Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – The Baden-Württemberg Minister of Education Theresa Schopper considers the decision of the Ravensburger publishing house to be wrong to stop the delivery of the children’s book “The Young Chief Winnetou”. “Personally, I would have liked it if Ravensburger had made a different decision and the books could have been read,” said the Green Minister of the “Heilbronner Voice” (Saturday).
Of course, Winnetou uses clichés because the life of the Indians or the indigenous population is no longer the same, said Schopper. “But if we apply this standard to all fairy tales and children’s books, where will it lead?” Children’s books from the past now served clichés. “Struwwelpeter is pure black pedagogy. Should we therefore ban him?”
As a child, she loved the old Winnetou films with the actor Pierre Brice. “During carnival I was often Nscho-tschi, Winnetou’s sister,” said Schopper. However, she has not read the books from Ravensburger Verlag and has not seen the film “The Young Chief Winnetou”.
The publisher had withdrawn two books based on the film of the same name, as well as a puzzle and a sticker book. In an Instagram post, the company justified this with user feedback that showed “that we hurt the feelings of others with the Winnetou titles”. Criticism was initially sparked by the film adaptation of the same name because the film served racist prejudices and used a colonial narrative style.
