The Brothers Grimm, very grim

As usual, I was searching for something (don’t remember what, of course) when I stumbled upon the Grimm Brothers.

Grimm Brothers monument in Hanau Germany

Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were German academics. They are among the best-known storytellers of folktales, popularizing stories such as Cinderella, The Frog Prince, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Rumpstiltskin, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White. Their collection of folktales was first published in 1812.

Their father’s death when Jacob was 11 and Wilhelm 10 caused great poverty for the family and affected the brothers for many years after.

At the fairy tale teller Mrs. Viehmann in Niederzwehrenshot

However, both brothers attended the small University of Marburg, in central Germany, where they developed a curiosity for German folklore.The brothers gained a reputation for collecting tales from peasants, middle-class, and aristocratic acquaintances. The brothers believed that the tales reflected inherent cultural qualities. The popularity of the folktales has endured. They are available in more than 100 translations and have been adapted by renowned filmmakers.

There were objections that not all the tales were suitable for children because of scenes of violence and sexuality. The stories in Kinder- und Hausmärchen include scenes of violence that have since been sanitized. For example, in the Grimms’ original version of Snow White, the Queen is Little Snow White’s mother, not her stepmother, yet she orders her Huntsman to kill Snow White-her biological daughter-and bring home the child’s lungs and liver so that she can eat them. The story ends with the Queen dancing at Snow White’s wedding, wearing a pair of red -hot iron shoes that kill her. The first edition Rapunzel clearly shows a sexual relationship between the prince and the girl in the tower, which they edited out in subsequent editions. *

I don’t need to tell you which folktales these are!

Nazi Germany weaponized the tales for propaganda using them to foster nationalism and antisemitic sentiments. The stories were sometimes criticized for being insufficiently German. However, the brothers saw fragments of old religions and faiths reflected in them, which they thought would continue to exist and survive. In fact, The Grimms’ tales have provided much of the early foundation on which Disney built an empire.

20th-century educators debated the value and influence of teaching stories that include brutality and violence, and some of the more gruesome details were sanitized. All these stories paint Jews as antagonists whether through murderous rites, deceit, or greed. The Nazi Party was particularly devoted to the Grimms’ collected stories. According to author Elizabeth Dalton, “Nazi ideologues enshrined the Kinder- und Hausmärchen** as sacred text.” The Nazi Party decreed that every household should own a copy of Kinder- und Hausmärchen; later, officials of Allied-occupied Germany banned the book for a period.

Their first collection of Children and Household tales-
*Kinder- und Hausmärchen*– 1812.

Wilhelm died at the age of 73, Jacob at age 78. The university library at Humboldt University holds a large portion of the Grimms’ private library. The collection includes almost 6.000 volumes. ***

* In Sleeping Beauty, for example, the princess is raped in her sleep; in Cinderella, the step-sisters cut off parts of their own feet in order to fit them into the glass slipper.

** pronounced [ˌkɪndɐ ʔʊnt ˈhaʊsmɛːɐ̯çən], commonly abbreviated as KHM),

***Less well known in the English-speaking world is the Grimms’ pioneering scholarly work on a German dictionary.