Native Americans in German popular culture

[1][2] However, these "Native Americans" are largely portrayed in a romanticized, idealized, and fantasy-based manner, that relies on historicised, stereotypical depictions of Plains Indians, rather than the contemporary realities facing the real, and diverse, Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

The way May described Native Americans was seen as helpful to better integrate German Catholics, which were "a tribe on their own" and faced Kulturkampf controversies with the Protestant dominated authorities and elite.

[2] H. Glenn Penny's Kindred By Choice treats the image and changing role of masculinity connected to Indians in Germany besides a (mutually assumed) longing for freedom and a melancholy sense of shared doom.

His admiration for naturality and a description of a Huron as a noble but sort of frank man is part of his poem "Der Wilde" (the savage) which became well known in Germany.

[9] Seume's Huron has stereotypical characteristics used as well for Germanic people of old – he drinks mead and wears a bear skin and uses a sort of blunt didactic on an unfriendly European settler.

Karl May found admirers among such different personalities as Ernst Bloch, Peter Handke and Adolf Hitler, but has almost no presence in English-speaking countries.

[21] Bravo, Germany's largest teen magazine, awards an annual prize, the Bravo-Otto, in the form of a classic Karl May Indian.

At the end of the 19th century, there was a widespread notion of a coming new humanity, building on then-current esoteric myths such as those of Helena Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner as well as on popularly accepted philosophy such as Nietzsche's Übermensch.

Stefan George, a charismatic networker and author, saw (and studied) Indians as role models of his own cosmogony, using ecstatic and unmediated experiences to provide a sacred space for himself and his disciples.

[25] Johnny Cash's recording of "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," which commemorates the Pima Marine of the title who was one of the six men who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima, also became popular in Germany.

[37][38] The connection between anti-American sentiment and sympathetic feelings toward the underprivileged but authentic Indians is common in Germany, and it was to be found among both Nazi propagandists such as Goebbels and left-leaning writers such as Nikolaus Lenau as well.

[39][40] In his book on the topic, Indianthusiasm, scholar Hartmut Lutz states that after the Second World War, Indianthusisam served as a surrogate for guilt about the Holocaust.

The Communist East German government had major problems with the mixed heritage of May's works: his strong Christian leanings and his broad support, including on the political right.

Some prominent communist philosophers, such as Karl Marx' friend and sponsor Friedrich Engels, had used Native American tribal structures as examples for theories on family, private property, and the state.

[47][49] Some of the early to mid 20th century hobbyists gained widespread acclaim as selftaught experts in anything pertaining to the subjects of Native Americana, particularly the Zurich, Switzerland, based accountant, Joseph Balmer.

[48][49][52][53] According to the history laid out in H. Glenn Penny's Kindred By Choice,[54] many Germans identify their roots as tribes that lived independently of one another that were colonized by Romans and forced to become Christians.

[63] Writer, psychologist and filmmaker Red Haircrow, whose father is African American while his mother is of Native (Chiricahua Apache/Cherokee) heritage,[64][65] attended the Winter Pow-wow 2014 in Berlin on 15 February.

He described the participants as wearing as many "breastplates, bear claw necklaces, feathers and bone jewelry as they seemed able to physically support," and that the attendees also wore Native American costumes in addition to the hobbyist dancers.

Her book Ethnic Drag discusses the ways in which Germans have historically dressed up as "othered" peoples, which includes Jews, Native Americans, and Turks.

This person shares his discomfort with seeing a burial dance take place in the Bad Segeberg performance, and calls it grotesque and claims that it perpetuates a stereotypical image of the Native American.

A hobbyist profiled in the article defended the German tendency to focus on Indian culture before 1880, instead of engaging with issues that affect contemporary tribes, comparing it to studying "the [ancient] Romans."

[citation needed] On the other hand, Hagengruber comments that "some dying Indian languages may end up being preserved by German hobbyists."

Under DEFA, the western genre was entirely different with the protagonists being Native Americans, their chief usually being played by actor Gojko Mitic, and the antagonists being white settlers and the US military.

These films were massively successful in East German box offices with more than 9 million tickets sold for the most popular Indianerfilm, "Die Söhne der großen Bärin (The Sons of Great Bear).

Important contribution in the humanities include anthropologist Franz Boas (1858–1942) and Native American Renaissance writer Louise Erdrich (born 1954).

[94] Germans still have an easygoing approach to using blackface or redface; there is a varied and continuing tradition of temporarily immersing oneself in different customs that is part of Carnival.

[97] The harsh condemnation by Marta Carlson, a Native American activist, of Germans for getting pleasure from "something their whiteness has participated in destroying", is not shared by others.

The Indian department of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin contains one of the largest collections of Native American artifacts in the world, the curators ask for a more active community dealing with the heritage.

[104] Author, adventurer, artist, curator and acrobat Ernst Tobis alias Patty Frank (1876–1959) founded this leading collection of Native American artifacts in Germany and took care of them till his death.

[105] The Museum Five Continents in Munich contains the collection of Indian artefacts and art of Princess Theresa of Bavaria, a natural scientist and eager traveler.