The Hagen Monument on the Rhine promenade in Worms commemorates Hagen of Tronje, a hero figure in the Song of the Nibelungs. He is said to have stolen the legendary Nibelung treasure and sunk it in the Rhine.
The Hagen Monument is an electrotype sculpture and the work of Johann Hirt, a sculptor from Worms. It was donated by Cornelius Wilhelm von Heyl zu Herrnsheim. Originally and until the 1930s in the city gardens Bürgerweide, it was moved to its present site on the bank of the Rhine in June 1932.
As well as the Hagen Monument by the Rhine, there are other sights in Worms connected with the Nibelungs, for example the north entrance to St. Peter’s Cathedral, where Brünhild und Kriemhild quarrelled about rank – a dispute with serious consequences – and the Siegfriedstein (Siegfried’s Stone) on the southern side of the cathedral.
The huge and fierce-looking figure of Hagen has long been a popular subject for photographs.
Because of its many connections with the Song of the Nibelungs, Worms is the starting point of Nibelungenroute (Route of the Nibelungs), which includes the settings mentioned in the poem on its way via the Kloster Lorsch to Hungary.
If you want to explore the region inhabited by the Nibelungs, follow the Nibelungen-Siegfried-Straße from Worms via Lorsch and through the Odenwald to Freudenberg am Main or Tauberbischofsheim an der Tauber. This is where the spring is supposed to be at which Hagen stabbed Siegfried to death. There are, however, several places that claim to have the “only true” spring where Siegfried met his death.
The Hagen Monument is on the Rhine promenade and is accessible at all times.
Address:
Am Rhein 5
67547 Worms