After debate
Canceled because of Winnetou: ZDF shows “Winnetou” film on the day of German unity
“The Young Chief Winnetou”, which has been in German cinemas since August 11, has been heavily criticized for its colonialist narrative style and racist motifs
© dpa
After the heated summer debate about Winnetou, ZDF is sticking with the films. On the Day of German Unity, “Winnetou and the Half-Blood Apanatschi” is to be broadcast with Uschi Glas.
Canceled because of Winnetou: ZDF is showing one of the classic Karl May films with Pierre Brice and Lex Barker on the Day of German Unity (October 3, 11:30 a.m.): “Winnetou and the Half-Blood Apanatschi”. Uschi Glas plays the settler’s daughter Apanatschi, who gets her father’s secret gold mine for her birthday and is kidnapped by greedy prospectors.
Generations in Germany have been shaped by the Karl May film adaptations from the 1960s with Pierre Brice as Winnetou.
These films were often shown on ARD stations. However, they can no longer show the first and third, because according to the ARD program directorate, the license rights expired in 2020.
Despite the Winnetou debate: ZDF shows “Winnetou and the Half-Blood Apanatschi”
The film was last shown on linear television on November 1st on the private channel Kabel Eins, before that in August and April 2021 on Sat.1 Gold. Before that, Kabel Eins showed it on November 1, 2019 and in June 2019. The last ARD stations to broadcast were BR Fernsehen (New Year’s Eve 2018 at noon) and MDR Fernsehen (July 2018).
The now 78-year-old Glas was still on the screen as Ursula Glas in “Winnetou and the Half-Blood Apanatschi”. She was 22 when the film hit theaters in the summer of 1966. It was one of her first leading roles before her breakthrough came in 1968 with the tragic comedy “Zur Sache, Schätzchen”. Götz George also played alongside her.
The prominent TV broadcast on the national holiday is actually only noteworthy because a sometimes heated debate about cultural appropriation and racism raged around Winnetou in the summer. It came about after a publisher had withdrawn two companion books to a new Winnetou film for children. Some then sensed exaggerated criticism of traditional materials.
ZDF writes about the broadcast of the “Apanatschi” film: “After the great success of the previous Karl May films in the 1960s, successful producer Horst Wendlandt remained true to the tried and tested approach: the template of the famous author, in this case the story ” Half-Blood” was changed and rewritten almost beyond recognition; only the basic motifs remained.”
The character of Apanatschi did not come from Karl May either, but was fictitious, explains ZDF. Her voice cannot be heard from Uschi Glas. “However, almost 50 years later, in an interview, she contradicted the persistent rumor that she had been dubbed because of her Bavarian accent.”