Babar the Elephant, an Epic Adventure!

[Tonguez]

Yes, they are.

The reason they are so harsh is because the Grimm honoured the original versions as close to the letter as they could.

These days, in this age of watered down stories, they might be perceived as 'too cruel' for children, but they specifically began the collection as stories for children. Even the original name says so.

Actually the Large Edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen was intended as a scholarly collection of german peasant folklore, albeit that said folklore had already been filtered through a middle class, christianised lens.
The name Children and Householdtales was part of the middleclass academic marginalisation of peasant folklore as not being a legitimate form of storytelling suitable for adults (the Household part of the name)