Animal welfare in Nazi Germany: Difference between revisions
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==Influence after World War II== |
==Influence after World War II== |
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The views of Nazi Germany on protection of animals often came up within some [[ |
The views of Nazi Germany on protection of animals often came up within some [[Far Right|Far right-wing]] political parties.<ref name=KALTIO/> Support for animal rights is seen among [[Neo-fascism|neo-fascists]].<ref name=ARMYTHS/> In the [[United Kingdom]], a few [[neo-Nazi]] groups who read Nazi Germany's efforts for the protection of animal rights, attempted to join the animal liberation movement.<ref name=KALTIO/> There has been discussion of the Green Nazi phenomenon in the [[United States]].<ref name=KALTIO/> The famous speech by Hermann Göring on prohibition of vivisection is found on some neo-Nazi websites.<ref name=KALTIO/> The Nazi efforts on animal protection have some influence on [[Finland|Finnish]] radical [[Deep ecology|deep ecologist]] [[Pentti Linkola]].<ref name=KALTIO/><ref name="AF159">{{cite book |
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|author= Mika LaVaque-Manty |
|author= Mika LaVaque-Manty |
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|title= Arguments and Fists: Political agency and justification in liberal theory |
|title= Arguments and Fists: Political agency and justification in liberal theory |
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Revision as of 22:30, 22 March 2008
There was widespread support for animal rights in Nazi Germany[1] and the Nazis took several measures to ensure protection of animals.[2] Several Nazi leaders, like Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, were nature preservers for ideological reasons.[3] Himmler made efforts to ban hunting of animals[4] and used the concept of "animal rights" for the first time in its modern sense in a publication of the Schutzstaffel in 1934.[3] Hermann Göring was an animal lover and conservationist.[5] The current animal welfare laws in Germany are more or less modification of the laws introduced by the Nazis.[6]
Measures
At the end of the nineteenth century, kosher butchering and vivisection were the main concerns regarding animal protection in Germany.[7] These concerns continued among the Nazis.[7] The Nazi view on animal protection rejected anthropocentric perspective — animals were not to be protected for human interests, but for themselves.[8] In 1927, a Nazi representative to the Reichstag called for actions against cruelty to animals and kosher butchering.[7]
In 1932, the Nazi party proposed a ban on vivisection.[7] In the early 1933, representatives of the Nazi party to the Prussian parliament hold a meeting to enact this ban.[7] On April 21, 1933, almost immediately after the Nazis came to power, the parliament started to pass laws for the regulation of animal slaughter.[7] Nazi Germany was the first nation to ban vivisection.[9] A law imposing total ban on vivisection was enacted in August 16, 1933, by Hermann Göring as the prime minister of Prussia.[10] He announced to end the "unbearable torture and suffering in animal experiments" and told that those who "still think they can treat animals as inanimate property" will be send to concentration camps.[11][7] On August 28, 1933, Göring announced in a radio broadcast:[12]
An absolute and permanent ban on vivisection is not only a necessary law to protect animals and to show sympathy with their pain, but it is also a law for humanity itself.... I have therefore announced the immediate prohibition of vivisection and have made the practice a punishable offense in Prussia. Until such time as punishment is pronounced the culprit shall be lodged in a concentration camp.
Goering also banned commercial animal trapping, imposed severe restrictions on hunting, and regulated the shoeing of horses.[12] He imposed regulations even on the boiling of lobsters and crabs.[12] In one incident, he sent a fisherman to concentration camp[12] for cutting up a bait frog.[9]
In 24 November 1933, Nazi Germany enacted another law, Tierschutzgesetz, for protection of animals.[13][14] This law prohibited many mistreatment against animals including use of animals for filmmaking and other public events which cause the animals enough pain or damage to health, feeding fowls forcefully and tearing out the thighs of living frogs.[13] The animal protection law Tierschutzgesetz was the first in the world which defined rights for animals as they were, regardless of the needs or feelings of humans.[3] The law was the first which abolished the distinction between domestic and wild animals.[3] It defined as legal subjects "all living creatures that in general language and biologically regarded as animals. In a criminal sense, there is no distinction between domestic and wild animals, higher or lower valued animals, or useful or harmful animals to humans."[3] All animal rights laws in the western countries are based on these principles.[3]
On 3 July 1934, a law Das Reichsjagdgesetz was enacted which limited hunting.[14] On 1 July 1935, another law Reichsnaturschutzgesetz was passed to protect nature.[14] The animal protection laws made by the Nazis were the strictest in the history.[3] Conservation zones were established all over the country for the protection of endangered species.[3] Lithuania and major parts of Ukraine were outlined for afforestation into their natural state as soon as their population was destroyed.[3] Nazi Germany was the first in the world to place the wolf under protection.[3]
In 1934, Nazi Germany hosted an international conference on animal protection in Berlin.[15] In 1938, animal protection was accepted as a subject to be taught in public schools and universities in Germany.[15]
Below is a chronology of some significant pieces of legislation on animal protection in Nazi Germany:
- April 21, 1933 - A law on the slaughter of animals was passed.[16]
- April 24, 1933 - Order of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior regarding slaughter of poikilotherms.[16]
- January 18, 1934 - A law on hunting was passed in Prussia.[16]
- February 23, 1934 - A decree was enacted by the Prussian Ministry of Commerce and Employment which introduced education on the animal protection laws at primary, secondary and college levels.[16]
- March 27, 1936 - Order on the slaughter of living fishes and other poikilotherms.[16]
- March 18, 1936 - An order was passed on afforestation and on protection of animals in the wild.[16]
- September 9, 1937 - A decree was published by the Ministry of the Interior which specified guidelines for transportation of animals.[17]
- November 11, 1938 - A decree was published by the Ministry of the Interior which specified guidelines for transportation of animals in motor vehicles.[17]
Effectiveness
Despite enacting various laws for protection of animal rights, there was a lack of enforcement.[10] The Nazis also felt that vivisection was important for research,[10] including research necessary for rearmament.[18] Strict laws prohibiting animal testing were moderated because except a few like Josef Mengele, most researchers showed unwillingness in replacing test animals with humans.[3] The original intentions of the laws had to be compromised and regulations became weaker.[18] The law enacted by Hermann Göring on August 16, 1933 banning vivisection survived only three weeks and it was revised by a decree of September 5 with more lax provisions.[18] According to Pfugers Archiv fur die Gesamte Physiologie, a science journal at that time, there were many animal experiments during the Nazi regime.[19] In 1936, the Chamber of Veterinarians (Tierarztekammer) in Darmstadt filed a formal complaint against the lack of enforcement of the animal protection laws on those who conducted illegal animal testing.[20] In general, the effectiveness of the law remain limited.[20]
Controversies
Equating animal protection with Jewish persecution
There is some controversy over the attitude of the Nazis for legislation regarding animal rights. As the Nazis equated animal rights with Jewish persecution, the laws and accusation of vivisection were often used as a pretext to prosecute Jewish scientists.[9] In 1940, a discussion was started within the administration about prohibiting pets which are not much useful for the purpose of saving foodstuffs for human consumption.[20] But personal interference by Hitler stopped this proposal.[20] Ultimately a decree was published by the administration against pets, but it referred only to the pets in the possession of non-Aryan citizens.[20] On February 15, 1942, a decree was published prohibiting Jews from keeping pets,[17] which the Jews found humiliating.[20]
Intolerance for non-Nazi activists
Boria Sax in his book Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust documented that the Nazis manipulated the attitudes for animal protection for conforming to their own symbolic system. By equating the National Socialist German Workers Party with "nature", the Nazis reduced ethical issues to biological questions. As a result, predatory animals were honored along with their human counterparts i.e. leaders and functionaries of the Nazi party, and opponents were identified as sheep destined for being killed.[21]
With the claim of having a special bond with nature, the Nazis stigmatized their opponents as being unnatural.[22] The Nazi regime showed intolerance for activism related to environmentalism and animal protection by their adversaries.[22] The Friends of Nature was a socialist-oriented environmental organization which had a membership of over 100,000.[22] The Nazis disbanded this organization and all of its properties were confiscated.[22]
Influence after World War II
The views of Nazi Germany on protection of animals often came up within some Far right-wing political parties.[3] Support for animal rights is seen among neo-fascists.[11] In the United Kingdom, a few neo-Nazi groups who read Nazi Germany's efforts for the protection of animal rights, attempted to join the animal liberation movement.[3] There has been discussion of the Green Nazi phenomenon in the United States.[3] The famous speech by Hermann Göring on prohibition of vivisection is found on some neo-Nazi websites.[3] The Nazi efforts on animal protection have some influence on Finnish radical deep ecologist Pentti Linkola.[3][23]
Difference from animal liberation movement
The Nazi concept of protecting animal rights was different from the modern animal liberation movement. The view which Nazis had about the relationship between human and nature was mystical.[3] The animal liberation movement is based on the concept of equality of humans and animals and seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human beings. The Nazi ideology justified similar arguments by inequality.[3] According to the Nazi view, a hierarchical continuum was seen.[8] At the top of this hierarchy was the Aryan race, then came the animals, and finally, the Untermensch.[3] The ones on top of the hierarchy had the moral duty to defend their weaker brothers.[3] Humanity as a concept was completely rejected.[8]
There had been an ideological tradition behind ideas of animal rights by the Nazi.[3] In the spirit of nationalism, German thinking already imagined a connection with the nature and animals during the rise of Romanticism in the 19th century.[3] Richard Wagner linked vegetarianism and prohibition of animal testing with Antisemitism.[3] He opined that meat eating and animal oppression originated from Jewish culture and animal testing was related with the Jewish custom of kosher butchering.[3] Wagner had influence on the thoughts of the Nazis to act directly against vivisection.[3] The persecution of the Jews was partially justified as animal protection.[3] The Jews oppressed animals, therefore attacking them was defending the animals and a moral duty.[3]
The concept of the Nazis regarding vegetarianism had little link with the recognition of the moral significance of animals.[24] It was primarily an anthropocentric concern for the quality of food, which was connected with racial purity.[24]
Notes
- ^ Thomas R. DeGregori (2002). Bountiful Harvest: Technology, Food Safety, and the Environment. Cato Institute. pp. p153. ISBN 1930865317.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Arnold Arluke, Clinton Sanders (1996). Regarding Animals. Temple University Press. pp. p132. ISBN 1566394414.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa Animal Rights in the Third Reich
- ^ Martin Kitchen (2006). A History of Modern Germany, 1800-2000. Blackwell Publishing. pp. p278. ISBN 1405100400.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Seymour Rossel (1992). The Holocaust: The World and the Jews, 1933-1945. Behrman House, Inc. pp. p79. ISBN 0874415268.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Bruce Braun, Noel Castree (1998). Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millenium. Routledge. pp. p92. ISBN 0415144930.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c d e f g Arnold Arluke, Clinton Sanders (1996). Regarding Animals. Temple University Press. pp. p133. ISBN 1566394414.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c Boria Sax (2000). Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 42. ISBN 0826412890.
- ^ a b c Kathleen Marquardt (1993). Animalscam: The Beastly Abuse of Human Rights. Regnery Publishing. pp. p125. ISBN 0895264986.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c Frank Uekoetter (2006). The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany. Cambridge University Press. pp. p55. ISBN 0521848199.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c Animal rights myths FAQ
- ^ a b c d Kathleen Marquardt (1993). Animalscam: The Beastly Abuse of Human Rights. Regnery Publishing. pp. p124. ISBN 0895264986.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b Nazi Germany and animal rights
- ^ a b c Luc Ferry (1995). The New Ecological Order. University of Chicago Press. pp. p91. ISBN 0226244830.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b Arnold Arluke, Clinton Sanders (1996). Regarding Animals. Temple University Press. pp. p137. ISBN 1566394414.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c d e f Boria Sax (2000). Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. p181. ISBN 0826412890.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c Boria Sax (2000). Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. p182. ISBN 0826412890.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c Frank Uekoetter (2006). The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany. Cambridge University Press. pp. p56. ISBN 0521848199.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ C. Ray Greek, Jean Swingle Greek (2002). Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Experiments on Animals. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. p90. ISBN 0826414028.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c d e f Frank Uekoetter (2006). The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany. Cambridge University Press. pp. p57. ISBN 0521848199.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Boria Sax (2000). Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0826412890.
- ^ a b c d Boria Sax (2000). Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. p41. ISBN 0826412890.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Mika LaVaque-Manty (2002). Arguments and Fists: Political agency and justification in liberal theory. Routledge. pp. p159. ISBN 0415931983.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b Robert Garner (2005). The Political Theory of Animal Rights. Manchester University Press. pp. p87. ISBN 0719067103.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help)