This book demonstrates how the two adversaries of the Cold War, West Germany and East Germany, endeavored to create two distinct and unique German identities. In their endeavor to claim legitimacy, the German cinematic representation of the American West became an important cultural weapon of mass dissemination during the Cold War.

Introduction 1. Karl May Westerns and the Conquest of the American West 2. Indianerfilme and the Conquest of the American West 3. German Westerns: Popularity, Reception, Heroines, Miscegenation, Race, and Landscape 4. German Indian Heroes and Intercultural Transfer 5. The Quest for National Identity Conclusion

Pawel Goral is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Arlington, USA.