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It is derived from the medieval chivalric code ideal of loyalty, Middle High German triuwe, as exemplified in the second part of the Nibelungenlied, where the Burgundian kings Gunther, Gernot and Giselher refuse to hand over to Kriemhild their loyal vassal Hagen of Tronje, who is guilty of murdering Kriemhild's husband, Siegfried. The brothers place the loyalty to their friend above their obligations to their sister or to justice, leading to disaster and the complete destruction of the Nibelungs.
The modern term Nibelungentreue was coined by chancellor Bernhard von Bülow in his speech before the Reichstag on 29 March 1909. Addressing the Bosnian crisis, von Bülow invoked the absolute loyalty between the German Empire and Austria-Hungary to their Alliance of 1879 against the threat by the Entente cordiale: Fürst Bülows Reden ed. Wilhelm von Massow. vol. 5. Leipzig 1914, 127f.
Nibelungentreue was later, in East Germany during denazification and by the 1980s also in West Germany, applied (derogatively) to Nazi ideology, especially in connection with the Schutzstaffel motto, Meine Ehre heißt Treue. Used in this sense by Marxist commentators, the term describes a fanatical "furor Teutonicus" military loyalty associated with fascism and militarism. Fritz Erik Hoevels, Marxismus, Psychoanalyse, Politik, Ahriman-Verlag GmbH, 1983 p. 243. Franz Fühmann in 1955 wrote a poem called Der Nibelunge Not ("the plight/distress of the Nibelungs", the Middle High German title of the Nibelungenlied) in which he portrays the Nibelungs as a Germanic Töterdynastie ("dynasty of killers") who brought a curse on their descendants. Dennis Tate, Franz Fühmann, Innovation and Authenticity: A Study of His Prose-writing, Rodopi, 1995, 37–39. The term is also occasionally found in English-language literature about Nazi Germany. One example is Steinberg (1990), who describes Goebbels' suicide as "a paroxysm of Nibelungentreue".Jonathan Steinberg, All Or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust, 1941-1943, Psychology Press, 1990, p. 137.
Based on this association with fascism and militarism, the term has a derogatory or ironic connotation; duden.de: "oft abwertend". it describes any excessive or blind loyalty that, in the speaker's view, is bound to lead to disaster; it is frequently used in pro-Palestinian journalism denouncing the alliance between of USA or Germany with Israel, Die deutsche Politik gegenüber Israel verwechselt Solidarität mit Nibelungentreue. ("German policy towards Israel confuses solidarity with Nibelungentreue.") Michael Lüders, "Merkels skandalöse Nibelungentreue", The European 12 June 2012. or in contexts such as the American-British alliance leading to the ill-fated 2003 invasion of Iraq, Blairs Entscheidung, im Umgang mit der westlichen Supermacht mögliche Differenzen niemals in die Öffentlichkeit zu tragen, verschärft den Eindruck blinder Nibelungentreue. ("Blair's decision to never publicize possible differences with the western superpower reinforces the impression of blind Nibelungentreue" Jürgen Krönig, "Blinde Nibelungentreue?", Zeit, 28 July 2006. but it is also used (with an ironical connotation) in unpolitical contexts such as sports journalism.Stefan Osterhaus, "Der deutsche Nationaltrainer Joachim Löw", NZZ, 21 June 2014 (describes Joachim Löw as nibelungentreu towards his players Bastian Schweinsteiger and Miroslav Klose).
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