the famous "Old-Shatterhand-Melodie". The films starred, among many others, American actor Lex Barker and British actor Stewart Granger. The audience was enthusiastic about the wistful melodies, the fanfare-like music accompanying attacks, and the cheerful hillbilly tunes. Martin Böttcher's main themes from these films reached top positions in the German charts and sold thousands of records. The music for the Winnetou films is a landmark in German film music history. The success of these films, accompanied by Böttcher's music, made possible the "Spaghetti Westerns" with the music of Ennio Morricone. With the German film industry declining at the end of the 1960s Martin Böttcher increasingly focused on working for German TV, which benefited from his talents in many films and series produced for TV. In the 1970s Martin Böttcher wrote a number of successful scores, among them music for the TV series Sonderdezernat K1 and numerous episodes of Der Alte and Derrick, which are also known outside Germany. He again came in contact with the works of Karl May when he wrote the score for the 26-episode series Kara Ben Nemsi Effendi. The writer of Der Illegale (a TV mini-series), Henry Kolarz, said, "Even if I spoilt it, Böttcher's music is much too good for everything to go wrong." Throughout the following years Martin Böttcher composed yet more evergreen themes for TV-series, such as [[Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein (TV series)|It can't always be caviar]] (1977), Schöne Ferien (Beautiful holidays) or Forsthaus Falkenau. In the 1990s, among others, Air Albatros took off - a very special project for the composer, as he could pay a musical tribute to his passion for flying. And when Pierre Brice mounted his horse again as Winnetou for the ZDF television station, he was, of course, accompanied by a score by Martin Böttcher. Even the Americans became aware of him as an arranger and orchestra director. When they heard his renditions of the world-famous themes "Tara's Theme" and "Theme from 'A Summerplace'", Martin Böttcher was made an honorary member of the Max Steiner Society. In 1998, the composer once more conquered the German charts. A band from Cologne, the "Superboys", scored a hit with a vocal version of the "Winnetou-Melodie" from the second Winnetou film. Their song "Ich wünscht' du wärst bei mir" ("Wish U Were Here") even reached the top of the ZDF television charts. Another cover version by the Czech group Těžkej Pokondr