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This year marks the one-hundredth

anniversary of the death of the famous

western Americana writer Karl May

(1842–1912). May (pronounced “my”),

one of the most read German authors

in history, is known for his adventure

stories, set just about everywhere on the

globe, and is the undisputed king of western Americana writings

in the German-speaking market. More than 200 million copies of

his works in over forty languages (including the artificial languages

Esperanto and Volapük) have been sold since the late 1890s, and

yet he is virtually unheard of in the United States. May wrote over

one hundred books—autobiographies, biographies, social treatises,

and adventure novels that take place in several continents. But he

is best known for two fictitious characters in his American West

tales: Winnetou and Old Shatterhand.

So, who is Karl May, and why is such a popular writer unknown

in the country whose West he made so popular?

May was born on February 25, 1842, into a poor family of weavers

in Germany. To escape poverty, he became a teacher, but serious

brushes with the law—theft, fraud, and impersonation of medical

doctors, lawyers, and police officers—resulted in the revocation

of his teaching license, and he repeatedly served time in nearby

penitentiaries. In 1874, released from prison yet again, he turned

to writing, and his colportage essays (trashy contract publications)

earned him financial stability. Eventually his adventure stories

found themselves in serial format in magazines such as Der

deutsche Hausschatz, and after numerous other publications, he

began publishing his Winnetou series in 1893.

May paired Winnetou, the Apache chief, with his German blood

brother, Old Shatterhand (Old Shurehand and Old Firehand in

other narratives), and described their adventures from Mexico to

Yellowstone Park, from the Great Plains to the Llano Estacado, and

in New Mexico. His western America stories, and particularly

his Winnetou and Old Shatterhand stories, become immediately

popular, partly because, as Gerald Nash once noted, they are logical

successors to the romantic sagas of German heroes, like Siegfried

and Thor, “who battled evil to win out for truth.” The narratives are

straightforward struggles between good and evil, with a heavy touch

of Germanic superiority and plenty of Christian brotherhood mes-

sages, along with detailed descriptions of landscapes and scenery.

To endear a German audience to Apaches—Germans disliked

(and to some extent still do) nomadic behavior, often associated

with thievery, shiftlessness, and dishonesty—May transformed

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By tomas Jaehn

Opposite: Winnetou, with his trusted silberbüchse, and his friend old shatterhand

observe a careless enemy in the canyon below them in this cover painting from

Winnetou III. Courtesy Fray angélico Chávez history Library.

them from a nomadic tribe into a sedentary pueblo or cliff-dwelling

people living along the Pecos River, south of today’s Roswell. He

also made Chief Winnetou into a Europe-educated Native.

Despite taking such literary liberties in his portrayal of Native

Americans, May was familiar with western American culture

and history. His large personal library in Radebeul, near Dresden,

contains ethnographic books about Native Americans, dictionaries

of Native languages, geographical surveys of the American

West, and travel descriptions of the Rocky Mountains—works

by George M. Wheeler, George Catlin, Robert von Schlagintweit,

Balduin von Möllhausen, probably Josiah Gregg, and, of course,

James Fenimore Cooper.

May’s portrayal of Native Americans in New Mexico and the West

acknowledged their distinct ethnicity, which was unfortunately

doomed. In the preface to Winnetou, May claimed that “the Red

Man possesses no lesser right for existence than the White Man

and should have the opportunity to develop societal and state skill

in his own manners.” Through his characters he made clear that

“the evil influence of the white men [particularly Anglo-Americans,

never Germans] … led the noble redskin astray.”

May filled his stories with the superior qualities of the Teutonic

race, whose protagonists shoot better than the Yankees, track better

than the Native Americans, and teach the “noble savages” German

morals and idealism. In Winnetou, Old Shatterhand teaches

immigrant Germans, Anglo-Americans, and Native Americans

Teutonic wisdom and manners. In Krüger Bei, Winnetou visits

Old Shatterhand in Germany, and in Der Ölrpinz, even the chief

of the Navajos speaks German fluently. “So thoroughly has May

transplanted German customs to America,” one of the few American

scholars who has written about May pointed out, “that the United

States often resembles a German colony. May’s western heroes

drink German beer, listen to German music, sing German songs

and read (authentic) German newspapers.”

In short, ideals replace authenticity in May’s American West

and Southwest. May engaged in what Ray Allen Billington called

the “Europeanizing” of Native Americans, “endowing them with

the traits and ideals drawn from Western civilization, while they

still possess the natural nobility that made them valuable

allies.” What with the German ambiance and landscapes extra-

ordinaire, it is no wonder these adventurous narratives became

and remain popular.

Some of the popularity of May’s western narratives derived

from the notion that these escapades were true. Indeed, he

convincingly elaborated on geographic, ethnographic, and

social matters, cultivating the impression that his tales were

genuine. Early on, he made the claim that he, Karl May, was Old

Shatterhand and was able to tell such thrilling stories because

they had all been experienced firsthand. The fights, the peace

efforts, the pursuits, the big game hunts—all were authenticated

by the master storyteller himself. And yet nothing could have

been farther from the truth.

As if to solidify the stories’ authenticity, he pointed out that he

spoke several European languages, as well as Arabic and Native

American dialects. May might have known some fundamental

English, if that, but did not speak any foreign language. To

perpetuate the myth, he chose to narrate his undertakings in

the first person. May frequently distributed images of himself

in western outfits and filled his “Villa Shatterhand” with trinkets

and memorabilia from the various countries he presumably had

visited. Furthermore, since Germans so often equate academic

titles with expertise, he printed business cards with the erroneous

“Dr. Karl May.”

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to convince his readers of the truthfulness of his adventures, Karl may often

provided “proof” by posing in old shatterhand garb. this ca. 1890s cabinet

card shows “Dr.” Karl may in a studio setting with Winnetou’s rifle.

Courtesy Karl-may-museum, Radebeul, Germany.

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this collection of cover art used by the Karl-may-Verlag (publishing house), founded in Radebeul in 1913, displays some of the geographical and cultural spread

of Karl may’s works, with adventures in the american West, mexico, south america, turkey, and the near east. Courtesy Fray angélico Chávez history Library.

At times, he spun a yarn to reassure the reader of his truth-

fulness—for instance, the one about Winnetou’s famous rifle,

Silberbüchse. In Old Shurehand III, during a trip to Winnetou’s

grave in Wyoming, he interrupts a grave-robbing attempt by a

band of Sioux. With his friends, Old Shurehand chases them

away and unearths Silberbüchse. Figuring that the Sioux were

after the rifle, he takes it back to Germany for safekeeping.

Never at a loss, May even produced photographs of himself

in western garb (albeit clearly in a studio setting), standing or

crouching attentively with a rifle in hand. Silberbüchse (along

with Old Shatterhand’s Bärentöter [Bear Killer] and Henrys-

tutzen [Henry Carbine]) has been in Radebeul ever since and

is on display at the Karl-May-Museum to this day.

Alas, some time after Karl May’s death on March 30, 1912,

the rifle was found to have been fabricated by a local gunsmith

in Radebeul. It never saw New Mexico, and, contrary to its

sure-shot reputation, it never even discharged a shot: it was a

prop without a proper bolt mechanism.

Despite May’s antics and pretenses, despite his

criminal background and his taste for pulp, he

successfully produced thrilling and adventur-

ous tales that continue to transport readers to

faraway countries with unknown customs—

and he did all this from a desk at home. “He travels the world,” a

recent biographer points out, “without making one step outside

his front door.” Until much later in life, Karl May never visited

the countries he wrote about—and then, moving from hotel

to hotel, his exploits were not nearly as audacious as those of his

fictitious characters. He visited the United States only once, in

1908, traveling only as far west as Buffalo, New York.

Still, Winnetou and May’s alter ego, Old Shatterhand, shape

millions of readers’ view of the American West. May’s works con-

tinue to appeal to Germans long after his death, and his popular

allure, German newspapers have maintained, is greater than

that of any other German author between Johann Wolfgang von

Goethe and Thomas Mann, outshining famous German writers

like Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertolt Brecht. The cult

status of May (dubbed by Der Spiegel “the Pop Star of Saxony”) and

his Villa Shatterhand have been compared to that of Elvis Presley

and Graceland. His message of German nationalism and Protestant

Christian values, and his emphasis on chivalry, manliness, and

adventure, still appeal to the German audience.

Although they may not be as popular as they once were,

Winnetou and Old Shatterhand’s adventures still charm. And

against the unlikely possibility that Karl May’s heroes will indeed

ride into their happy hunting grounds and be forgotten, we have

the exploits of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand on Germany’s big

screen. While early productions go back to the silent-movies

era of the 1920s, the 1960s creations rejuvenated Karl May’s

popularity, although the films are often only mildly reminiscent

of his novels: a French actor as Winnetou and an American

actor as Old Shatterhand battle Mexican bandits, marauding

Indian tribes, and Anglo-American thugs in the former

Yugoslavia (Croatia), which substitutes for New Mexico and the

American West. These films keep May’s work alive to this day.

Germans’ obsession with everything Native American has been

widely known for decades, and Karl May festivals in old quarries

continue annually in Bad Segeberg and elsewhere.

But to get back to the opening question of why Karl May is

unknown in the United States. It may be partly because in the

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Above: a distinguished-looking Karl may at the height of his career in 1906.

Courtesy Karl-may-museum, Radebeul, Germany.

Opposite: In 1908, at age sixty-six, Karl may made his only trip to the United

states, visiting new york City, niagara Falls, and Buffalo. may is seated in the

first row of this Buffalo tour bus. Courtesy Karl-may-museum.

United States, the Wild West is within reach for those who want

to see it for themselves. Additionally, in the United States May was

easily eclipsed by the likes of James Fenimore Cooper, Zane Grey,

and Larry McMurtry. The United States did not take readily to a

German writer holed up in his fantasy world, gaining his

knowledge from second-hand sources and transferring it with far-

fetched fantasy onto paper. It did not need a writer of westerns

who inconsistently preaches pacifism, criticizes Anglo-American

culture, and views Native Americans from within his own Weltbild.

Karl May is clearly the most influential German writer to have

commented on the American West and on Native and Anglo cultures.

His aficionados and literary critics waver about his impact, his

importance, and his stature in literature, calling him everything

from narcissist to maniac to imposter to genius. The fact remains

that Winnetou and Old Shatterhand shaped millions of readers’

perception of the American West and continued to do so even

after May’s criminal past became public knowledge and his “travel

narratives” were debunked as products of his imagination.

For those of us who grew up on his books and read about

his adventures on the Great Plains and in the Rocky Mountains,

May’s literary importance and his checkered past are relatively

irrelevant. We want to see the places he writes about, even if they

don’t exist. Walking the plaza in Santa Fe on a warm summer day,

listening to all the languages spoken there, I sometimes wonder

how many of these tourists, having read Karl May’s western

Americana stories or seen their cinematic versions, came here

searching for Winnetou or Old Shatterhand.

sources: there is no english biography of Karl may. For this article I used Ray allen Billington’s

Land of Savagery, Land of Promise: The European Image of the American Frontier (1981);

and Germans and Indians: Fantasies, Encounters, Projections, edited by Colin Calloway, Gerd

Gemünden, and susanne Zantop (2002). Richard Cracroft, in an older article, introduces the

american audience to “the american West of Karl may” (American Quarterly, January 1967).

other studies that I consulted are Karl May, by hans Wollschläger (1976); “Old Shatterhand,

das bin ich”: Die Lebensgeschichte des Karl May, by Frederik hetmann (2000); Karl May:

Untertan, Hochstapler, Übermensch, by Rüdiger schaper (2011); and Karl May im Llano

Estacado, edited by meredith mcClain and Reinhold Wolff (2004).

Tomas Jaehn is a historian who works as archivist and librarian at the Fray angélico

Chávez history Library at the new mexico history museum/Palace of the Governors.

he curated the exhibition Tall Tales of the Wild West: The Stories of Karl May, which

opens at the new mexico history museum on november 18, 2012.

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