The ‘other America’ and its performers: pathways to socialism in the DEFA Indianerfilme

Abstract

The DEFA Indian films, known as ‘Red Westerns’ or Indianerfilme, depict historical confrontations between Native American tribes and an expansionist United States. The Indianerfilme have attracted interest as expressions of East German enthusiasm for Native American culture and as multidimensional allegories of both Third World resistance movements and an idealized GDR. This study considers the films as Marxist analyses of American society querying whether the United States has a viable path to socialism. The analysis centers on the presentation of ‘other American’ characters: conscientious white people who oppose Washington’s racial imperialism and join forces with the resisting natives. These characters form part of a trend in East German politics in which some Americans were considered exempt from their country’s moral failures on account of their vigorous criticisms of U.S. society and policy. The study examines ‘other American’ characters in three Indianerfilme: Weiße Wölfe (1969), Osceola (1971) and Blutsbrüder (1975). Although these films cover distinct historical periods, native tribes and geographies of North America, they all suggest a similar conclusion: if America is to progress toward socialism, white characters must completely renounce their country’s oppressive order and, crucially, offer a viable alternative system that can replace it. Any eventual American socialism, however, will be one in which virtuous whites are dominant and nonwhite peoples are absent or subordinate.