The Truth About Hansel and Gretel

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The Truth About Hansel and Gretel (German: Die Wahrheit über Hänsel und Gretel) is a book written by German caricaturist Hans Traxler, which was published in 1963. The book is a satire which purports to tell the story of how teacher Georg Ossegg uncovered archeological evidence of the "real" Hansel and Gretel in 1962.

Summary[edit]

According to the book, Ossegg determined that the fairytale, Hansel and Gretel, was based on the story of a 17th-century baker named Hans Metzler and his sister Grete. Hans and Grete Metzler lived in a village in the Spessart Forest during the Thirty Years War, and killed an old woman named Katharina Schraderin in order to steal her recipe for Nürnberger Lebkuchen (gingerbread).[1][2][3][4]

In reality, Ossegg did not exist and the details of the story were fabricated by Traxler. Vanessa Joosen has called the book a "fictive nonfictional text," which "carries the features of a nonfictional text but consciously misleads the reader."[5]

In popular culture[edit]

Despite its fictional nature, the hoax convinced many in Germany at the time,[1][2][5] and continues to have some traction.[6][7][8]

In 1987, a one-hour twenty-two minute movie, Ossegg oder Die Wahrheit über Hänsel und Gretel, loosely based on the novel, was released in Germany.[9][10]

In the 1980s, in another area neighboring the Spessart Forest, German pharmacist Karlheinz Bartels published a joking theory that Snow White was based on a real person named Maria Sophia Margarethe Catharina, Baroness von und zu Erthal. The theory was primarily inspired by Traxler's book.[11]

In October 2021, Tim Harford released the episode "The Truth About Hansel and Gretel" of his podcast Cautionary Tales about Traxler's satire.[12]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Haase, Donald (1993). The Reception of Grimms' Fairy Tales. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0814322085 – via google.ca.
  2. ^ a b SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hamburg, Germany (7 July 1964). "HÄNSEL UND GRETEL: Mit falschem Bart". spiegel.de.
  3. ^ Smith, Jack. "A Grim Discovery" Los Angeles Times November 19, 1974, page F1.
  4. ^ Jack Zipes, The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 241.]
  5. ^ a b Joosen, Vanessa (2011). Critical and Creative Perspectives on Fairy Tales. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0814334522 – via google.ca.
  6. ^ Ogden, Valerie. The True Stories Behind Classic Fairy Tales. The Huffington Post. Updated 01/05/2015. [1]
  7. ^ Culver, Anke A. Wanted for murder: Haensel and Gretel - Behind the classic Christmas-season fairy tale is a gruesome true story of entrepreneurial greed. [2]
  8. ^ Lane, Rebecca. Silver Petticoat Review. October 29, 2014
  9. ^ "Ossegg oder die Wahrheit über Hänsel und Gretel (1987) - IMDb". IMDb.
  10. ^ "Ossegg oder die Wahrheit über Hänsel und Gretel".
  11. ^ Wolfgang, Vorwerk (2015). "Das 'Lohrer Schneewittchen': Zur Fabulologie eines Märchens" (PDF). Paremiology, Folklore, Language, and Literature: 491–503.
  12. ^ "The Truth About Hansel and Gretel". 22 October 2021.

Sources[edit]


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