HGIA: Bambi

Bambi
Image from the Max Kade Institute Library.

The deep interrelationship between American popular culture and its German backgrounds is hinted at through this image, one of the illustrations of the German-born immigrant artist Kurt Wiese (1887–1974) for the story Bambi. Originally published in German in 1923, Bambi was written by the Hungarian/Austrian Jewish writer Felix Salten (pseudonym for Siegmund Salzmann, 1869–1945) and first appeared in the U.S. in English translation in a 1928 edition that included Wiese’s drawings. Though written as an adult allegory alluding to Jewish persecution in Europe, Bambi became one of Walt Disney’s most beloved family movies (1942).

<< Previous  |  How German is American?  |  Next >>