Fighting Like Indians. The "Indian Scout Syndrome" in American and German War Reports of World War II

Abstract

Whether invoking the noble—or the cruel—savage, the image of Native Americans has always included notions of war and fighting. Non-Natives have attributed character traits to them such as cunning, stealth, endurance, and bravery; and they have used these im ages to denounce or to idealize Native Americans. In the U.S., a prolon ged history of frontier conflict, multiplied by popular frontier myths, has resulted in a collective memory of Indians as fighters. While images of fighting Indians have entered American everyday language, Germans have had no significant collective history of American frontier settlement and conflicts with Native Americans. Nevertheless, they have acquired a number of idioms and figures of speech relating to Indian images due to the romanticized euphoria for Native themes, spurred by popular nove ls and Wild West shows.