A western fairy tale seems to be lost in time: “ARD” decided in 2020 not to renew the licenses for the Winnetou films. This is reported by the “Bild” newspaper.
There are two opinions among the public
However, opinions also seem to differ when it comes to public broadcasting – because not all television stations financed by license fees have turned their backs on the fictitious Apache chief. “ZDF” and “BR” continue to stick to the classic: “In individual cases, all films are always checked to see whether the respective film fits into our program,” quotes “Bild” a spokeswoman for “Bayerischer Rundfunk”.
Two Karl May films were last broadcast on Second German Television in June: “Der Ölprinz” and “Der Schatz im Silbersee”. “Winnetou and the Half-Blood Apanatschi” is the next broadcast in the program calendar of the Mainz station for October 3rd. An “RBB” editor, on the other hand, explained on “Brand Eins” that she no longer broadcast episodes in which the “I word” was mentioned at all.
Winnetou on the Red List
After the Ravensburger publishing house announced on Monday (August 22nd) that it would no longer sell two “Winnetou” books, a heated argument broke out in Germany. Some claim that the lives of indigenous people are being romanticized in the stories: white people are using a culture that is not their own. This is particularly problematic because members of the majority society commercialize individual elements of the culture of a minority and take them out of context.
For the Karl May expert Andreas Brenne, however, the books based on the children’s film “The Young Chief Winnetou” are harmless: “I don’t think it’s right to take a book like this out of circulation just because of a shitstorm,” said the art education professor . It is already made clear in a preliminary remark that the book is to be understood as a fictional story and not as an appropriate representation of the life of indigenous peoples.