The Karl May Museum is a museum in Radebeul, Germany named after the German author Karl May, containing artifacts from May's life as well as from life on the American frontier and Native American life of that era. It is located in Villa Shatterhand, May's Italian Renaissance home. Museum history German author Karl May (1842–1912) wrote many books about the American frontier and Native Americans featuring the fictional characters Winnetou (a Mescalero-Apache Chief) and Old Shatterhand (a white European settler). Mays' books were popular in Germany and created a mystique about the "Wild West" in German popular culture. The museum opened in 1928 in Radebeul, in the house where May had lived, called Villa Shatterhand. It was founded during a peak of interest in the US frontier and Native Americans, fostered in part by the Sarrasani circus, which was headquartered in nearby Dresden, and which was very popular in the 1920s. Sarassani and Native American members of the circus came to the opening, and the Native Americans performed death songs for May. The museum was founded by May's widow and an eccentric Austrian named Ernst Tobis, who was a fan of May's work and had travelled to the American frontier, and liked to tell tall tales about his time there. Tobis donated a large collection of artifacts to help found the museum's collection, which included 17 scalps, some of them from Native Americans. When the Nazis took over Germany, they appropriated the museum and the image of May, and were especially focused on swastikas that appeared in some of the Native American artwork. Hitler Youth were encouraged to visit the museum and to hear stories from Tobis. After World War II, the original museum was in East Germany and a replica was built in Bamberg in West Germany. A person who called himself Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance became associated with the museum shortly after the war ended. From 1956 to 1984, the museum in Radebeul was called the "Indianer Museum", because May's books were suppressed by the East German government, in part because of the association with the Nazis, but also because the books were viewed as leading people to want to travel, which the government did not allow. During the Cold War placards in the museum in Radebeul and its displays were refactored to describe oppression of Native Americans by the US, as part of Soviet propaganda efforts