Postcards From Berlin #12: Germany’s Romance with the Wild West

By Jeff Allers

German Word of the Month: Indianer (Native American)

I have yet to meet a German who has not romanticized being in the American West, driving down Route 66 in a Ford Mustang convertible, seeing the places where cowboys and Indians once lived (and in German, Native Americans are still referred to as “Indianer,” distinguishable from “Inder,” someone who comes from India).  This is in large part because most Germans grew up reading books about an Apache named Winnetou and his German cowboy blood-brother Old Shatterhand.  The author was Karl May, a man from Saxony who wrote so convincingly that his books have had a strong influence on German perceptions of the Wild West—and America—ever since.  There was only one problem: May had never been there himself.

Certainly May was not the first author to have placed the settings of his novels in locations he had never experienced first-hand.  Game authors often do the same thing, after all.  But May’s descriptions were so vivid that his first-person narrative writing style made it seem as though the stories were semi-autobiographical.  What he lacked in experience, he made up for in imagination, using maps and other books as starting points and being especially inspired by the writings of James Fenimore Cooper, according to Wikipedia.  And, much like the Harry Potter phenomenon, May’s books, though aimed at children, soon became popular with adults as well.

What makes May’s inventiveness so fascinating, aside from the fact that his fictional works so influenced Europe’s view of American history, was the fact that Karl May also blurred the lines of fact and fiction in his own life.  Not unlike Frank Abignale of “Catch Me If You Can” fame, May was a convicted con man.  According to Wikipedia, he masqueraded once as a doctor, and later as a police officer, attempting to confiscate “counterfeit” Deutsch Marks.  He lost his teaching job after being accused of stealing, and eventually wound up in jail for fraud.

It was in prison where he probably discovered many of the books that eventually inspired him to write.  In 1874, after his release from prison he began sending articles to magazines, eventually landing a job as a Dresden journalist.  His breakthrough: writing stories about the American Old West.  Though he wrote over 70 books during his career (including “Durch die Wüste”, a title familiar to gamers), the three volumes about Winnetou are the best known.

More than 200 million copies of May’s books have been sold, most of them in Europe.  When the Winnetou novels first appeared in the 1850s, most Americans had apparently grown tired of tales about “noble savages.” The fact that May’s Native American and German cowboy heroes made the other American cowboys look like “bumbling idiots or brutal thugs” probably didn’t help his popularity in the States either. (The quote comes from “The Strange Legacy of Karl May” by Danica Tutush.)

But in Germany, the stories have become a part of cultural tradition.  Even Hitler once said that May’s writings had convinced him that one did not need to see the world to know it—or see the African desert to know how to wage war in it (from “Spandau, the Secret Diaries” by Albert Speer).

When I first moved to Berlin, I was surprised at the influence Native Americans had on the popular culture.  Huge coffee-table books on the subject, CDs with American Indian chants put to techno beats, Native-American mysticism, and amusement parks all bring some of the Old West to the Old World.  Children grow up playing a hide-and-seek game calling out, “Where did all the Indians go?” There have been movies based on the Winnetou books as well, filmed in the 1960s in Yugoslavia and Spain.  Their popularity eventually inspired Italian producers to film the famous “Spaghetti Westerns” with Clint Eastwood.

My wife and I once even happened to be on vacation near Karl May’s hometown of Radebeul during the annual “Karl May Festival.” A spontaneous visit transported us back to our native land and some of the western theme parks and festivals we knew from our childhood.  There were buck skinners displaying their wares, tee-pees and totem poles circling bon fires, a dusty main street where visitors ate barbeque while listening to a bluegrass band from Tennessee, an old steam engine giving rides around the park, and a cowboy comedy and stunt show, all in German of course.  There were Native Americans doing drum dances and tanned Germans in headdresses and war paint auditioning for the Winnetou look-alike contests.

Many guests dressed up for the festival as well.  My favorite was a man who wore an almost complete set of cowboy gear, from his ten-gallon hat down to his leather chaps.  Only one fashion faux pas gave him away: Instead of cowboy boots, he sported tube socks with Birkenstock sandals.

The romanticism of the Old West that May popularized has been a staple of the entertainment industry here for some time.  Games are no exception, as there seems to be a Wild West-themed release for every game about the Middle Ages or Mediterranean antiquity.  Games like Wyatt Earp, Abilene, Pow Wow, Gold Land, Go West, Ogallala, Bang! and Boomtown are only a sample, and they prove that Winnetou continues to help sell games in Germany.

It is also interesting to see the effect his fiction has had on perceptions of American culture, although it is not always easy to separate from the influence of America’s own Hollywood exports—"Dances With Wolves” was understandably an instant hit here. Still, Americans—and especially our politicians—are often viewed here as cavalier, risk-taking “cowboys.” At best, we are admired for the freedoms we are able to express in our culture, but at the worst, we are looked upon as the bumbling and brutish types, the anti-thesis to May’s campy but noble Old Shatterhand (with whom the author strongly identified).

In my game groups, I often wonder whether these tendencies have any basis.  Maybe it’s just coincidence, but I often use risky strategies, especially when I’m still learning a game. And while there are certainly plenty of German gamers who play “aus dem Bauch heraus” (from their gut), many do play much more carefully and conservatively than I.  Am I just a “cowboy gamer” or is it a function of my culture?

Still, it would be a shame if anyone could believe—like May did—that a person could know a place without actually ever being there.  My homeland is much too big and diverse to be stereotyped by a few popular novels—or Hollywood films, for that matter.

The same applies to my new home, as it has been fascinating to learn more about the German people through my daily experiences with friends and strangers.  I suppose that’s one reason I write these “postcards"—to put stereotypes to the side and offer a different window into the culture here.  But in the end, it’s only from my perspective.  If you’re ever here for the Essen Spielmesse, or for any other reason, I recommend taking time to travel around and gather experiences of your own.

May did finally visit the U.S. in 1908, but he never made it west of Buffalo, New York.  He died several years later without ever truly knowing the places that so captured his imagination.

© 2007 Jeff Allers

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Comments:

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Jeff, I’m a big fan of the games of Wolfgang Riedesser (Ausgebremst/Ave Caesar & Dschungelrennen)… but I didn’t realize until your article that his game “Karl May Spiel” (Ravensburger 1988) had an actual person behind it! As well, Riedesser created two Route 66 games - a board game & a card game. Thanks for the great background information! mark aka fluff daddy Posted by Mark "Fluff Daddy" Jackson on Feb 1, 2007 at 03:48 AM | #

Fluff Daddy, My groups enjoy Ave Caesar as well.  Are Riedesser’s Karl May game or Route 66 games worth a look? Jeff Posted by Jeff Allers on Feb 3, 2007 at 03:31 AM | #

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