The first West German Western film, “Treasure of Silver Lake,” came out in 1962. It turned into just this huge blockbuster and then sort of catapulted these Wild West films into this whole series that became quite beloved in Germany in the 1960s, says Koch.

“So, at this time in the 1960s, Germany was of course divided between east and west, and it wasn't until 1966 that East Germany released their first Western film, and the storyline in the East German films was a really strong critique of Western imperialism, following the sort of anti-capitalist account of the Soviet and communist agenda,” she says.

“And so in this, you could see how they talked about the evils of American settler colonialism and capitalism in, in that particular storyline, which of course was quite different in the West German ones,”

Listen to the full interview on KJZZ, or read the article, “You've probably heard of Western movies — but what about East German Westerns?”