I'm a bit in awe of the amount of clashing concepts here. So I go back to first principles.

Everyone concerned in this fracas is human. Every human is born with an ethnicity: Theyhave no control over it. I believe people have no cause to be ashamed of what they have no control over. Should they then be proud?

We have no control over the past, either, it is perception and propaganda about the past that we can control.

In the United States I've seen plenty of ethnic caracatures during my youth and adolescence, many of them were in service of popularization and commercialization completely unrelated to the stereotypes: Cleveland Indians, Aunt Jemima pancake syrup. Was harm being done to anyone by these stereotypes? If so, was ONLY harm being done by them. There are those who argue that publicity of any kind is good.

I was aware of German interest in "The Wild West" and I was under the impression there is a subculture that is well read on the subject, therefore more knowledgeable on details and events than the average American. On to the topic of Germans playing Indians. I'd never heard of the works of May. I wonder if there is an English version of same, also how they would read to modern sensibility. At some level it is amusing to reflect that the theme of 'cowboys and Indians' has a universality to it, and to wonder if somewhere in Bombay some kid is sitting on a lawn reading a Hindi version of Battle at the O K Corral. I don't think that's a stretch.

I think when someone is introduced to another culture it goes through a filter. What emerges may very well be entirely different from what one expects, and it is fascinating to make a study of same.

The story of the United States is pretty much a tale of culture clashes withing a larger culture, and if the larger (maybe philosophically we'd call it a META-) culture can survive. (As usual, Lincoln said it best: "Whether a nation so constituted can long endure." The reason it has endured is for the most part the culture clashes of America have been productive and creative more than they have been destructive and diminishing, though that is certainly a vital part of it.

Now, maybe due to my imagination and my own German name, I'm assuming the Teutonic brain has taken a philosophic attitude toward this survival in the wild. But maybe it'a a bunch of krauts in the kountry wearing funny hats. I dunno.

I don't see why this should be a big downer from a Native point of view (In Alaska we are already Americans, so we use the term "Native" also because we have two main branches: Indians and Eskimos and it is considered impolite to mistake one for other). I find most Natives to be informed and aware enough to have a sense of proportion. I think knowing that large numbers of Germans are even aware of Native Americans can be a positive thing.