Dietrich von Bern

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Laurin fountain in Bozen : Dietrich von Bern fights with Laurin

Dietrich von Bern (named after the place name Bern , Middle High German for Verona ) is one of the most famous mythical figures of the German High and Late Middle Ages. Written evidence as a hero song ( Hildebrandslied ), epic ( Dietrichepik ) or prose ( hero books ) can be found between the 9th and 16th centuries, the oral tradition is certainly older. Dietrich also plays a role in the Nibelungenlied . In addition to the eleven Middle High German Dietrichepen in verse, which only ever have episodes from Dietrich's heroic life as their theme, the Scandinavian Thidrek saga - handed down in variants in Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic - is a special case of tradition because it is based on the hero's entire life ( unknown) Low German sources told in prose. Dietrich was already linked to Theodoric the Great by medieval chronicles in a critical way.

The life of Dietrich von Bern in the legend

Core of the lock picking legend

Dietrich grew up as the king's son in Bern , which text research interprets as either the Italian or Rhenish Verona of Bonn , which has been the second name since the Ottoman Empire . He has an armorer named Hildebrand who stays with him well into old age. He gathers a circle of comrades-in-arms (twelve or eleven) and becomes King of Bern after the death of his father. Dietrich accomplishes great heroic deeds. Along with Wolfdietrich , Beowulf , Sigfried (or Sigurd ) and his father Sigmund, he is one of the few Germanic legendary heroes who are believed to have defeated a dragon. However, he is not always able to defeat his opponents on his own. Wittich (Vidga in Old West Norse), for example, his later comrade in arms, is superior to him because of his better sword. Corner, a giant, shows himself to be his equal in a duel; is killed by Dietrich after a difficult duel by first fighting him down to exhaustion and then stabbing him through the unprotected parts of his armor. However, Ecke is still alive and asks Dietrich to behead him. Odoacer (in some traditions such as the Thidrek saga also Sigurd ) he can defeat Mimung with the help of the sword Mimung made by the master smith Wieland . One day Dietrich is driven out by his uncle Erminrik and is forced to go into exile with the Hunaland king “Attila” (called Etzel in Middle High German traditions). He gives up an attempt to regain his empire. He supports the " Hun King " in many fights. In the fight between the king and the Nibelungs ( Niflungen in the Thidrek saga), he first tries to mediate. In the course of the battle, he takes Attila's side.

In old age he returned to his empire without an army together with his armorer and regained control.

Otto Höfler suggested the original narrative space of the empire of “Attila”, which is narratively linked to Dietrich, on the basis of Eddic heroic songs in northern Germany. He refers to the figure Sigurð or Siegfried the dragon slayer. Its origin and sphere of activity is indicated by both the Nibelungenlied and the Thidrek saga in the Low German region, but according to Höfler's conclusions, his folk apposition "Hun", translated from the Sigurðarkviða in skamma as well as from the Atlamál , does not correspond to the south- east European area of ​​the historical Great Khan of the Tisza compatible. With the ancestral form * Hūnðz , which can be assumed in Old Norse , cf. otherwise also Húnar, Húnir, Hýnir, Höfler therefore rather assumes an ethnographic reference to what is now a Westphalian area. The Older Hildebrandslied also offers a similarly misleading name for Dietrich's advisor and armorer, which, after the words du bıſt dır alter hun ummet ſpaher of his son Hadubrand, is read as “old hun”. On the other hand, Hildebrand's origin from the Middle High German Dietrichepik is localized for its apparently Romanesque legendary milieu in Venice , and the territory of today's Hungary is also excluded for an alternatively postulated East Franconian-Low German or Old Saxon narrative area . Reinhard Wenskus follows Otto Höfler's interpretation of the Old Norse original milieu for the legendary figure “Attila” or Atli and also shows a more plausible narrative context in Low German or Dutch action space for the Hunnenschlachtlied in the Hervarar saga .

Tradition of the Thidrek saga

The Thidrek saga is the only medieval source to represent the entire life of Thidrek or Dietrich von Bern.

Thidrek grows up at the court of his father, King Thetmar von Bern; he and his armorer Hildebrand have a deep and lifelong friendship. Even as a young man he had adventures that made him famous as a fighter. The most important of these is undoubtedly the fight with the giant Grim, in which he wins the Hildegrim helmet and the nail ring sword , which he wields for a while, with the help of the dwarf Alfrik (the name corresponds exactly to nhd. Alberich ) .

Because of his fame, other young warriors are now coming to Bern, partly to join Thidrek, partly to compete with him in armed forces. One of them is Heime, the son of the famous horse breeder Studas, who joins Thidrek as a henchman after his victory in the duel and gives him a stallion from his father named Falke as a gift, which Thidrek then rides on his further adventures. The incognito traveling son Vidga (cf. Wittich in Upper German heroic epic) finds a less friendly reception from Velent (“Wieland”), the blacksmith, who gave him the sword Mimung . Thidrek - so far victorious in every fight and full of youthful arrogance - threatens Vidga to have him hang on the battlements of Bern. But Thidrek did not count on Vidga's extraordinary sword or his fighting skills - only Hildebrand's intervention, to which Vidga is amicably fond, saves the Bernese from complete defeat. Hildebrand is also able to reconcile the fighters and to get them to recognize each other as equal brothers in arms.

In order to make up for the shame he received, Thidrek decides to challenge the famous warrior Eck , who has acquired the Eckesach sword forged by Alfrik . This fight is anything but easy for Thidrek; that he ends happily, he has only to thank his horse Falke, who, when Thidrek suspects that he is in danger of death, kills with a hoof kick. The next day there is a confrontation with Eckes brother Fasolt; Thidrek also remains victorious in this fight and the two swear friendship and brotherhood to each other, so, unlike in the Middle High German corner song , they become brothers in arms. Thidrek's sword is now Eckesachs, and Heime receives a nail ring as a gift.

After the death of his father, Thidrek becomes King of Bern. At a feast to which he also invited his friends King Gunnar (see Gunther in the Nibelungenlied) from Niflungenland and his brothers Hǫgni (see Hagen in the rhyming epic), Gernoz (see Gernot in Upper German poetry) and Gisl (h) he , the young king and his eleven table companions, including Hildebrand, Vidga and Heime, boast of themselves as unsurpassable warriors who have no equal. But Mr. Brand, the “well-traveled”, objects - King Isung von Bertangenland and his ten sons are at least as capable, and his standard bearer Sigurd (“Siegfried”) is even a match for Thidrek. Thidrek - inflamed with anger - and his table companions swear that they would set off the next day to compete with Isung and Sigurd in battle. Once in Bertangenland, however, things don't go as expected. Only Vidga can record a victory in the sporting duels - not least because of his sword Mimung; all others, including Gunnar and Hǫgni, have to admit defeat. The Bernese are all the more hoping for Thidrek, who will compete in the twelfth and last fight against Sigurd. But Sigurd, who saw Mimung in action, does not want to fight against such a superior sword and makes Thidrek swear that he will not use it in the fight. Thidrek does, but Sigurd proves to be the toughest opponent Thidrek has faced so far. Even after two days of fighting, neither of them received a wound. Thidrek, frustrated and angry about his lack of victory, can finally persuade Vidga to lend him Mimung, which actually gives him victory on the third day, albeit by a trick: On the third day Thidrek swears that he did not know Mimung's point above the ground and his grip in no man's hand while he leans his back against it. Although Sigurd sees through the deception, he still prefers to admit defeat and swears allegiance to Thidrek. Thidrek, who is uncomfortable with the whole thing, arranges a very honorable wedding between Sigurd and Gunnar's sister Grim (h) illd (see Kriemhild in the Nibelungenlied), not knowing that Sigurd was already engaged to Brünhild .

When Thidrek's uncle Erminrik , who ruled in “ Rome ” or “Roma Belgica”, marched with a large army on Bern to usurp the rule, Thidrek and his followers flee to an “ Attila ”, a Frisian king's son and ruler " Hunaland ". He lived at his court for many years and helped him in numerous battles against enemy kings. As a thank you, Attila lends him an army so that he can recapture his Bernese empire. In the Battle of Gränsport, which can be equated with the Battle of Raven , Thidrek wins the victory, but he retires because his brother and Attila's sons were killed by Vidga, who had already served with Erminrik before Thidrek was expelled . Attila forgives Thidrek the death of his sons, and Thidrek continues to live at his court.

Meanwhile, Sigurd is murdered by Hǫgni in Niflungland. Sigurd's widow Grimhild then becomes Attila's wife. When King Gunnar and his entourage visit his sister at King Attila's, a fight breaks out between the Niflungs and the Huns . Thidrek can't make up his mind at first, but eventually fights on the side of the Huns . At the end of the slaughter, all the Niflungs, several Huns and all of Thidrek's followers are dead. After this incident, Thidrek decides to ride to Bern only with his wife Herat and Hildebrand, as he has heard that Hildebrand's son is now ruling there. When Thidrek arrives in Bern, the Bernese decide to recognize him as king and follow him in the fight against Sifka ("Sibich"), Erminrik's successor. Thidrek wins and ascends the royal throne in "Rome", which now also belongs to his kingdom. After the death of King Attila, Thidrek also falls to his kingdom, since Attila does not leave an heir to the throne. When Thidrek is already an old man, he sets out to find Vidga and seek revenge. He puts him in a fight and kills him, but on the way home he too succumbs to his serious injuries. Thidrek's fight with Vidga can only be found in the Swedish version.

Legendary and historical reality

Similarities and differences between Theodoric the Great and Dietrich von Bern

The legendary figure of Dietrich von Bern was already related to the Ostrogoth king Theodoric the Great by medieval historians (for example in the Quedlinburg annals ) , although there are few similarities between the historical Theodoric and the Sagen-Dietrich:

  • Bern (more precisely Welschbern) is the German name for Verona , which was part of Theodoric the Great. His seat of government was in Ravenna, but one of the decisive battles between Theodoric and his opponent Odoacer 490 had taken place near Verona.
  • Dietrich's father was called Dietmar, the father of the historical Theodorich Thiudimir .
  • The Amelungen of the legend are often equated with the sex of the Amaler .
  • In the oldest versions of the legend, Odoacer appears as Dietrich's adversary, which also applied to the historical Theodoric the Great.

But there are also numerous big differences between history and legend:

  • Theodoric the Great was not born in Verona, which parts of the research have associated with the Rhenish seat of Dietrich as the second name for Bonn from the Ottonian period . He did not spend his youth there either, but in Constantinople at the court of the Eastern Roman Emperor Leo I.
  • The historical Theodoric did not return to Italy as a displaced person, but rather conquered it with the initial consent of Ostrom and murdered Odoacer after defeating him in the battle of ravens .
  • Theodoric the Great, born around 455, was not a contemporary of Attila (Etzel), king of the Huns, who died in 453.
  • The Gothic king Ermanarich lost the fight against the Huns in 375 .
  • The raven of the battle of ravens is equated with the Ravenna conquered by Theodoric , but according to the legend Dietrich - despite the victory - has to return to the Huns.

These inconsistencies between Dietrichssage and z. B. the Gothic Chronicle of the Jordanes already caught Frutolf von Michelsberg's attention. He had pointed out this contradiction in his world chronicle around 1100, and later historians tried to explain the contradiction through new inventions: for example, by assigning a grandfather of the same name to Dietrich, who was then expelled from Merano as a contemporary of Etzel (see above under History of tradition ).

Differences between Theodoric and Dietrich in the Thidreks saga

  • Except for the names of their fathers, there are no further genealogical matches.
  • Theodoric comes from the Amal family, while Dietrich's origin is “Hispanic” and, according to the manuscripts, is nowhere subordinate to a purely ethnic area that the so-called “Amelungen” have at their disposal.
  • Theodoric's father Thiudimir had fought with his brothers Valamir and Vidimir on Attila's side in his campaign to Gaul (around 450). Even under the assumption that Dietrich's line is represented by Frankish rulers, the Thidrek saga does not provide a motivic or action-based representation of this historical event.
  • In contrast to Dietrich, Theoderich is nowhere associated with twelve confidants or followers. However, the Quedlinburg annals report on the Franconian Theodorich ( Theuderich I ) with his twelve noblest shop stewards in Saxony for the year 531 .
  • No comparable competitions or tough decision-making battles are reported about Theodoric, cf. on the other hand Dietrich with Sigurd and Hǫgni.
  • Dietrich waged a campaign of revenge against the ruler who had driven him into exile as an adult. About Theodoric, who according to Jordanes' information was transferred to Byzantium for ten years as a hostage at the age of eight and after his return initially exercised management functions at the side of his father, no motive for escape or retaliation was handed down.
  • In contrast to the politically agreed arrival of Theoderich at his father's, Dietrich's return to Bern is narrated with a dramatic battle between his companion Hildebrand and his son Alebrand.
  • Theodoric did not support any Hun rulers against his struggles with peoples further north or northeast.
  • In contrast to Dietrich, Theodorich was not an eyewitness to the demise of the people who are known as either the “Burgundians”, “Nibelungs” or “Niflungs”.
  • Theodoric killed his arch rival Odoacer himself in the Imperial Palace ad Lauretum, but Dietrich's expeller and archenemy died of obesity. His successor, who was not killed by Dietrich, fell in the area before "Rome", where Dietrich was crowned again.

Origin of the legend according to the prevailing doctrine

Today's German studies no longer regards the epics and chronicles that deal with Dietrich von Bern as part of historiography like the chronicler of the Quedlinburg annals . It focuses primarily on the function that the naming of big names and events from history has for the medieval audience of a heroic song or epic (such as the battle of ravens ): establishing and maintaining identity in communities, the special events of the Were exposed to the migration period . Historical facts (frequent loss of homeland, but also repeated gains in new territories after heavy fighting, as experienced by the Ostrogoths) were apparently reformulated with the help of traditional literary patterns (expulsion from and return to home, betrayal of relatives) in order to cope with the events. The result of a legend development based on well-known narrative motifs and main characters is therefore a simpler world, the legendary world. The Germanist Joachim Heinzle writes: "The synchronization of events and people who belong to different times aims at the construction of a closed hero world in which everything is related to everything and everyone has to do with everyone." This method of synchronizing historical events and people The Lutheran theologian and historian Cyriacus Spangenberg discovered this in the Mansfeld Chronicle in 1572 when the heroic world was invented at different times . He writes that what was apart was pulled together: So that the old Germans could face brave deeds / as if they had come to a time / same as singing in a song / together / [...] .

This synchronization , about which Heinzle writes, can be shown well in the literary figure of Ermanarich : It does not appear in the first written tradition, the Hildebrand's song from the 9th century. In this it is Odoacer, from whose hatred Dietrich had to flee. In the Quedlinburg annals (around 1000) Ermanarich / Ermenrich is named as the ruler of all Goths, who drove Theodoric from Verona on the advice of Odoacer. After Ermenrich's death, Theodoric again expelled Odoacer from Ravenna. In this version, the role of Odoacer corresponds to the role of Sifka from the Thidreksaga or Sibiche from the epic Dietrichs Flucht . In later works - such as the Thidrek saga - the name of Odoacer then disappears completely and is replaced by that of Sifka. This is perhaps because the name of Odoacer (or its real historical reminiscence) does not fit the legend - presumably already existing before the formation of the lock picking saga - as it was in the Skáldskaparmál , the third part of the Snorra Edda (1220-25) , is handed down. In this, Ermanarich / Jörmunrekkr murdered his son Randwer and his wife Swanhild through the action of the insidious advisor Bikki. It should be noted here that Odoacer's wife was called Sunigilda, which may be reminiscent of Swanhild.

Conversely, such a synchronization can also be withdrawn: In a printed version of the corner song (from 1491) it is mentioned that Dietrich only used the sword he won corner, namely when he was in Lombardy during the reign of Emperor Zeno (n) freed from the usurper Odoacer. This actually corresponds again to historical facts. Accordingly, the legend apparently adapted itself again to the (re) known historiography, at least in individual cases. The corner song describes only one episode of adventure and is therefore less dependent on the depiction of a historical continuum than the epic of Dietrichs Flucht .

The entanglement of the legends about Etzel with the Dietrichs of Bern cannot be traced back as precisely as in the case of Ermanarich, as it is already present in the older Hildebrand's song. The Pannonian Ostrogoths were probably expelled by the Romans in 427 and fled to the Huns, with the three Amaler princes still under age, including Theodoric's father, being protected by the faithful Gensimund. The Pannonian Ostrogoth group found acceptance with the Huns, who were led by Rua (Ruga), Attila's uncle. Theodoric's father and his brothers then fought as vassals on Attila's side, including in the battle of the Catalaunian fields in 451. In 452, Attila also invaded Italy, but had to withdraw again. In 454 the Huns were smashed and Attila's son Ellac was killed in the battle of the Nedao. It was only after the Huns had withdrawn from Western Europe that the Ostrogoths became vassals of Eastern Europe. This resettled the Ostrogoths in Pannonia (after about 30 years) and to secure the peace, the then 8-year-old Theodoric was sent as a hostage to Ostrom in 459. When he was no more than 17 years old, he returned to his father Thiudimir in Pannonia. After the death of his father, he carried out several campaigns on behalf of Ostroms, for one of these campaigns he was honored with a triumphal procession and equestrian statue in Constantinople. When he moved to Italy against Odoacer in 489, he had spent about 30 years in the service of Ostrom. This may also have become the model for Sagen-Dietrich's 30-year exile. This 30-year period in the service of Eastern Europe, which was followed by the entry into Italy, may have been the historical building block that, in the legend, became the 30-year exile at the court of the Hun King, which was followed by the entry into Italy.

Ostrom, in whose service Theodoric had been, began to fight the former ally in Theodoric's time and was also an opponent of the subsequent Longobard Empire. Ostrom was therefore unsuitable as a place of exile in the developing saga. It is possible that Etzel, the king of the Huns, had already been glorified as the ruler of the peoples when the episode of Theodoric's escape was formed. The Etzelhof as a place of refuge in the escape fable seems to fit the understanding of history at the time. The contemporaries may not have been aware of the non-simultaneity of the lives of Attila and Theodoric, which is known today.

The core of the escape fable, Dietrich's expulsion, does not find any parallel in Theoderich's life, see also the section on literary-historical interpretations of Dietrich's escape . However, there is no consensus on these from scientific views. In this respect, the epics about Dietrich's flight could be based on a myth that was developed during his lifetime to justify the murder of Odoacer, but the influence of an older or different legend could also be an explanation. Jordanes reports around 550, i.e. after Theodoric's death, that Theodoric's ancestor was expelled by Ermanaric's son Hunimund and that the expelled part of the Ostrogoths initially settled in Pannonia. According to the opinion of some representatives of textual research, the emerging Ostrogoth Empire should be represented as the empire in which the Goths had found a new home after the turbulent times they had experienced since the destruction of Ermanarich's Gotenreich in 375. The fable of flight and return, according to other philological views, could have arisen from unfavorable dynastic circumstances even before the Dietrichsage and had a great attraction during the turbulent times of the Great Migration, with its constantly changing property and power relations.

Theodoric's rule meant a period of peace for Italy after long years of war, with the last bloom of late antiquity in Italy. The long years of war up to the end of the Ostrogothic Empire, which followed his death, may have further transfigured the memory of this time of peace. Theodoric had also protected the rest of the Alemanni defeated by Clovis in southern Germany. For the main character of a fable in which a king is expelled from his kingdom and wins it back again, the historical Theodoric may embody the model that can be further interpreted in literary terms. Stories in which a Theodoric transfigured to Dietrich played a role could therefore have been heard with benevolence.

Theodoric and Dietrich's end

Since Theodoric adhered to Arianism , he was considered a heretic by the Church . The execution of the Christian philosophers Boëthius (524) and Symmachus (526) and the death of Pope John I, who were imprisoned by him , took place in his late reign . This made Theodoric a negative figure for the Catholic historians. When Theodoric, like Arius himself, died of dysentery , this death was portrayed as God's punishment. From this two traditions of hell lore developed, that of the volcanic fall and the ride into hell.

Pope Gregory the Great first reported about the volcanic fall in his dialogues from 593/594: A hermit saw Pope John and Symmachus plunge the soul of Theodoric into the Aeolian volcano on the day of his death as punishment for killing them both.

The rider and deer relief on the portal of the Basilica of San Zeno

As a testimony to the tradition of the Ride of Hell, there are two relief plates on the portal of San Zeno in Verona from around 1140, which show a mounted king ( regem stultum ), equipped with a hunting horn, falcon and dogs, who follows a stag that leads him straight on Hell's Gate. Theodoric is not mentioned by name in connection with this presentation; It remains to be seen whether his historical merits with the apposition “foolish king” ( regem stultum ) at the time of the creation of the two reliefs could be seen and titled in this way. The world chronicle of Otto von Freising (1143–1146) reports on Theoderich's ride in hell below.

In some traditions Dietrich appears as a hunter or leader of the wild hunt . The Cologne royal chronicle reports about the year 1197 : In this year a ghost of gigantic size in human form appeared to some hikers on the Moselle, who was sitting on a black horse. When they were terrified, the apparition approached them boldly and admonished them not to be afraid: she called herself Dietrich von Bern and announced that various kinds of misfortune and misery would come over the Roman Empire ...

The popular lockpick poetry did not accept the condemnation of its hero. She includes volcanic fall or hell ride as events in the saga, but interprets them in a positive sense for Dietrich:

  • In Zabulon's book , a continuation of the Laurin saga , it is said that Dietrich's volcanic fall was only faked. This in order to get to Laurin's brother Sinnels, who according to Laurin could guarantee him a life of a thousand years. Dietrich also converted the dwarves to a Christian life.
  • The Thidrek saga as the most significant prose tradition tells that Dietrich jumped on a black steed that was the devil. But King Thidrek had God's and Saint Mary's help because he remembered their name when he died.
  • The miracle worker reports that Dietrich, blessed by the young lady whom he freed from the power of the miracle, was kidnapped by the devil's steed ( ros vnrein ), is still alive today and will have to fight dragons until Judgment Day, because God gave him imposed as penance.

The heroic prose recreated in the heroes books of the late Middle Ages ends with the fact that of all the heroes of the legend, only Dietrich von Bern survives after a great battle. Then a dwarf took the Berner away and he has not been seen since. The dwarf said to Dietrich, "his kingdom is not of this world". The use of the words reminiscent of the word of Christ in Joh. 18,36 (my kingdom is not of this world) reverses the original fall from hell into the opposite, one thinks rather that the dwarf wants to lead the Bernese to heaven with these words than to them Hell.

Different theses on the historical and literary historical origins

In the Middle Ages, the legends about Dietrich von Bern were often understood as historical events. Even then, the historical impossibilities were noticeable, for example that Attila and Theodoric the Great were not contemporaries according to ancient sources (the Gothic story of the Jordanes ). Around 1100, Frutolf von Michelsberg (see also: History of tradition ) points out that, in addition to stories and songs, there were also chronicles that speak of Dietrich's flight to Attila and recognizes the historical impossibility. As a solution to the contradiction, he offers that the saga or Jordanes wrong or another Theodoric and Ermanaric could be meant. The anonymous author of the imperial chronicle considers the saga to be untrue and demands that "the book" be brought in, which would like to prove the correctness of the saga.

Even later, Theodoric the Great's identity with Dietrich von Bern was questioned. Laurenz Lersch , professor of history and antiquity at the University of Bonn, wrote in 1842: “There seem to have been two legends, one about rex Theodoricus in Italy, the other about the German Dietrich von Bern, which over the centuries was attributed by name the time when the eyes of the German emperors were directed to Italy, grew together into a single one and thus teased the eye of the researcher in eternal double switching. ”Lersch drew this conclusion after a close exchange of ideas with Karl Simrock , the translator of the Nibelungenlied into New High German. Simrock himself expresses the same assumption a little later that there were two lock picks, one Franconian / Rhenish and one Gothic. He also came to the conclusion that two lock picks were too many for the heroic saga and that, under the increasing predominance of the High German language, the Franconian lock pick was merged into the Gothic one.

The assumption that Dietrich von Bern does not go back to Theodoric the Great reached a larger audience through Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg , who developed his own interpretation of the Thidrek saga . Accordingly, Dietrich is said to have been a small king who had his manageable empire between the Ripuarian and the Sal- Franconian Franks . Its capital is said to have been Bonn , which was also known as Bern in earlier times. Under the Rome in the forecast this theory would Trier to understand the Moselle river in the late Roman Empire as Roma Secunda was proven and known in this form of the name by a high medieval town seal. According to Ritter, the key to the geography of legends is the Dhünn , identified by him as the Duna of the legend , at whose former confluence with the Rhine the Nibelungs are said to have crossed the river when they moved to Soest . Ritter interprets the Dietrichsage not as a literary creation, but as a historical document, if he accepts the network of geographical places spread out in the Thidrekssaga as places in which all these events took place in reality.

The historian Ernst F. Jung and several writers and private scholars such as Walter Böckmann , Reinhard Schmoeckel and Rolf Badenhausen follow Heinz Ritter in many of his assumptions.

In research, various assumptions are used to hold on to the equation of Theodoric the Great with Dietrich von Bern. Heinrich Beck conceded in detail to Ritter's research that the Thidrek saga, written in old-west Norway, took place in the Low German region and in adjacent areas, especially since the geography of this area was given to the Norwegians and Hanseatic merchants, who brought oral or part-written traditions to the northern countries about Nibelung heroic songs and Dietrichepik was much more familiar than the Upper German area. However, he is of the opinion that the saga originates mainly from local traditions and, in the interests of appropriating material, should have been rewritten to Low German geographical ideas. However, even Heinrich Beck does not go into Ritter-Schaumburg's claim to historicity of the Thidreks saga, which he had already raised in general as a response to his review of Gernot Müller. Accordingly, Ritter does not justify the postulated fidelity to the history of the Thidrek saga in terms of core content with the requirement, as essentially represented by Beck and Müller, to use the genre of Upper German Nibelung poetry as the decisive benchmark. Rather, according to Ritter's opinion, the historiographical disposition of the Old Norse and Old Swedish texts must be due to the overall significant contradictions to historiography, especially about the Northern European 5th / 6th centuries. Century can be measured. Regarding the genre of politicizing representations as the core content of the Thidrek saga, Roswitha Wisniewski follows Ritter's point of view insofar as "the design of the Thidrek saga is characterized by peculiarities that are known from chronicles, histories and gestures."

Literary-historical interpretations of Dietrich's flight

Text research developed different hypotheses and standpoints to clarify this most essential contradiction in the biographies of the real-historical Ostrogoth Theodoric and Dietrich in the heroic epic.

Walter Haug postulates a “situation schema” which is also conditioned by political tendencies and which, in terms of narrative motifs - for example, to legitimize rule and / or questionable dynasty change - would be justified by the “discontinuous moment” (cf. the relationships between Emanarich and Odoaker in History and Sage). For the detection of such a scheme, which should be mainly explicable by a conditional in erzähltypologischen interest motive consolidation figurative-genealogical Rollenaustauschbarkeit, Haug wants Hlǫðskviða and Saxos be deemed assessable comparative materials to Dietrich's flight and Raven battle Brávallaschlacht (but without Dietrich's participation both traditions) . In addition to these epics, he also looks at the Indian epic Battle of Kurukshetra "for methodical control." Haug sums up his "methodically based" findings that ultimately the Hlǫðskviða in particular should offer those cross-relationships and starting points for a situation pattern that can be solved of the Theoderich-Dietrich complex at least hypothetically and thus justified.

Norbert Wagner mentions Haug's explanatory thesis in his publication about a change from Theodorich's conquest to Dietrich's flight, but he can do little with it. Rather, Wagner assumes that knowing Jordanes ' legendary portrayal of Greutungskönig Ermanarich, only a little later, at the end of the 6th or beginning of the 7th century, “Dietrich's perversion to exile and then also to Ermenrich's nephew was merely based on literary criteria represents a conversion made by a Longobard. ”He underpins this assumption on the one hand with a clan-related awareness of losers from the failed Gaul campaign of Attila in 451, for whose victory Theodoric's father and his brothers Valamir and Vidimir fought, the sons of 382, ​​who were still in Roman Pannonia Ancestors vandal. On the other hand, he also wants to consolidate this approach with interpretations of motifs from the Nibelungenlied (Burgundy end) and in particular the Older Hildebrand's Song, which he ultimately elevates to a key witness of a Longobard preliminary stage with these assumptions based on chronicles and heroic poetry:

Whether it was his poet who replaced the expected Ermenrich with Otacher or whether this happened within the tradition is an open question. This punctual statement has no consequence for the course of the action. The familiar chronology of legends had been sacrificed anyway for their punctual motivation. In both respects, the Hildebrandslied thus occupies an exceptional position. In that case, it will certainly not be possible to testify that Dietrich once went into exile before Odoacer and that Ermenrich replaced him in this role. Rather, it has behaved in such a way that Dietrich fled from Ermenrich since the heroic saga sent him into exile; Dietrich's expulsion is portrayed as the third of his hostile crimes. It was only for this purpose that Dietrich, who was once victorious over Odoacer at Raben, was turned into Dietrich, who was victorious in front of Ermenrich in the Battle of Ravens, but went back into exile. The terminus post quem for this process is, as can be seen, the beginning of the 7th century. A terminus ante quem is in any case set by the fact that the content of the Hildebrand song, which must have been available by the end of the 8th century at the latest, the expulsion that requires exile. In the 7th or 8th century - even more so in the former - the conquering Theodoric became the exiled Dietrich. In the same period, but of course in retrospect, the fable of the Hildebrandslied came into being.

Walter Haug has already raised the question of the situation diagram he designed as to whether one could not follow a circular argument to determine it. In this respect, Wagner's offer to clarify Dietrich's flight must also be seen as a pure hypothesis. Certainly, the original and interpretation relationships for the Elder Hildebrandslied, written in the 9th century, and the sources of the Quedlinburg Annals, written a few decades later, on the Ermanarich legend handed down by Jordanes, allow an escape scheme solution based on a transforming Longobard (but also generally not to be excluded elsewhere) Tradition of the 6th or 7th century is basically closed. However, apart from Haug's postulated desideratum , other traces of literary history are missing .

Joachim Heinzle goes into Walter Haug's essential idea of ​​a situation schema as a literary interpretative solution, but in the following Heinzle restricts himself, among other things, to the statement that "ultimately all attempts to explain remain non-binding, and one can only basically state that the reformulation of the historical events related to the escape saga based on a »situation scheme«, which - equipped with a more or less fixed inventory of motifs - was familiar from an older narrative tradition. ”However, Heinzle nowhere describes or verifies this transposing form of tradition or its source with further information. On the other hand, he takes the view that the "escape fable" can be related to that outstanding event in Theodoric's life, which can be identified with the founding of the Italian empire of the Ostrogoths - that is to say, with processes related to the power politics of the Roman Empire since the division of the empire in 395 (including the subsequent Germanic disputes) and, in terms of material history, should go back to the Hunnic destruction of Ermanaric's kingship.

Motives of the saga circle

The motifs are:

  1. the motif of the particularly dangerous sword , which the still young hero first has to win for himself - Dietrich receives a nail ring because he promises to fight against Hilde and Grim (Thidrekssaga), he only receives Eckesachs after a difficult fight ( Eckenlied ). Wittich receives Mimung as a special sword from his father Wieland.
  2. the court with the strong comrades in arms, a kind of round table , through which the legend is linked with other legends, such as that of Dietleib and that of Wildeber . This parallel is particularly clear in Dietrich's exile playing Wunderer , in which Etzel is explicitly compared with Arthur.
  3. the motif of the persecuted girl , the woman hunt (in the Wunderer and in the Virginal ), which is freed by Dietrich (in the Virginal with the help of Hildebrand).
  4. the motif of the row fight , especially in the epic Rosengarten zu Worms , but also in the virginal and as an episode plot also in the corner song .
  5. the motif of challenge : in Laurin, the dwarf is challenged; but also in the story of Heime and Wittich , who both challenge Dietrich to a fight before they join him. In the corner song, corner moves out to challenge Dietrich to a fight.
  6. the exemption scheme , e.g. B. in Laurin , who keeps Dietleib's sister prisoner
  7. the motif of the fight as a camouflaged hero who rides without the usual marks - with a concealed shield or in someone else's armor ( Alphart's death ).
  8. the escape fable from Dietrich's escape . The associated motif of the successful homecoming is not conveyed as part of the historical Dietrichepik, but in the Thidrek saga , but the (albeit unsuccessful) attempt to return is described in Dietrich's escape like the battle of raven.
  9. the relationship of loyalty between master and followers is described as Dietrich's flight . This is particularly emphasized by Heinrich des Vogler's digression (who probably wrote only this digression, not the entire epic), who points out that the relationship between master and followers is based on mutual respect. Dietrich von Bern is shown as a shining example of this, as is Etzel, who forgives his follower Dietrich for the death of his sons who died on the brink of the battle of raven.
  10. the figure of the evil adviser in the form of Emanarich's adviser / chancellor / marshal Sibich, who, after his master violates his wife, changes from loyal Sibich to unfaithful Sibich.
  11. the motive of the envious relative who wants to dispute his relatives for the possessions and lands promised in previous inheritance contracts.

Lore history

The tradition of the Dietrichsage extends from the early Middle Ages (approx. 840) to the early modern period (approx. 1535). The life force of the saga may be related to the aura of historical commitment that surrounds this saga; in a certain sense it seems to be truer than other sagas, for example Kudrun . The legend was even popular among some Catholic dignitaries. The cathedral schoolmaster Meinhard complains in a letter to a canon in the entourage of Bishop Gunther (1057-1065) that Gunther never thinks of the church fathers Augustine or Gregor, but always only of Attila and Theoderich / Dietrich ( Amalangus ).

The first written testimony to the existence of something that could be called a Dietrichsage is the Old High German Hildebrandslied from the 4th decade of the 9th century. Although this heroic song describes only one episode, it can be seen that the fable of Dietrich's expulsion from his ancestral kingdom and a life in exile at the royal court of the "Huns", which cannot be directly traced back to Theodoric's historical life, has already emerged.

The rune stone from Rök in the Swedish Ostergotland also dates from the first half of the 9th century . There is talk of Theodoric as the hero of the fairy rings .

In the Exeter Book from the second half of the 10th century there is also a lockpick in Deor's complaint who owned the Märingaburg for thirty winters .

The poem by 'Waldere' , an old English version of the legend of Walther and Hildegund, also comes from England in a manuscript fragment from around 1000 . Here it is told that Theodric wanted to hand over a sword to Widia (Wittich) because Widia, son of Wieland, had freed him from the violence of giants. That Dietrich was in the power of giants is otherwise only told in the Middle High German epics of the 13th century ( Sigenot , Virginal ). The fact that the Waldere text mentions such an episode shows that the tradition of Dietrich's adventures also goes back to early sources and did not only emerge in the 13th century.

The Quedlinburg Annals were also created around 1000 as part of Latin historiography . There is that very probably later added information about a Theodoric, who is that Thideric de Berne , of whom the Illiterates once sang ( de quo cantabant rustici olim ). As the annals report, an "Ermanaric", who is seen as the Amal Greutungen king, is said to have expelled Theodoric on the advice of his blood relative "Odoacer". The return of Theodoric, achieved under the influence of an "Attila" killed in the 6th century, is no longer connected with his expeller Ermanarich, but Odoacer, to whom the Veronese king is said to have finally assigned a seat in the mouth of the Saale .

The Würzburg Chronicle ( Chronicon Wirciburgense ), created around the middle of the 11th century, initially follows the information in the Quedlinburg Annals about Theodoric's expulsion and exile. The “Attila” who, according to Quedlinburg's knowledge, had ensured the restoration of Theodoric's ruler status - therefore a correspondence with the Thidrek saga on the Low German-Franconian narrative level - is not mentioned here. Following on from this, the Würzburg writer Theoderich uses historical chronicles and also mentions his murder of Odoacer.

Around 1100 the monk Frutolf von Michelsberg stated in his world chronicle that the story of Dietrich's flight, as found in the vernacular telling and singing of songs and certain chronicles, contradicts the history of the Goths according to Jordanes , the Ermanarich, Attila and Theodoric one after the other, and not as contemporaries. He offers several explanations, e.g. B. that another Theodoric or Ermanaric is meant.

Otto von Freising , in his Chronica sive Historia de duabus civitatibus (mid-12th century), goes into more detail about the unreliability of Jordanes, which Frutolf had already pointed out. He also considers the relationships between the Greutungen ruler Ermanarich, the Southeast European Attila and the apparently Amali Theodoric, portrayed as historical and contemporary by chronistic and vernacular traditions, to be unrealistic stories: "... omnio stare non est."

In the imperial chronicle from 1140/1150 , the oldest historical work in the German language, the anonymous author calls the Dietrichsage a lie that it is not documented in writing. It is true that Dietrich and Etzel would never have seen each other, whoever claimed otherwise should bring the book (apparently meant: written evidence for the claim of the Dietrich saga that Etzel lived at the same time as Dietrich). Nevertheless, an attempt is made to find an explanation for the story of the legend, but again with anachronistic interpretations: that is how Dietrich's / Theoderich's grandfather would have been called Dietrich and would have been expelled from Etzel as Prince of Meran. Dietrich's father Dietmar would have won Merano back after Etzel's death.

According to these documents of Christian Latin historiography, the legend itself seems to have been preserved and developed mainly through oral tradition up to this point in time. After 1200 the number of written certificates increases.

Around 1200 the Nibelungenlied was put on parchment, in which Dietrich played a not unimportant role. In the Nibelungenklage , which emerged a little later, a retelling tells how Dietrich and Hildebrand and Herrat leave the Etzelhof, which was destroyed during the Nibelungenkampf.

In the first half of the 13th century the tradition of numerous Middle High German verses begins with Dietrich as the main character ( Dietrichepik ). The manuscript of Carmina Burana comes from the time soon after 1230, at the latest around 1250, which has handed down a stanza of the corner song . According to the tradition of heroic poetry, the author or editor is not named, with two exceptions.

These epics were recited by professional reciters at fairs and in taverns. This is attested by a stanza by the Marner, a traveler of the time around 1250, who lists the wishes of his audience, most of which come from the area of ​​the lock picking saga. In spite of the increasing writing, the proportion of oral tradition should not be underestimated. But the owners of the richly decorated manuscripts came from the upper class, which shows the popularity of the Dietrichsage among the nobility. This is also supported by the wall paintings made around 1400 in Runkelstein Castle near Bozen and Lichtenberg Castle in Vinschgau , with themes from the area of ​​lockpicks.

Also in the 13th century, the extensive Thidrek saga emerged in Scandinavia , which, according to the majority of research, artfully translated Dietrich's (Thidrek's) biography, which was translated from written German source material, with the history of other characters from the Germanic hero saga ( Attila , Wieland, Sigurd / Siegfried, Nibelungen, Walther and Hildegund ) and thus actually offers a first cycle of German heroic sagas. Also from Scandinavia comes the short song of Gudrun's Judgment of God , part of the Lieder Edda , in which Gudrun (Kriemhild of the Nibelungen saga) clears himself of the accusation of having slept with Dietrich. Another Scandinavian song is 'Hildibrands Sterbelied' , in which Hildibrand, who was fatally wounded in a duel by his half-brother Asmund and who was fatally wounded, complains that he involuntarily killed his own son.

In the first half of the 14th century, the tradition of the hero books begins with a fragmentary Rhenish-Franconian manuscript . It closes with a last print from Frankfurt am Main in 1590. In a manuscript and all prints, the so-called Heldenbuch prose is attached, which in the form of a chronology connects all heroes in a kind of salvation story.

At the end of the Middle Ages there are two new texts from the area of ​​the lockpick saga. On the one hand the Younger Hildebrand song with an earliest manuscript fragment from 1459, completely in the Dresdner Heldenbuch from 1472. This song lets the fight between father and son (as in the Thidrek saga) end in a conciliatory way. The second text is the Low German song of Ermenrich's death , handed down in a pamphlet from 1535/1545.

After the beginning of modern times, the subject of the lock picking saga did not develop any further. Above all, however, the hero books are used as a philological aid, e.g. B. by Martin Opitz (1639) and Melchior Goldast (1604) for the edition of Middle High German texts. Karl Simrock's attempt to make the Dietrichsage as popular as the Nibelungenlied with the Amelungenlied, which appeared in 1843–1849 , failed. The literary quality, especially of the heroes' book tradition, was too low in comparison. In contrast to the Nibelungenlied, the Dietrichsage was used less by National Socialist propaganda, especially since Richard Wagner did not make it the main character of an opera.

Today one begins to free oneself from classic evaluation schemes and, for example, to appreciate the special quality of the narrative structure of the Thidrek saga. The drastic linguistic style in parts of Dietrichepik is now more understood from its time. New critical editions of the Dietrichepik works have appeared and are still being developed, and works on various aspects of the Dietrichsage are being published. With Heldenlärm by Wilhelm Bartsch, a retelling in modern language has also appeared that interprets the material in a completely different, rather ironic way.

See also

Lore

Hero characters

literature

Translations

(see Thidrekssaga )

  • Christa Habiger-Tuczay (Hrsg.): The aventiurehafte Dietrichepik: Laurin and Walberan, the younger Sigenot, the corner song, the wonder / middle high German. Text and republished Translated by Christa Tuczay. Kümmerle, Göppingen 1999, ISBN 3-87452-841-3 .
  • The Thidrek Saga. Translated by Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen. Otto Reichl Verlag, St.Goar 1989. (New edition of Hage's translation of the original text from 1814 called the old Norwegian membrane )
  • The story of Thidreks von Bern: Based on the edition by C. Unger. (Kristiania 1858) translated into New High German by Fine Erichsen. (= Thule Collection . Volume 22). Jena 1924. (Also a translation of the membrane, published as a web link, see below)
  • Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg: The Didriks Chronicle. Otto Reichel Verlag, St. Goar 1989. (translation of the old Swedish Svava manuscript)

Retelling

  • Wilhelm Bartsch: Heldenlärm: a book about Dietrich von Bern. With drawing. by Susanne Berner (= Edition Steko. Volume 8). Stekovics, Halle an der Saale 1998, ISBN 3-932863-08-9 .
  • Willi Fährmann: Dietrich von Bern: an old legend, retold. Children's book. Arena, Würzburg 1995, ISBN 3-401-01833-7 .
  • Gertraud Karg-Bebenburg: Dietrich von Bern. Novel. Tosa, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85001-561-0 .
  • Hanswilhelm Haefs : Thidrekssage and Nibelungenlied. Comparative studies (= research on the Thidrek saga. Studies on the migration period in northern Central Europe. Volume 2). Thidrekssaga Forum e. V., Bonn 2004. (pp. 76–97 contain a summary of the “Membrane” called Thidreks parchment (cf. Thidreks saga ).)
  • Dietrich von Bern. In: German heroic sagas. Retold by Gretel and Wolfgang Hecht (= Insel Taschenbuch. 345). Frankfurt am Main 1980, pp. 7-95 and pp. 383-387. (Edition with the same text as the book with the same title from Insel-Verlag Anton Kippenberg, Leipzig 1969.)
  • Auguste Lechner: Dietrich von Bern. (Retelling as a book for young people) Marix Verlag 2007.
  • Günter Sachse: Dietrich von Bern retold the old sources. With drawings by Kurt Schmischke. (Youth book). W. Fischer Verlag, Göttingen 1972, ISBN 3-439-00511-9 . (Also includes: "Walter and Hildegund").
  • Dietrich von Bern. (Volume 1: Fame. Volume 2: Treason. Volume 3: Revenge) Comic by Peter Wiechmann and Rafael Méndez

Secondary literature

  • Dietrich von Bern . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 3, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-7608-8903-4 , Sp. 1016-1021.
  • Rolf Bräuer (ed.): Poetry of the European Middle Ages. A guide through the narrative literature. Beck, Munich 1990, pp. 133-163.
  • Georg Dattenböck: Heinrich von Hag / Ofterdingen: Author of the Nibelungenlied! 6th edition. Bautz, Nordhausen 2013.
  • Hanswilhelm Haefs: Thidrekssage and Nibelungenlied. Comparative studies. Research on the Thidrek saga. Studies on the Migration Period in Northern Central Europe. Volume 2, Bonn 2004.
  • Joachim Heinzle: Dietrich von Bern. In: Volker Mertens , Ulrich Müller (ed.): Epic materials of the Middle Ages (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 483). Kröner, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-520-48301-7 , pp. 141-155.
  • Joachim Heinzle: Introduction to Middle High German Dietrichepik. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1999, ISBN 3-11-015094-8 .
  • Susanne Kramarz-Bein: The Þiðreks saga in the context of old Norwegian literature. (= Contributions to Nordic Philology. Volume 33). Francke, Tübingen / Basel 2002, ISBN 3-7720-3096-3 .
  • Leander Petzoldt: Small lexicon of demons and elementals. 3. Edition. Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49451-X , pp. 46-47.
  • Hellmut Rosenfeld:  Dietrich von Bern. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , pp. 687-690 ( digitized version ).
  • Helmut Rosenfeld: Dietrich von Bern. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , Volume 5, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1984, pp. 425-430.
  • Helmut Rosenfeld: Dietrichdichtung. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 5. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1984, pp. 430-442.
  • Klaus Zatloukal (Ed.): 2nd Pöchlarner Heldenlied Discussion. The historical Dietrichepik. (= Philologica Germanica. Volume 13). Fassbaender, Vienna 1992.
  • Heinrich Joachim Zimmermann: Theodoric the Great - Dietrich von Bern: The historical and legendary sources of the Middle Ages. Dissertation. Bonn 1972.

Web links

Commons : Dietrich von Bern  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto Höfler: Siegfried, Arminius and the Symbolik , Heidelberg 1961, p. 14.
  2. ↑ Wikisource: Hildebrandslied - Sources and full texts
  3. ↑ Reinhard Wenskus: The 'Hunnish' Siegfried . In: Heiko Uecker (Ed.) Studies on Old Germanic. Festschrift for Heinrich Beck , Berlin / New York 1994. ( Supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde , 11) pp. 686–721; here p. 687f. as well as p. 717f.
  4. ↑ The presentation of the content follows the old Swedish version; For the sake of easier comparability, the names are given in Old Norse and High German forms.
  5. ↑ In addition to the better known name Roma secunda also the name of the Roman imperial city Trier, cf. z. B. https://www.uni-regensburg.de/sprache-literatur-kultur/lateinische-philologie/res-gestae/exkursionen/roma-belgica/index.html
    According to the Thidrek saga, the historical Greutungen ruler Ermanarich cannot go on with the history the Italian Rome to be agreed.
  6. ^ Joachim Heinzle: Introduction to the Middle High German Dietrichepik. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1999, p. 5.
  7. ↑ Jens Haustein: Der Helden Buch: For the research of German Dietrichepik in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1989, p. 120.
  8. ↑ Roswitha Wisniewski: The beginnings of the Dietrichsage in the Danube region. In: Klaus Zatloukal: 2nd Pöchlarner hero song talk. The historical Dietrichepik. Fassbaender, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-900538-36-0 , pp. 123–151.
  9. ^ Laurenz Lersch: Verona. In: Yearbook of the Association of Friends of Antiquity in the Rhineland. Bonn 1842.
  10. ^ Karl Simrock: Bonna - Verona. In: Bonn - Contributions to its history and its monuments. Festschrift. Bonn 1868. (Section II, pp. 3–20)
  11. ↑ The same: The Nibelungen train through the Bergisches Land. Bergisch Gladbach, Heider 1986, ISBN 3-87314-165-5 .
  12. ^ Heinrich Beck: On the Thidrekssaga discussion. In: Journal for German Philology. 112, 1993, pp. 441-448.
  13. ^ Gernot Müller: The very latest Nibelungian heresies - to Heinz Ritter-Schaumburgs Die Nibelungen moved northwards, Munich 1981. In: Studia Neophilologica 57. 1985, pp. 105–116.
  14. ↑ Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg: The smith Weland. Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 1999, pp. 188f.
  15. ↑ Cf. commented quotations on Ritter's answer to Gernot Müller: Rolf Badenhausen, Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg on his research on Thidrek saga. His principle using the example of his response to Gernot Müller's criticism , accessed on June 30, 2019.
  16. ↑ Roswitha Wisniewski: Medieval lockpicks. Metzler, Heidelberg 1986, p. 79.
  17. ↑ See e.g. B. Norbert Wagner: I poor Dietrîch. The change from Theodoric's conquest to Dietrich's flight. ZfdA 109 (1980) issue 3, pp. 209-228.
    Walter Haug: The historical Dietrichsage. ZfdA 100 (1971) Issue 1, pp. 43-62.
  18. ↑ Same page 48.
  19. ^ Walter Haug: The historical Dietrichsage. ZfdA 100 (1971) No. 1, pp. 61-62.
  20. ↑ Norbert Wagner: I poor Dietrîch. The change from Theodoric's conquest to Dietrich's flight. ZfdA 109 (1980) issue 3, pp. 209-228. See page 216f.
  21. ↑ Norbert Wagner et al. On p. 217 with references to the Quedlinburg annals and that "Ermenrich", the Flodoard of Reims from a letter from Reims Archbishop Fulko to the East Franconian King Arnulf (end of the 9th century) cited as a son killer and, as by Ermenrich's adviser suggested eradicating his gender.
  22. ↑ The same conclusion, pp. 227–228.
  23. ^ Joachim Heinzle: Dietrich von Bern. In: (Eds. Volker Mertens, Ulrich Müller): Epic materials of the Middle Ages. Stuttgart 1984, pp. 141-155. See page 143.
  24. ^ Joachim Heinzle: Introduction to the Middle High German Dietrichepik. Berlin 1999, p. 6.
  25. ↑ Same page 2.
  26. ↑ See for the sources Martina Giese: Die Annales Quedlinburgenses. Hanover 2004, pp. 370–372.
  27. ↑ See MGH SS 3 (Pertz), p. 32.
  28. ↑ See article Thidrekssaga: “ Dietrichs Bern as the Rhine-Franconian Verona. ". After the saga, their Attila granted the exiled Thidrek military support for the recovery of his kingdom. The Gransport battle of the Musula already meant a considerable weakening of Thidrek's expeller Erminrik.
  29. ↑ As Theodoric's grandfather, however, an apparently by name vandal , a great-grand-nephew of Greutungen King Ermanarich, is considered. However, some historians would like to identify him as Widirich , see bibliographical information from Friedrich Lotter : Displacements in the Eastern Alps- Central Danube region between antiquity and the Middle Ages (375–600). Berlin 2003, p. 77f.
  30. ^ Gerhard Schlegel: Politics & History: Dietrich von Bern 1 - A graphic masterpiece from the German Silver Age. October 22, 2010, accessed on May 19, 2015 (book presentation on “Dietrich von Bern 1 - Ruhm”, text: Peter Wiechmann , drawings: Rafael Méndez, Cross Cult ).