Native Americans in German popular culture

The image of Native Americans in German popular culture contains an romanticised view of Indigenous peoples, notably the Plains Indians. The striking sense of affinity for American Indians (respectively the self coined image of them) in Germany since the 18th century has had specific influences on folklore, environmentalism, literature, art, historical reenactment, theatrical and film depictions in Germany. Hartmut Lutz coined the term "Indianthusiasm" for this rather introspective phenomenon. It has been closely connected with inner German tribalism and controversies, as for German nationalism and e.g. the role of catholics in Kulturkampf and German-speaking regions overall.

H. Glenn Penny states a striking sense of affinity for American Indians in Germany over two centuries. According to him, those affinities stem from German polycentrism, notions of tribalism, longing for freedom, and a melancholy sense of shared fate. Already in the 17th and 18th centuries, German intellectuals' image of Native American was based on earlier heroes. Counter movements, as to Biedermeier, always were on the outlook for suitable role models. They used the Greeks, the Scythians, or the Polish struggle for independence (as in Polenschwärmerei) as a base for their projections. The then popular recapitulation theory on the evolution of ideas was also involved. Such sentiments underwent ups and downs. Philhellenism, rather strong around 1830, faced a setback when the actual Greeks did not fulfill the classic ideals.

Antisemitism and pro-Indian stances did not necessarily exclude each other in Germany. In the 1920s, Anton Kuh's mockery of a contrast between Asphalt und Scholle (asphalt and clod), urban literature referred to metropolitan Jews and rural-inspired Heimatschutz writings.

German nationalism had a rather tribal setup itself. It used Germanic heroes such as Sigurd and Arminius and positioned itself as an alternative role model to the colonial empires of the time (and the Roman past), conveying the ideal of a colonizer loved by the colonized. Catholic publishers had a specific role in publicizing May's Indian stories after 1880. 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. 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.

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