Siegfriedbrunnen

The Siegfriedbrunnen stands in Worms, a city in Rheinland-Pfalz, on the market square where the Hagenstraße meets the house called Zur Münze. It commemorates Siegfried, the dragon-slayer from the Nibelungen saga. Before this site held the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen, it had long been a place for public water. The fountain took its present form in 1913, designed by Munich sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand from Muschelkalk stone. Funds came from Cornelius Wilhelm Heyl, a local industrialist and patron, and his wife Sophie. Delayed by the First World War, the completed work was finally placed in 1921 beside the Cornelianum building. After the Second World War the building was removed, yet the fountain itself survived intact and remains in position. A seven-sided domed structure rises from the square, topped by a statue of Siegfried with drawn sword. The design draws on Romanesque motifs and the fountain is protected under Rheinland-Pfalz’s heritage law. Nearby along the Rhine stands the Hagendenkmal, a monument to Hagen of Tronje created a few years earlier.