The DEFA’s “Eastern Westerns” (Indianerfilme) (Part 1 of 4)

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Source: DIF© DEFA-Stiftung, DEFA-Pathenheimer

Gojko Miti? in "Die Söhne der großen Bärin" ("The Sons of the Great She-Bear", 1966)

In 1962, Harald Reinl's first Karl May film "Der Schatz im Silbersee" (Treasure of Silver Lake) launched a popular wave of West German westerns. Four years later, DEFA began producing westerns of its own. On more than one level, the DEFA's "Eastern Westerns" emerged as foils to the western productions by Horst Wendlandt and Artur Brauner. While the West German Karl May adaptations featured an equally noble "white blood brother" at the side of Pierre Brice as the Apache chief Winnetou, the DEFA productions concentrated to a much greater extent on the Indian protagonists – and what they saw as the "historical truth" and "the Indians' great personal struggles with the encroaching White Man".