Romy Franks

A few weeks ago, I was in my office with my younger sister, Maya, as she looked over our International Cinema poster. To my astonishment, I heard her say, “What? There’s a German film about Indians? Weird!” I think my disbelief stemmed from the fact that I had just returned from a research trip in Germany to study this very topic. It dawned on me in that moment that if my own sister was unaware of the Germans’ love for cowboys and Indians, then how in tarnation would the general American public be expected to know about this?

The fact is that Germans have a history with the American West. SLIDE This connection stems from the novels of German author Karl May, who wrote wildly popular Westerns at the end of the 19th century. SLIDE German fans and critics alike celebrate the genius of Karl May, his stories and his unforgettable characters like the German frontiersman “Old Shatterhand,” and his virtuous Native American blood brother, the Indian Chief “Winnetou.” SLIDE In 2012, as Germans celebrated the 100th anniversary of Karl May’s death, Jan Fleischhauer wrote of May in the leading German news magazine Der Spiegel:

More than 200 million copies of his books have been printed, a dimension otherwise associated with dictators or the founders of religions – or J. K. Rowling with her Harry Potter series. Half of the Karl May books printed were sold in German-speaking countries. He is virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, and only in Eastern Europe did he achieve a comparable degree of fame. The number of fans who remained loyal to him beyond their adolescent years is large, ranging from Albert Einstein to political activist Karl Liebknecht, Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch and writer Martin Walser.

And so what? Germans love Karl May and they love Westerns. But why does that matter? For Germans in the post-war period, Westerns answered a crucial question: what does it mean to be German and how do we portray our national identity? Today I will touch briefly on the ways in which Germans turned to Westerns to reestablish post-war German culture, national identity and international relations.

Following the Second World War, Germans were in a cultural vacuum. SLIDE Nazism had decimated German film culture and left artists disconnected from the traditions of Fritz Lang and the “Golden Ages” of pre-war German cinema. Without an immediate artistic past to react to, German filmmakers looked to more distant artists for inspiration. SLIDE In 1962, a few months after the Berlin Wall was built, an essay in Der Spiegel declared: “May has advanced to be a kind of Praeceptor Germaniae, whose influence, without doubt, is greater than that of any other German author between Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Thomas Mann” (Cracroft 249). It was in the very same year that this article was written that the first German western film—based on one of May’s books—was made. Almost overnight, Western films emerged as a wildly popular genre—one that “reinvigorated” German movie theaters everywhere. Ultimately, Karl May helped the German film industry jump onto the international bandwagon of the Western—not simply as filmmakers, but as Germans.

The significant influence of German western films was not limited to a redefinition of German national filmic culture. As an international genre, the Western film allowed Germans to reestablish their worldwide credibility. When it came to Westerns, “Everybody was doing it.” Although this may seem foreign to us even still, German Westerns were simply part of a global phenomenon of Western films. SLIDE In the United States, films like The Searchers (1956) and Magnificent Seven (1960) were already well known by the time the first German western film, SLIDE Der Schatz im Silbersee (The Treasure of Silver Lake), came out in West Germany in 1962. A couple of years later, the Italian Spaghetti Western, A Fistful of Dollars, starring Clint Eastwood (of all people), made its debut (1964, 1967 US release). SLIDE The first East German attempt at a western film, Die Söhne der großen Bärin (The Sons of Great Bear) came out two years after that (1966). And, for us folks close to home, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid came out in 1969. SLIDE In Japan (of all places), legendary director Akira Kurosawa produced many western-style films, such as Seven Samurai (1954)—which, by the way, inspired Magnificent Seven—and Yojimbo (1961)—the inspiration for A Fistful of Dollars. Participation in this global phenomenon was crucial for both West and East Germany. Suddenly, other countries were attuned to their successes again, even if they were just in the box-office. Perhaps the greatest international victory for German western films was the acknowledgement from Hollywood itself. German author Thomas Jeier suggests that the creation of Der Schatz im Silbersee was seen by most Americans as sacrilege. And what was even worse than the attempt was its success. SLIDE In coining the term “Kraut-Western,” Americans accepted—albeit begrudgingly—German Westerns as a distinctive addition to the international genre, one big enough to trigger a huge wave of box-office success (189-190). Through this acknowledgement, German Westerns gained legitimacy in a worldwide dialogue of popular culture.

The international presence associated with German Western films allowed Germans to reestablish relations with other nation-states as well. German Western films were exported throughout the world—West German films were sold to the Western world and the U.S. (Jeier 194), whereas East German westerns were prominent throughout the Soviet and Eastern blocs. SLIDE In both East and West Germany, filming was done in what was then Yugoslavia—the closest landscape they could get for emulating the American West. The casts of German Westerns were also international. One German newspaper called the sets “Babylon” because everyone spoke their own language and had to be dubbed into German in postproduction. SLIDE In the West German Karl May films, “Old Shatterhand” was played by the American Hollywood star, Lex Barker (Tarzan in the early 1950s). SLIDE “Winnetou” was played by rising French actor Pierre Brice. SLIDE The star of almost every East German Indian film was Yugoslavian (or today Serbian) actor, Gojko Mitic (GO-KO MITICH). Mitic played the role of the Indian Chief, Tokei-Ihto, in Die Söhne der großen Bärin. This use of international exports, locations and casts allowed Germans to rectify their foreign relationships through international collaboration, while also reasserting German cinematic culture on the global scene. SLIDE The “international relations” aspect of German Western films is not just important worldwide, but right in Germany itself. East and West Germany were the frontlines of the Cold War. Thus, Western films provided a space in which they could duke it out (rather than nuke it out). SLIDE A comparative analysis of the West German Sauerkraut Western, Der Schatz im Silbersee and the East German “Indianerfilm,” (Indian film) Die Söhne der großen Bärin, reveals how each country used these cultural means to craft their own unique national identity amidst East-West German Cold-war tensions. Today, I am not able to go into great detail on this comparison because of time constraints, but I do believe it is of value to note how East German “Indianerfilme” responded to the widely popular Karl May “Sauerkraut Western” being filmed in West Germany.

With the creation of their first “Indianerfilm,” DEFA (or the Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft, East Germany’s film production company) and the DDR (the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or East Germany government) did all they possibly could to insist that the East German westerns were produced purely as educational and cultural films (rather than the unruly, highly fictional “entertainment” of the West German Westerns). This led to an insistence on historical accuracy, both in plot and in mis-en-scene (or what is visible on the set). DEFA Indian films were all about attention to detail. SLIDE The costumes and sets were supposedly constructed based on the actual Indian tribes featured, not on stereotypes. SLIDE (3) One document I read talked about the need to rent guns from a local museum so that the close-up shots would be historically accurate. Unfortunately a subsequent few documents noted the accidental slipping of these guns into the river while shooting, and a very apologetic DEFA expressing its willingness to pay for the reparations. Despite a few unexpected hiccups, this objective of attention to historical detail is noteworthy. As said before, it was an objective entirely different from that of the Karl May films. According to West German director Dr. Harald Reinl, the Karl May films had “…to be exciting. The people must be enamored. That is more important than a pure, authentic reproduction.” (Self-translation) Though some West Germans accused the East Germans Indian films of being propagandistic, the bottom line is that East German westerns were intended to create a moral impetus for truth, education, and culture… and to differentiate themselves from West Germany.

Another example of the East German obsession with creating a “cultural and educational” film was their stubborn insistence on using authors other than Karl May. Though May was a Saxon— meaning he was from East Germany—he was also known for a life of crime and dishonesty (which is, in itself, a whole ‘nother story). SLIDE In contrast, the author of Die Söhne der großen Bärin was a historian from the Humboldt University in Berlin, Professor Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich, who, DEFA emphasized, played an important overseeing role in the creation of the film. This distance in authorship from the West Germans was important to the East German government. It allowed the East to define their moral compass by selecting more upstanding authors, and separated their Western genre films from that of the West… just enough. In the end, formal elements from Die Söhne der großen Bärin reveal how much East German western films were really intended as an answer to the “Karl May Wave” of box-office hits. And luckily for DEFA, they didn’t fall too short. In fact, the East German “Indianerfilme” went on to become the most successful genre of film DEFA ever produced, hugely popular in East Germany and the entire Soviet bloc.

SLIDE What I would like for you to take away from tonight is that, as funny as it may seem to us Americans, Germans love and deeply identity with the Wild West. Now it shouldn’t seem foreign to you when I say that a few years ago, a visiting German professor here at BYU remarked that whenever she saw the mountains outside, she almost expected to see Indians running down them. The fact is, what German filmmakers created with the wide-open prairies of Yugoslavia gave the German people something to be proud of—a cultural genre that wasn’t uniquely American, but something that they made into their own. Westerns allowed Germans to reengage in international conversations: of film, of culture, of national identity, and of international relations, despite the very real tensions of cold-war politics in the East and West. That is why, knowing this, I hope you’ll agree with me in saying that the German connection to the Wild West isn’t so weird after all.