Carlo Lucarelli explores the true crime origins of Hansel and Gretel on Sky Arte

The latest episode of Carlo Lucarelli's series "In compagnia del lupo. Il cuore nero delle fiabe" on Sky Arte, airing Monday 29 March, investigates the real-life inspiration behind the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. Researcher Georg Osseg, after stumbling upon a stone house with four ovens containing a charred body during World War II in Bavaria, later discovered that near Aschaffenburg there is a forest locals call the "witch's forest." During the Thirty Years' War, a pastry chef named Katharina Schraderin lived there and was tried for witchcraft. Osseg's archival research suggests that Hansel and Gretel were actually two adult brothers, Hans and Grete Metzler, also pastry chefs, who wanted to steal Schraderin's gingerbread recipe and denounced her for witchcraft. After she was released, they went to her cottage in the woods, killed her, and hid the body in an oven. The episode delves into how the Brothers Grimm may have adapted this crime into their famous fairy tale.