Bernhard Plettenburg (1903) created the figures for the Nibelungen Bridge. He was not favoured by Speer who prefered Breker and Thorak. Nothing much is known about Plettenburg and his career seems to have ended with the destruction of Germany and the National Socialist Party.

With reference to his bridge sculptures Plettenburg wrote:

The characters from the Nibelungenlied, the "song of the German heroes", are the embodyment of all the German qualities - but also of the German destiny. The loyalty, the courage and the persistence, but also the love and passion are united in them. These qualities and characteristics have been reawakened by our "Führer" after the decadent years of the "Systemzeit" [Weimar Republic]. He has come from Linz to the German Reich and brought the German people to a new flowering of these qualities.