan

264).

In the years that followed World War I, Weimar Germany experienced extreme political instability, and saw the rise of both right and left-extremist parties attempting to gain political majority. All of this instability came to a head in 1929, when the stock market crashed providing an even greater economic downturn than experienced in 1921-23 during hyperinflation. With several million Germans out of work and unable to find substantial livelihoods, many members of the population experienced enormous economic hardships. The National Socialists, led by Adolf

Hitler, made promises to right the wrongs and fight for the everyday man. Hitler made use of the sacrificial narrative known as the “stab-in-the-back” myth to morally explain Germany’s defeat in

World War I, in addition to its current economic suffering.

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Scholars have studied this “stab-in-the-back” myth in its various literary forms, in Mein Kampf, for example. The goal of this thesis was to show that this narrative was not only being disseminated in newspapers and books, but was also being portrayed in Siegfried monuments, honoring fallen

German soldiers in World War I. The significance therein lies with the monuments’ reference to the deaths of German sons, husbands, friends and neighbors and an equation with the betrayal and murder of Siegfried, the main character of the Nibelungenlied epic. These statues were not raised by political elites in Berlin, Munich or Bonn but emerged from their sockles by the hands of sculptors funded by everyday men and women. Many of these Siegfried statues incorporate the elements of mise-en-scène, history and their locations to implicate various elements of the sacrificial and heroic narrative structures as defined by Hogan.

The commemorative “Siegfried” monuments erected in the years 1921 to 1938 show us the ways that nationalist narratives were conceived of in some towns and villages across Germany.

These narratives ranged from sacrificial to heroic, and each monument utilized the figure of

Siegfried to convey these narratives. The figure of Siegfried is a relatively useful figure for such narrative portrayals, and as we have seen he can easily portray either.

The use of monuments in studying nationalism allows us to see in physical representations how a nation responds to its history, culture and identity. Monuments and other sites of memory are established with a sense longevity. I would argue, no monument or site of memory is established with the intention of it one day being demolished, erased or otherwise forgotten. Sites of memory are designed to withstand the test of time. This can create problems, when the ‘thing’ being commemorated is no longer relevant to the society it now serves. The question of where

‘outdated,’ no longer politically relevant, and sometimes offensive monuments belong in

65 contemporary spaces is becoming an increasingly relevant topic, especially within the southern

United States.

In my analysis of the Siegfried monuments, I would be remiss if I did not mention the ways in which monuments can be re-interpreted. After all, interpretation of national monuments, like any public monument is a fluid process. After being placed under “Denkmalschutz”80 in 1991, the

Siegfried in Hangelar was amended in 1996 with a plaque that not only recognized its place in history within Nazi-Germany as a nationalist monument, but more importantly the misappropriation of the Siegfried figure by the Nazis. The plaque was placed just below the year

“1914” etched into the side (Mylonas 2017). The plaque reads:

Diese Siegfried-Statue wurde 1938 als Ehrenmal für die Toten des Ersten Weltkrieges

errichtet. Die nationalsozialistische Weltanschauung missbrauchte die germanische

Sagengestalt Siegfried als Symbol des kampfbereiten Helden. Uns und den nachfolgenden

Generationen möge diese Statue eine Mahnung sein, Faschismus und Krieg zu ächten.81

Since this element was added in 1996, the statue should now be understood as a beacon against fascist movements. Of course, the argument can be made that the plaque appended to the statue can only serve to change the interpretation of the monument insofar that through this, observers change their reception of it. The statue still remains intact and bears the inscription alluding to

Wagner, in addition to its location in the mythic forest. Essentially, all the elements influencing its reception and portrayal as a nationalist monument remain as they were in 1938. As Bellentani and

Panico write, monuments are fluid; that is to say, as soon as they are raised, they become public property. Monuments are subject to reinterpretations and are able to be used in ways sometimes

80 Monument protection 81 This statue was erected in 1938 as a memorial for those who died in the first World War. The National Socialist worldview misappropriated the Germanic saga figure of Siegfried as the symbol for the steadfastly loyal hero. It is our duty as the next generation to let this statue stand as a warning against war and Fascism.

66 contradictory to their intended purpose (Bellentani and Panico 38). Of course, the Siegfried of

Hangelar can be the subject of further reworking and reinterpretation just as the other Siegfried monuments, in spite of an attempt to change this with the added plaque.

Monuments continue to be relevant to the study of modern nationalism. In the American south, for example, there are an abundance of Civil War monuments that still stand to this day. Several of these monuments are presented in prominent public places such as college campuses and government buildings. These monuments honor the hundreds of thousands of confederate

Americans who died serving in the Civil War and serve as divisive points of contention among many Americans. The south fabricated its own sacrificial narrative, where young confederate soldiers were martyred for the sake of their “country,” and these ‘Silent Sam’ statues were to stand in memoriam of their sacrifices, and what they fought for. With the years, many southerners were afraid of the growing influence that black-Americans were having in their communities, and as an attempt to show power and superiority, many southern states erected public monuments to honor their dead in the “lost cause.” For years, these statues have remained in their original positions, unchecked by the racism and bigotry for which they stand.

My alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, had one such monument on its campus for just under 105 years. Silent Sam stood for over a century as a monument to the students in North Carolina who had died serving in the Confederacy. At his inauguration in 1913, a UNC trustee, former confederate soldier and donor to the monument praised its erection as a monument to protectors of the Anglo-Saxon race, “Their courage and steadfastness saved the very life of the Anglo-Saxon race in the South” (Julian S. Carr, “Unveiling of Confederate Monument at University.” June 2, 1913). Despite this monument’s clearly racist beginnings, it remained at a liberal public institution for decades. Its modern reception by many students, faculty and residents

67 of North Carolina was based off of the knowledge of this quote. Although its removal had long been called for, it stained the campus for years. The monument came under a constant barrage of vandalism and public protests, especially following the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville,

VA in 2018. Due to laws passed by the North Carolina Senate in 2015, the statue could not be removed. In 2018, students who had enough of this 20ft tall testament of racism toppled it themselves, doing what the University and State of North Carolina refused to do.

The fact of the matter is, monuments matter to people; as art conservator Georg Dehio remarks at an address given at the University of Strasbourg in 1905, “we conserve a monument not because we consider it beautiful, but because it is a part of our national life. To protect monuments is not to pursue pleasure, but to practice piety” (Koshar 32). The tension created between the systems of

North Carolina and the people whom these systems are meant to represent finally reached a critical mass, causing the people to take matters into their own hands, and to tear down a no longer relevant, and frankly racist confederate past.

As Andreas Wimmer, professor of Sociology at Columbia University and writer of Nation

Building claims, “nationalism is the most powerful ideology in the history of modernity” (Wimmer

32). While scholars like Benedict Anderson would not necessarily agree with the claim that nationalism is an ideology, it nonetheless rings true. Nationalism and its narratives have played an enormous role in political events for more than a century, with no sign of subsiding.

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