Native Americans in German popular culture have, since the 18th century, been a topic of fascination, with imaginary Native Americans influencing German ideas and attitudes towards environmentalism, literature, art, historical reenactment, and German theatrical and film depictions of Indigenous Americans. Hartmut Lutz coined the term Indianthusiasm for this phenomenon.[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. Sources written by German people (for example, Karl May) are prioritised over those by Native American peoples themselves.[3]
In 1985, Lutz invented the term Deutsche Indianertümelei ("German Indian Enthusiasm") for the phenomenon.[4] The phrase Indianertümelei is a reference to the German term Deutschtümelei ("German Enthusiasm") which mockingly describes the phenomenon of celebrating in an excessively nationalistic and romanticized manner Deutschtum ("Germanness").[4] It has been connected with German ideas of tribalism, nationalism and Kulturkampf.
- ^ German professor lectures on his country's "Indianthusiasm", by Darlene Chrapko Sweetgrass Writer, Volume: 19 Issue: 12 Year: 2012, Aboriginal Multi-Media Society AMMSA Canada
- ^ Lutz, Hartmut: "German Indianthusiasm: A Socially Constructed German National(ist) Myth" in: Germans and Indians: Fantasies, Encounters, Projections, ed. Colin Gordon Calloway, Gerd Gemnden, Susanne Zantop, Lincoln, Nebraska: U of Nebraska Press, 2002, ISBN 9780803215184.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
perrwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Watchman, Renne, Lutz, Hartmut & Strzelczyk, Florence Indianthusiasm, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2020 p.12