Especially after the Napoleonic Wars and how they had fought on behalf of the German people, the Grimms felt that they wanted to neither legitimize the ruling of former German princes nor hand the German identity to a power like Napoleon. The existence of the princes for each of the sovereign states symbolized a decentralized German identity, which the brothers detested. But, being “united” by a foreign emperor who clustered the Germanic states together did not sit right with the duo either. Hence, the brothers attempted to imagine a German national identity that could stand on its own and be able to resist outside forces and domestic turmoil. Because of their innate desire to promote German resilience, it is not surprising that according to David and David, people generally agree that the brothers were intrigued by ancient Germanic literature and languages as a whole, not explicitly folklore (182). Zipes steers the conversation into nationalism and German pride by asserting that due to circumstances, the brothers began preserving German lore for their own purpose, nationalism, instead of the embodiment of the Romantic era. Zipes argues that
[w]hat compelled the Grimms to concentrate on old German epics, tales, and literature was a belief that the most natural and pure forms of culture—those which held the community together—were linguistic and based in history. According to them, modern literature, even though it might be remarkably rich, was artificial and thus could not express the genuine essence of Volk culture that emanated naturally from experience and bound the people together. Therefore, all their efforts went toward uncovering stories from the past. (“How the Grimm Brothers Saved the Fairy Tale”)
This complements Zipes’ grasp on the difficult situations the brothers were put into because of the Napoleonic era (Zipes, “How the Grimm Brothers Saved the Fairy Tale”). This feeling of needing to solve a problem from their formative years explains why nationalism comes into the picture. In 1850, the brothers were exposed to scholars in Berlin who worked to politicize various academic disciplines, including literature and history (Schmidt Ihms 45). Because the duo was exposed to political literature, they may have been inspired to be both ambitious and subtle in their interpretations of tales while promoting an agenda based on national pride and unity. Hurt and disheartened by the fractured nature of the German states and their personal trauma coming from the Napoleonic Wars, the Grimms made a personal effort to create anthologies that reflected their deep desire to create a shared German identity. As Zipes puts it, they felt a “deep longing to have the German people united in one nation through customs and laws of their own making,” (Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 16-17). Here, Zipes is suggesting that the Grimms wanted to create a political culture where the German identity is for the people and by the people, not necessarily controlled by a direct force. Thus, it is likely that “the identification with the common hard-working folk and the great desire to prove his individual worth were major factors in Jacob’s later success and also figured in his idealization of the German folk,” (Zipes, Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 6). This awareness and admiration of the common man are Romantic in nature, but the political agenda behind the usage of these ideas boosts the notion that the brothers took their original intentions of creating a Romantic work into something that would unite their people. Hence this personal goal of one of the brothers contributes to the duo’s overall goal of “reconstitut[ing] German culture in its oral and written forms so that it would not fade from the memory of the German people,” (Zipes, Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 12).
Sanitization
The general public did not have a clear idea of what the brothers had done to the original source texts. Specifically, not everyone was aware that what the brothers preserved was not exactly what they published, as many assumed. A few decades after the deaths of the two, an American newspaper notes, “Contrary to general belief, the work of the Grimm Brothers did not consist in simply repeating verbatim such stories as were related to them by the many peasants visited by them for the purpose of gathering the numerous beautiful specimens of German folklore, though the plot of each story told them has remained the same as in original version” (Neumeyer). Even now, it is generally agreed upon that the brothers edited their works extensively.
A proposal scholars offer is that the brothers used creative liberties to beautify their stories into works of art instead of historical texts. The Journal of the Folklore Institute suggests that “[f]or the most part[,] the changes and additions are those that might be made by any good storyteller to make this narrative more coherent, more dramatic, and more vivid,” (191). Schmidt Ihms also recognizes that Wilhelm, the more creative brother, did indeed embellish the stories (48). Hence, Schmidt Ihm’s stance on the reasonings behind the Grimms’ does not blatantly side with the idea that the brothers were driven by national pride, but it does acknowledge that they did not stay true to the stories they collected.
While scholars broadly agree that the Grimms edited their stories, the underlying motives are significant points of contention. In being deemed as collectors of folklore instead of creators of such tales, scholars have questioned the brothers’ integrity as preservers of German lore. Schmidt Ihms also attempts to legitimize the brothers’ actions by offering practical reasoning as to why the brothers opted to edit the original tales the way they did. With consideration to the process of folklore preservation during the nineteenth century, she proclaims, “[t]o safeguard the authenticity of the story, they set themselves the task of keeping close to the words of the [storyteller]. If one considers that they had neither a tape recorder nor even shorthand, this alone seems a formidable task,” (48). This showcases how Schmidt Ihms is convinced that the brothers did try not to over-edit nor sanitize the texts, but they did so inadvertently as it is inherent to the process.
Academics generally accept the notion that the first edition of the brothers’ tales was meant for adults, not children. Zipes declares, “Their tales were not to be classified as children’s stories, not even today,” (“How the Grimm Brothers Saved the Fairy Tale”). The darkness of their earliest edition is a reflection of the trauma that the Grimms faced during their formative years; they desired to represent the dark themes that shaped their perception of Germany. Zipes explains that the brothers’ initial motive in preserving the tales they collected was to make them “about children and families and how they reacted to the difficult conditions under which they lived” instead of making the stories’ prime audiences be actual German children (“How the Grimm Brothers Saved the Fairy Tale”). Donald Haase’s work in translating the Grimms’ text shows how unwholesome and inappropriate the texts may have been if the brothers had not attempted to make it more approachable to young audiences, something that I will dive into in greater detail soon. In "How Some Children Played at Slaughtering,” grotesque acts of violence are described graphically. For instance, “In the afternoon, when they began playing, one child said to the other, ‘you be the little pig, and I'll be the butcher.’ He then took a shiny knife and slit his little brother's throat.” Zipes cites this specific story from the first edition as representative of the “stark narratives about brutal living conditions in the nineteenth century,” (“How the Grimm Brothers Saved the Fairy Tale”). Because the Grimms were so deeply traumatized by the Napoleonic Wars during their younger years, especially since they were financially unstable due to war and growing up fatherless, they desired to bring dark truths to their works while promoting a strong Germany that would prevent similar wars from taking place. Hence this represents how Napoleon shaped their desire to represent Germany in a way that would unify the sovereign states they witnessed in their youth.
I am not arguing that the brothers’ works after their various editions emerged as more innocent as time went on. In fact, Maria Tatar claims that the duo “stepped-up violence in successive editions of the tales (evil must be punished in the moral calculus of the fairy-tale world)” (87). This understanding of right and wrong is a simplistic, binary awareness of the world, which is reminiscent of a young children’s sense of reality. It is just that no matter which edition, the brothers had the trauma of the Napoleonic Wars at the back of their minds in their approaches, whether by using dark themes or showcasing wholesomeness.
Hence, one common theory is that the brothers wanted to make their tales more appropriate for children over time, switching their primary audience from adults over to a more innocent audience to appeal to Germans in the attempt at unification. This presumably pure-hearted audience would appreciate the simplified and glossy tales more than the darker themes, as they themselves may not have had exposure to such concepts. These Christian morals that many Germans embraced are something that Jack Zipes hones in on. Hence, he argues that the brothers did a significant amount of purification as they “eliminated erotic and sexual elements that might be offensive to middle-class morality, added numerous Christian expressions and references, emphasized specific role models for male and female protagonists according to the dominant patriarchal code of that time, and endowed many tales with a ‘homey’ [...] flavor,” (Zipes Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 46). The manipulation of these stories to fit certain unsaid rules that the brothers had prescribed to the identity of Germans is something that I will expand upon later. For now, Zipes’ point on ridding of anything that would be offensive to the Grimm’s ideal German man showcases how desperate the duo was to achieve relevance amongst literate Germans. In fact, he adds that “[t]hey kept mending and ironing the tales they collected so that they would ultimately fit the patriarchal and Christian code of bourgeois reading expectations and their own ideal notion of pure, natural German culture,” (Zipes, Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 58). How did they get rid of these supposedly impure elements? Tatar seemingly implies that Romantic eradication of crass details occurred as she notes that “[t]he Grimms’ slavish fidelity to oral folk traditions, in particular to the crude language of the folk, came under especially heavy fire. "[Romanticists like] August Wilhelm Schlegel and Clemens Brentano felt that a bit of artifice would have gone a long way toward improving the art of the folk and toward making the tales more appealing,” (85). So, they took elements of purity and emphasis on the common folk from the Romantic movement and fused them with Christian ideals to sanitize their texts in order to appeal to the German population in terms of political and national unity. Moreover,
Wilhelm [took] care to refine the style [of the tales] and make the contents of the tales more acceptable for a children’s audience- or really, for adults who wanted the tales censored for children. Otherwise, the editing of [the brothers] exhibits the same tendencies from the beginning to the end of their project: the endeavor to make the tales stylistically smoother; the concern for clear sequential structure; the desire to make the stories more lively and pictorial by adding adjectives, old proverbs, and direct dialogue; the reinforcement of motives for action in the plot; the infusion of psychological motifs; and the elimination of elements that may detract from a rustic tone. (Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 30)
Thus, Zipes argued that instead of calling the brothers “collectors,” they could be referred to as “creative ‘contaminators’ and artists,” (Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 31). While this “contamination” can be perceived as an ode to the Romantic artistic movement, it represents nationalism a tad more because its agenda is very much so political.
The changes that made their anthologies more simplistic and innocent were to their commercial advantage, thus reaching a wide German audience. The first edition of the Kinder-und Hausmärchen stayed true to the original tales in idea and form, but the last edition that arrived in 1857 became more embellished and shaped by the Brothers Grimm in order to appeal to the “growing literary public, (Zipes, “How the Grimm Brothers Saved the Fairy Tale”). By “literary public,” Zipes meant “middle-class Christians”. The Christianization of their tales worked to appeal to the German public, as parents were fond of what was available for their children to read. In fact, according to Zipes, if the brothers did admit to blatantly purifying anything, they’d likely reference their works for children, even if their original intent in collecting folktales was unrelated to children (Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 16). However, it is important to acknowledge that in order to succeed in creating a national body of work, they needed to appeal to a greater audience. When the Kinder-und Hausmärchen was first published, their counterparts went against them, with one deeming the children’s literature anthology as inappropriate for its main audience and others regarding the collection as “real junk” (Tatar 85). Hence, some adjustments were inevitable in order to make their works worth reading. Especially during the later years, they took advantage of the popularity of their tales, for “[i]t was Wilhelm Grimm himself who became aware of the great appeal which these folk tales had in the nursery” (Schmidt Ihms 51).
Following the example of [Charles] Perrault, who had addressed himself in the first instance to children, Wilhelm selected fifty stories and retold them with children in mind,” (Schmidt Ihms 51). The Grimms explained their decision to appeal to children:
An inner purity is found in these compositions, which is why children appear so wonderful and blissful to us. They have the same bluish-white faultless shining eyes which cannot grow anymore, while the other limbs are still tender, weak, and unfit for working the soil. That is the reason why we did not wish our collection to merely serve the history of poetry and mythology. It was our aim that the poetry itself – alive within the tales – would have an influence and delight whom it can, that it could thus serve as an educational tool (Grimm and Grimm 29-37).
So, while this “educational tool” may have been inspired by Perrault, who is deemed the inventor of fairy tales, this effort was helpful in solidifying the German national identity as many German children were brought up with the same tales.
The brothers would deny this, however, because they maintained that they were not trying to stray away from the morality of the original stories. They only convolutedly admitted to the beautification of their work when it came to appealing to children. They explained,
Concerning our methods of collecting material, it was faithfulness and truthfulness which mattered most to us. We did not add anything of our own, nor did we embellish any circumstance or feature of the tales. We simply reproduced their content just as we had received it. It is self-evident that the expression and execution of the details is in large part ours, yet we have sought to keep every unique feature that we noticed, so that in this way, too, the collection could be given over to nature's diversity. (Grimm and Grimm 29-37)
While it is common to cling desperately onto a sense of national pride during a time of turmoil, the duo has also been accused of adopting Nazi-like tendencies, too radical for their own good. Scott Harshbarger, in particular, does not think that the happy endings the brothers included were for the sake of being child-friendly, for “the Grimm Brothers and the Nazis had much in common, not the least of which was their shared interest in transporting their readers/followers into narrative worlds where, after a good deal of violent struggle with demonic adversaries, the good and pure could live ‘happily ever after,’” (Harshbarger 493). He expands his argument by suggesting that the creative liberties the brothers took were political: “Grimms and the Nazis were both ardent supporters of nationalism - an ideology which, as a number of theorists have argued, is powered largely by the imagination,” (Harshbarger 493). Hence, it is arguable that this sanitization of German lore is a nationalistic agenda.
Patriarchal and Bourgeois Biases
The middle-class was the brothers’ primary audience, as their morals aligned with what the brothers deemed “German.” It is evident that the brothers aspired to, in Zipes' words, “create an ideal type for the literary fairy tale, one that sought to be as close to the oral tradition as possible, while incorporating [elements] to appeal to a growing middle-class audience” (Zipes, Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 31). Zipes explains in another work of his that “most of the storytellers during this period were educated young women from the middle class or aristocracy” showcasing that the brothers prioritized the contemporary norm of valuing the social classes that had access to formal education (Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 28). Specifically, dos Santos notes that instead of speaking to poor folks from the rural areas of Germany, “[the stories] were retold by literate bourgeois ladies who were invited into the brothers' studio in the city and who were often paid for their services” (5). Thus, the brothers took an approach that was more calculated and pro-middle-class despite their initial intentions of focusing on spontaneity and the common folk, in line with Romantic ideals.
As mentioned above, the Brothers Grimm were fascinated by urban life and disparaged provincial life, again, out of sync with the ideals of Romanticism. Valerie Paradiz point-blank declares that one of the brothers, Jacob, was “ever-critical” of provincialism. So, as dos Santos notes, the mere notion that the brothers preferred formal settings and the aristocracy contradicts the common assumption that the brothers “collected the fairy tales by listening to the Volk, traveling through the countryside in search of different versions and adaptations handed down through oral traditions. This rather [R]omantic notion served the times well but does not quite correspond to the truth” (dos Santos 4). Zipes agrees with dos Santos in that “[t]heir primary method was to invite storytellers into their home and then have them tell the tales aloud, which the Grimms either noted down on first hearing or after a couple of hearings” (Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 28). Hence, the Grimms did not gather their stories organically and in keeping with ideals of Romanticism as they simply did not enjoy the provincial life the stories seemingly promoted.
Moreover, Zipes declares that the tales the Brothers Grimm collected and reworked “deal[t] with ‘bourgeois appropriation’ and the institutionalization of a ‘bourgeois genre,’ one that has great ramification for our ‘happy-end’ narratives” (Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 52). Harshbarger is cynical of these happy endings, as he deems these as interpretations of antagonists being representative of Germany’s political enemies. Because these folktales are simplistic and rural-oriented, perhaps the Brothers Grimm were attempting to stir emotion in provincial communities. Harshbarger declares, “Considering the many hardships and frustrations of peasant life, it's a small wonder that folktales often include a variety of monsters, which, in turn, help to promote a readiness to conceive and act against such perceived threats” (Harshbarger 498). This aligns with historical facts about the brothers, as they were firm believers of Enlightenment ideals that appealed to the bourgeois and aristocrats (Zipes, Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 55). Also considering that the Grimms generally did not think highly of those who resided in the countryside, especially those who did not have access to formal education, their appropriation of provincial emotions in the service of a nationalist agenda is not entirely implausible.
Like many of their counterparts during the era, the duo embraced the notions of White male elitism in the name of European nationalism. Particularly, they not only belittled but exploited those who they deemed inferior. Women, lower-class men, and those who generally did not fit the mold of what the brothers deemed as “German” were simply not respected. The duo used their statuses as literate, White, Protestant German men to promote the imagined idea of what Germany should be full of: people just like themselves.
The general public is aware that the tales popularized by the brothers often center themselves on female characters. Hence, scholars have questioned whether or not the tales were simply derived from those told by women. In Clever Maids: The Secret History of the Grimm Fairy Tales, Valerie Paradiz hones in on the Hassenpflug sisters who were the minds behind many of the tales collected and published by the Brothers Grimm in their anthology Children’s and Household Fairy Tales. Susette, Jeanette, Marie, and Amalia Hassenpflug were identified by Paradiz as four of the storytellers who were invited into the brothers’ homes weekly to provide them with content for their anthology (85-86). Specifically, Jeanette Hassenpflug was proactive in feeding the brothers tales such as “Puss in Boots” and “The Twelve Huntsmen,” which the brothers had not known about until they met her and her sisters (87). Her sister, Marie, carried the brothers’ project as nearly all of the stories in Children’s and Household Fairy Tales were hers (90).
In terms of national identity, these four women offered a unique way of unifying Germany, blending Romantic concepts with nationalist ones and blurring the lines of German identity. Specifically, these sisters offered the brothers intricate tales that were rooted in Huguenot and French culture. The sisters had Protestant French roots as they identified as Huguenots who still spoke French in Germany and whose maternal grandfather was prosecuted for not being Catholic in his native France (Paradiz 95-96). Elements of Romanticism grew out of their French-ness and were introduced into the tales. Paradiz explains,
It was likely Marie Magdalene and her female servants told the young Hassenpflug girls the very tales that they would in turn pass along to Jacob and Wilhelm for their growing collection. Their stories, published in the first volume of the Children’s and Household Fairy Tales, had descended directly from the seventeenth-century French fairy tale tradition, and particularly from the stories of Charles Perrault, the compiler and editor of the Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé (Stories or Fairy Tales from Bygone Eras), also known as the legendary Mother Goose tales. (96)
This assumption demonstrates how the Romantic movement, from Perrault to oral tradition, encapsulates the patriotic work that is the Children's and Household Tales. It is worth noting here that although these contributors had French roots, the brothers still accepted most of their input; their Protestant background highlights what the brothers deemed to be innately German in the goal of creating a nationalist anthology. So, the process of bringing together Germans, who may not have had ethnic German roots, amplified the goal of unification in this context. However, not all religious and ethnic differences were respectfully represented and not all “French” ideas were welcomed, something that I will discuss later on.
The themes the brothers covered in their collected stories also highlight female plights, for their main contributors were females. For instance, Paradiz notes that “it seems the plot of ‘boy meets girl’ had pervaded the fairy tale genre, and for Jeanette[, one of the brothers’ main storytellers,] and other young, unwed women of the age, the inevitable happy ending held out a sign of hope” (87). Another one of Jeanette’s contributions was the “On the Despicable Spinning of Flax,” which Paradiz describes as “a paradoxical narrative about women’s toil and women’s beauty” (87). Paradiz goes on to argue that the idea that a woman’s beauty in society is deemed “their only asset” (89). Yet again, the brothers did not give credit where it was due, in keeping with their White male elitist agenda.
Despite these stories fascinating the brothers and shaping the entire outcome of the anthology, the Grimms never gave official credit to the sisters who gave them their stories. Instead of giving official credit to the sisters who supplied their stories, and despite their own fascination with the stories, the brothers only referenced them, describing them, as Paradiz puts it, “geographically in their foreword as stemming from ‘the region of the Main [River]’” in their published work (Paradiz 97). So there is little room to deny that without various female storytellers, there would be no Children's and Household Tales. It is understood that the minds behind the Grimms’ success in collecting German folklore were female despite their efforts to conceal that and downplay the role of women in their works. As Paradiz puts it: “If the tales contributed by the women collaborators were noted only by the geographical region from where they came, then the deep underlying message of male literary culture was that women as individuals did not matter” (99). By ignoring the women as well as downplaying the explicit truth of the stories originating in France, the brothers uphold toxic masculinity as a representation of German nationalism.
Opting to omit women from their credits showed the brothers' preference for a male-oriented society supporting the notion that nationalism was a strong motive behind the brothers’ collection of texts. Additionally, Zipes also claims that the brothers’ decisions were patriarchal; they placed focus on the idea of “celebrat[ing] a paternal heritage of the fatherland” (Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 28). Paradiz agrees, citing how even the female-oriented themes were glazed over as a byproduct of all German folk. She explains, “[The Grimms] allowed the identities of their collaborators to be subsumed by the idea that the stories represented not the ladies themselves but a far greater folk spirit, much in the way that the all-powerful patriarch in a fairy tale can demand sacrifices of his daughter in the name of a greater good” (97-98). Given that the German men, including one of the two brothers, fought Napoleon, this obsession with unification manifests itself in making the German identity, including German folklore, more masculine.
The Grimms’ decisions regarding whom to give credit to was convoluted and confusing. Other than discrediting women in their works, the brothers also preferred the middle-class over the lower classes. Schmidt Ihms asserts that one of these bourgeois storytellers has supposedly been identified as Dorothea Viehmann by many scholars, who was deemed the “prototype of the [storyteller… whose] picture appears in the place which[,] at that time[,] was usually preserved for a portrait of the author” (47). Further supporting her identity was the fact that her portrait was depicted in Louis Katzenstein's painting “The Brothers Grimm at the home of the Märchenfrau” (dos Santo 4). However, Neumeyer somewhat counters this credit as they allege that Hansel and Gretel’s original storyteller was Dorothea’s husband, not even Dorothea herself, as this was documented in his manuscript. This demonstrates the occlusion of female authorship common in the nineteenth century. Admittedly, other bourgeois storytellers did not seem favored the way Dorothea Viehmann had been by the duo. However, their attribution to Dorothea, or lack thereof, exposes how even amongst the women who the brothers sought inspiration and even stories from, they preferred those who held a relatively decent amount of status in society.
How the Grimms slanted towards literate, middle-class men represented their perception of Germany as innately male, which implied strength in their minds. Promoting the notion that the brothers favored middle-class men, Neumeyer argues that it was actually one of the brothers’ servants who popularized some of the stories that others had credited the brothers for familiarizing to the general public. Even if it a solid understanding that in history, it is difficult to decipher who contributes to when, this theory that the Grimms did not acknowledge lower-class individuals like servants who contributed to their project is consistent with the idea that they exploited women and lower-class or illiterate people to create a Germany they imaged would succeed in the face of external forces like Napoleon.
Although the duo purified many of their stories to make them more appropriate for children, some of their revisions left in crass details that are hard to merely attribute to Christianization. Instead, it is more appropriate and logical to link these elements to the post-Napoleonic trauma the brothers worked to highlight in their writing. The Little Red Cap, better known as The Little Red Riding Hood, a classic tale, is an example of the creative liberties the brothers took in order to expand their political cause. Another revolutionary fairy tale collector, Charles Perrault, adapted a version of this classic that has the wolf devouring the girl and ending there. Meanwhile, Ludwig Tieck’s version involves a butcher who attempts to stop the girl’s death, but the ending also results in the girl dying due to her recklessness in the woods. Contrasting significantly with both of these takes, [the] Grimm[s give] the girl a happy ending in which she is saved and then protects her family from another wolf (Schmidt Ihms 49). While this could be tied back to the idea of Romantic purification, Schmidt Ihms offers context on how this tale can be representative of German nationalism: “Less well known is the fact that at the beginning of the nineteenth century[,] ‘wolf’ was not just another name for a powerful cunning enemy, but very specifically for the French under Napoleon.” Thus, this could be tied into the brothers’ nationalistic tendencies as it can be interpreted that the girl, whose hood represents freedom, represents a naive Germany that was lured by Napoleon, the wolf in this context (Schmidt Ihms 50). This is paradoxical, however, as the duo worked to make their works as masculine as possible logistically by discrediting women. So, it can be understood that although the Grimms often made their acknowledgments disproportionately masculine, they still wanted to represent Germany as an innocent female in a sense to showcase how they feel victimized by Napoleon. They only incorporated femininity through the lens of symbolization when it came to their advantage.
Gender and class are not the only two ways the brothers attempt to craft their ideal German national identity in their anthologies, for they pushed anti-Semitic notions into their seemingly simplistic tales. Hence, Scott Harshbarger accuses the duo of using racist and sexist stereotypes against Jews in their stories (494). An example of this is once again found in the story of the little girl with the red hood. Instead of reading it through the eyes of a nation scarred by Napoleon, Harshbarger opts to read the tale for racist undertones. He notes,
Luring innocent children into the home in order to kill and eat them seems a uniquely diabolical act, especially when performed by a grandmotherly character. However, such ritual child murder was also credited to the Jews, who, according to stories, poems, songs, and legends circulating throughout Europe since at least the 12th century, regularly made a practice of abducting Christian children for their Satanic rituals. (Harshbarger 499)
Hence, the brothers did not simply Christianize their stories to appease bourgeois parents. By having underdogs like the little girl in the red hood defeat a wolf, the Brothers Grimm could insinuate “utopianism,” something that both Nazism, something inherently nationalistic, and fantastical stories share (Harshbarger 494). They wanted to create a German identity that tied to what they deemed proper: middle-class, educated, White Christians. So, this exclusionary interpretation of what it means to be “German” can support the idea that Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm’s anthologies represented nationalism more so than Romanticism in this regard.
Conversely, the brothers’ definition of “German” seemed to be convoluted, showing that they may have offered Romanticism a fair chance at influencing them over nationalism. Particularly, the stories they ended up publishing had influences that were representative of pan-European culture. Paradiz remarks, “Though the Grimms and Hassenpflugs both shared deep connections to Hesse [...], this rich new source of stories was certainly not quintessentially Hessian, nor even German for that matter. In fact, tales such as ‘Red Riding Hood’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ were pan-European phenomena, predating even Perrault, with provenances tracing as far back as the Middle Ages and Ancient Greece” (96). It is then an interesting paradox as Zipes notes that “[s]ome tales, such as ‘Puss in Boots,’ ‘Bluebeard,’ ‘Princess Mouseskin,’ and ‘Okerlo,’ were also omitted because they were considered too French to be included in a German collection” (“How the Grimm Brothers Saved the Fairy Tale”). It is established the Hassenpflug sisters supplied the duo with these French-rooted stories and that many of these stories were adopted, so for the Grimms to be not-picky about which stories were too inherently non-German was indicative of how focused they were on their nationalist agenda. No matter how valuable the story was to their project, the most important takeaway from the story had to be representative of German values and pride to make the cut.