page_title: The Seven Swabians
section_title: In popular culture
hierarchical_section_title: The Seven Swabians / In popular culture
caption_attribution_description: Illustration
context_page_description: The Seven Swabians is a German fairy tale, collected by The Brothers Grimm in the second volume edition of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen under the number KHM119. The term Swabians refers to people from the German region Swabia, though in Switzerland it refers to Germans in general.
context_section_description: In 1545 the story was adapted into song by Hans Sachs.
  In 1887 Karl Millöcker adapted the story into an operette.
  During World War I the Fokker D.VII (OAW-built 4649/18) of the Luftstreitkräfte's Jasta 65 fighter squadron, flown by Gefreiter (corporal) Wilhelm Scheutzel  was resplendent in a scheme depicting a scene from an ancient German fable brought back to popularity by the Brothers Grimm in 1857. There is no other aircraft that possesses a livery depicting an ancient German fable. But his Fokker D.VII has the 'Sieben Schwaben' (Seven Swabians) depicted in battle with a hare, using their one shared, pike-like spear. According to the tale, the men had mistaken the animal for a Dragon. The story is really an olden day 'blonde joke' about the people of Swabia and is thought to have been told by those in neighbouring areas of Germany as a tongue-in-cheek insult to the region.
  Scheutzel joined Jasta 65 from Jasta-Schule II on 12 July 1918 and lasted until the end of the war.  He scored his one and only kill when he downed a DH4 on 13 August 1918.
  Why Scheutzel had this scene depicted on his aircraft is not entirely clear. Was the art an ironic comment on the folly of war, an insult to the Allies that they would flee like rabbits or perhaps Scheutzel liked the war cry given by the leader of the Seven Schwaben in his attack on the rabbit: "then let us boldly advance to the fight, and thus we shall show our valour and might"?
  In 1978 a monument was created on the Fehrbelliner Platz in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, sculpted by Hans-Georg Damm.
caption: Illustration from The adventures of the Seven Swabians, Ludwig Aurbacher, 1832
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