"It [Siegfried] marked the beginning of a productive, lifelong collaboration with actor-director Louis Jouvet, whom Giraudoux credits with transforming his literary plays into theater pieces.
[7] We are introduced to Siegfried as the new national hero of Germany, an amnesiac survivor of World War I, who sprang from unknown origins to lead the country into a new period of modernization and prosperity.
Baron von Zelten opposes Siegfried's project, loving the old German folk traditions.
Ironically, Zelten and Geneviève dash Siegfried's self-conception as the symbol of a new Germany precisely by revealing the soldier's true identity.
In the course of the political turmoil that results, Zelten is banished, but Siegfried leaves to resume his old life in France with Geneviève.