Representing the Indian, Imagining the Volksgemeinschaft. Indianthusiasm and Nazi Propaganda in German Print Media

The German fascination with Native Americans has been a tradition of several cen­ turies, beginning with the first reports about the New World and its peoples. The main features of German Indian imagery have evolved since the early nineteenth century and have evoked the phenomenon of mass euphoria for Indians in the late 1800s, a euphoria which lasted for more than one hundred years. This fascination has been a source of curiosity for both Native peoples and scholars. Placing it in the context of German perceptions of American history and culture, scholarship deter­ mined that the German euphoria for 'all things Indian' is not so much about Native peoples, but that it illustrates the quest for a sense of self among nineteenth-centu­ ry Germans. Thus, the term "German Indianthusiasm", coined by Hartmut Lutz, denotes the German comparison of contemporary Native Americans with ancient Germanic tribes, the idealization and stereotyping of both groups, and the eventual self-portrayal of Germans as the direct descendants of these ancient European in­ digenous peoples (Lutz 2002: 169). In essence, looking at 'the Indian'! helped Ger­ mans to portray themselves as the Indians of Europe, to construe an ancient trib­ al/national tradition, and to denounce ancient and current 'others', be they extern al rivals of the emerging and industrializing German nation state, or internal others, such as the J ews. The dichotomizing of the GermanjIndian self against these exter­ nal and internal others developed basic motifs and fixed patterns which outlasted several centuries and a number of different political regimes, but it incorporated new imagery and new cultural practices over time and was adjusted to reflect the respective contemporary political, social, and cultural issues in Germany. This essay will discuss the Nazi regime's propagandistic appropriation of Indi­ anthusiasm. It will argue that the development of nationalism in nineteenth-centu­ ry Germany and its increasingly aggressive stance laid the groundwork for national socialist propaganda, and that Indianthusiasm accompanied both. If Indian im­ agery served to develop a German national identity, it naturally had to be a useful device for the Nazis to convey national pride to the populace. The Nazis' perception