After having been forgotten for two hundred years, the Nibelungenlied manuscript C was rediscovered by Jacob Hermann Obereit in 1755.[75] That same year, Johann Jacob Bodmer publicized the discovery, publishing excerpts and his own reworkings of the poem. Bodmer dubbed the Nibelungenlied the "German Iliad" ("deutsche Ilias"), a comparison that skewed the reception of the poem by comparing it to the poetics of a classical epic. Bodmer attempted to make the Nibelungenlied conform more closely to these principles in his own reworkings of the poem, leaving off the first part in his edition, titled Chriemhilden Rache, in order to imitate the in medias res technique of Homer. He later rewrote the second part in dactylic hexameter under the title Die Rache der Schwester (1767).[76] Bodmer's placement of the Nibelungenlied in the tradition of classical epic had a detrimental effect on its early reception: when presented with a full edition of the medieval poem by Christoph Heinrich Myller, King Frederick II famously called the Nibelungenlied "not worth a shot of powder" ("nicht einen Schuß Pulver werth").[77] Goethe was similarly unimpressed, and Hegel compared the epic unfavorably to Homer.[78] The epic nevertheless had its supporters, such as August Wilhelm Schlegel, who called it a "great tragedy" ("große Tragödie") in a series of lectures from 1802/3.[79] Many early supporters sought to distance German literature from French Classicism and belonged to artistic movements such as Sturm und Drang.[80]
As a consequence of the comparison of the Nibelungenlied to the Iliad, the Nibelungenlied came to be seen as the German national epic in the earlier nineteenth century, particularly in the context of the Napoleonic Wars. The Nibelungenlied was supposed to embody German bourgeois virtues that the French were seen as lacking. This interpretation of the epic continued during the Biedermeier period, during which the heroic elements of the poem were mostly ignored in favor of those that could more easily be integrated into a bourgeois understanding of German virtue.[81] The translation of the Nibelungenlied by Karl Simrock into modern German in 1827 was especially influential in popularizing the epic and remains influential today.[82][83] Also notable from this period is the three-part dramatic tragedy Die Nibelungen by Friedrich Hebbel.
Following the founding of the German Empire, recipients began to focus more on the heroic aspects of the poem, with the figure of Siegfried in particular becoming an identifying figure for German nationalism. Especially important for this new understanding of the poem was Richard Wagner's operatic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, which, however, was based almost entirely on the Old Norse versions of the Nibelung saga. Wagner's preference for the Old Norse versions followed a popular judgment of the time period: the Nordic versions were seen as being more "original" than the courtly story portrayed in the German poem.[23] In the First World War, the alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary came to be described as possessing Nibelungen-Treue (Nibelungen loyalty), referring to the loyalty to death between Hagen and the Burgundians. While militaristic, the use of imagery from the Nibelungenlied remained optimistic in this period rather than focusing on the doom at the end of the epic.[84]
The interwar period saw the Nibelungenlied enter the world of cinema in Fritz Lang's two part film Die Nibelungen (1924/1925), which tells the entire story of the poem. At the same time, the Nibelungenlied was heavily employed in anti-democratic propaganda following the defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The epic supposedly showed that the German people were more well suited to a heroic, aristocratic form of life than democracy. The betrayal and murder of Siegfried was explicitly compared to the "stab in the back" that the German army had supposedly received. At the same time, Hagen and his willingness to sacrifice himself and fight to the death made him into a central figure in the reception of the poem.[84] During the Second World War, Hermann Göring would explicitly use this aspect of the Nibelungenlied to celebrate the sacrifice of the German army at Stalingrad and compare the Soviets to Etzel's Asiatic Huns.[85]
Postwar reception and adaptation of the poem, reacting to its misuse by the Nazis, is often parodic. At the same time, the poem continues to play a role in regional culture and history, particularly in Worms and other places mentioned in the Nibelungenlied. Much discussion has centered on whether and how the epic ought to be taught in schools.[86] The material of the Nibelungen saga has continued to inspire new adaptations. These include Die Nibelungen, a German remake of Fritz Lang's film from 1966/67, and the television film Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King from 2004. However, the majority of popular adaptations of the material today in film, computer games, comic books, etc., are not based on the medieval epic directly.[87]
Outside of Germany, most reception of the Nibelungen material has taken place via Wagner, although the epic has been translated into English numerous times.[88]
