Generations of young Germans have been fans of Indian
Winnetou and his German friend Old Shatterhand - even Adolf Hitler. Now that
the Karl May story has been refilmed, DW's Susanne Spröer gets to the bottom of
it.
December 22, 2016
By Susanne Spröer
It was Christmas Eve, and I was eight or nine years old.
I'd just opened the small gifts under the tree when my father said there was a
surprise in the basement. Finally! It must be Winnetou's Silver Gun, at the top
of my wish list. But I didn't understand why I had to go down to the basement
to get the toy weapon.
Cowboys and
Indians in 1970s Germany
I had been a Winnetou fan ever since I first heard the
audio version of the Wild West stories by Karl May. I would sit at the record
player and listen to how the character Karl May, aka Old Shatterhand, came to
the Wild West. In the story, he's a German engineer who wanted to build a train
line through Apache country. But then he got to know the Apache tribe and
became "blood brothers" with Winnetou, fighting at his side for the
rights of Native Americans.
When we played cowboys and Indians as children, I always
took the part of Winnetou, who preferred to knock his enemies down rather than
kill them, in line with the blood brothers' code of honor.
My best friend and I would cut our hands at the base of
our thumbs to become blood brothers. We loved the Winnetou stories, just like
the generations before us.
The legendary Karl May films predated the audio book
trend of the 1970s and featured French actor Pierre Brice; Tarzan actor Lex
Barker played Old Shatterhand.
"Christmas 1962 saw the premiere of 'Treasure of the
Silver Lake,'" recalled Michael Petzel, author of the "Karl May
Lexicon" and director of the Karl May archive in Göttingen. "That
went over so well with young people in a way that's hard to imagine today. For
three years, before The Beatles and James Bond, the films defined the youth
scene in Germany. They were very modern for the time. For us viewers, it was a
departure into an unknown world."
Karl May:
delinquent dreamer turned bestselling author
The world of Karl Friedrich May (1842-1912), who dreamed
up Winnetou's Wild West, had little to do with reality. The first Winnetou
story was published in 1875, although he'd only read about the United States in
books.
Partly autobiographical and told in the first person, May
as Old Shatterhand (known as Kara Ben Nemsi in the books set in Asia) dreams up
an escape from his own dreary life. Accused of fraud and theft, he'd been fired
from his job as a teacher and sent to jail.
Thanks to Winnetou, May, the son of a poor weaver (10 of
his 13 siblings died shortly after birth) became Germany's most successful
youth author.
What he called his "travel reports" fit the
zeitgeist. "In the 19th century, there were many emigrés and great
interest in North America," said Michael Petzel. "Many people had
relatives who'd moved there." But for those back in Germany, the fact that
May's fantasy world didn't line up with reality didn't bother anyone.
Karl May's "travel reports" sold over 200
million copies. Though the books have been translated into over 40 languages,
they remain most popular in Germany.
The long list of celebrity Karl May fans includes names
like author Carl Zuckmayer, former German Presidents Theodor Heuss and Roman
Herzog, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl and TV host Thomas Gottschalk.
Was Hitler a
Winnetou fan?
Adolf Hitler, the German dictator and mass murderer, also
enjoyed Karl May's books. According to a newspaper report from 1933: "On
his bookshelf there are political and government publications, brochures and
books about health and breeding German shepherds. And then - listen up, German
boys! - a series of books by - Karl May!"
No photo exists to prove what was on Hitler's bookshelf,
and by that time, the press was already under Nazi control. But in his Hitler
biography, historian Joachim Fest wrote that the dictator had in fact read Karl
May's books. It has often been said that he also recommended the novels to his
generals, although that hasn't been confirmed.
"Karl May's status among the Nazis was
disputed," said Michael Petzel of the Karl May Archive. "He also
wrote other books that expressed hope of peace, but true Nazis were suspicious
of those."
Post-war Germans
wanted to be the good guys
Admittedly, as I child I found the peaceable and often
kitschy stories from May's later books quite boring. I wanted to fight the bad
guys. When it comes to deciphering good and bad, children need clear
orientation.
Even after growing out of my Winnetou phase, I remained
interested in Native Americans. I studied their history and read personal
accounts written by Native Americans about the horrible oppression and
persecution they face.
When I traveled to the US in the mid-1990s to do a report
on the Smithsonian Institution, I visited the National Museum of the American
Indian in New York. A woman there told me that Germans often came with a
positive image of Native Americans - thanks to Winnetou. It doesn't matter that
his world couldn't have been further removed from real life.
Karl May is practically unknown in the US. The Winnetou
trend in 1960s Germany could have something to do with German history, says
Michael Petzel. "After the war, Germans wanted to be the good guys. And
the German Old Shatterhand was a good guy. He traveled to a foreign country and
brought justice.
"That wish goes all the way down to today's Green
party, which campaigns on behalf of persecuted minorities. To a certain extent,
we are all heirs of Karl May and Winnetou because we stand with those who are
persecuted, and we want to do good."
Germany's Harry
Potter
The Winnetou story is a modern fairy tale - the German
counterpart to "Harry Potter" or "Lord of the Rings." The
myth has endured a lot over the years - even as a parody. The 2001 comedy
"Der Schuh des Manitu" (Manitou's Shoe) is one of post-war Germany's
most successful films. The heroes were the Apache chief Abahachi (which sounds
like the German onomatopoeia for sneezing) and Winnetouch, his gay twin.
This Christmas, German private broadcaster RTL released a
remake of the three Winnetou films - at a budget of 15 million euros ($15.6
million). It remains to be seen whether they will go over well with the next
generation.
But this year, children all over the country will unwrap
their presents as I did that Christmas before I followed my parents and brother
down to the basement in anticipation of Winnetou's Silver Gun. When I got
there, I found a wooden crate covered with a cloth. I pulled back the fabric
and found a black rabbit.
Having lived through the war, my parents didn't like toy
guns. Instead, they preferred to teach us how to take responsibility. We named
the rabbit Mucki and continued to watch "Winnetou" on television.
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