Ferdinand von Raesfeld
Ferdinand-August Albert Maria von Raesfeld [ ˈraːsˌfɛlt ] (born September 29, 1855 in Dorsten , † May 6, 1929 in Marquartstein ) was a Prussian forester , hunter and author of standard works in German-language hunting literature . With his statements on hunting and keeping the game , which he summarized with Hege with the rifle , he was way ahead of his time.
Life
Childhood and youth
Ferdinand August Albert Maria von Raesfeld was born on September 29, 1855 in Dorsten, Westphalia, as the son of the physician Albert Ferdinand Maria von Raesfeld and the merchant's daughter Marie Augusta Bernadia Berta von Raesfeld (née Reischel). On October 2nd of the same year he was baptized in the St. Agatha Church in Dorsten. As the oldest of nine siblings, he grew up in a house belonging to Raesfeld's maternal grandparents on Blinde Strasse (today Ursulastrasse / An der Vehme). From 1867 he lived in a striking house at Essener Tor (today Essener Straße / Südwall).
His affinity for nature became apparent early on: with the support of his father, he set up herbariums , observed, collected and kept animals. On his uncle Kurt von Raesfeld's “Hohenkamp” estate outside the city, he learned from him to hunt with a bow , crossbow and small-bore rifle. At the age of twelve he made the decision to become a forester and hunter.
After elementary school he attended the Progymnasium in his hometown from 1865 to 1872. In order to do the Abitur, he switched to the Gymnasium Nepomucenianum in Coesfeld , which he left on July 21, 1874 with good final grades.
Training and military
Raesfeld did an apprenticeship as a forester at the Rumbeck Forestry Office on the Weser . From 1876 he studied at the Forest Academy in Eberswalde . There he became active in the Academic Schützenhaus-Gesellschaft (ASG). During his studies he met Adelheid Maria Hartmann, daughter of an Eberswalde city council, and became engaged to the 17-year-old. He did not quite pass the final exam after four semesters, and one year later he had to take the exam in botany , which was taught by Theodor Hartig .
In order to bridge this waiting time, Raesfeld registered as a one-year volunteer for military service and first came to the 2nd Jäger Battalion in Greifswald . According to his own information, his NCOs harassed him, so that after six months he was transferred to the Guard Fusilier Regiment in Berlin to do the rest of his service there. He then served for some time in the 1st Guards Regiment on foot , but soon left there.
He left his military career to gain experience as a forester trainee lawyer in numerous forest offices in Prussia. He was particularly impressed from the ground to Darß . He also came to the Schorfheide Forestry Office in Groß Schönebeck for a while , where he taught at the forestry school. As a passionate hunting horn player, he founded a wind corps there. He earned a little money in the forest offices with mapping work.
Russia and back
Raesfeld passed the state examination as head forester in 1881. In 1882 he took on a job in the administration of the Fürstlich Orlovschen forests with 500,000 hectares near the Russian city of Samara on the lower Volga . He was mainly responsible for surveying and mapping the forest and lived in the Ursolje hunting lodge, which was set on fire in 1884 by insurgent workers. Although he received the lucrative offer to take over the management of the forest entirely, in 1884 he became administrative assessor at the Prussian Forestry Office in Meisenheim for five years . On June 8, 1885, the 30-year-old married his student lover Adelheid Maria Hartmann (1860–1932). From 1887 he was chief forester in Meisenheim.
On the Darß
On January 1, 1890, he became the district administrator of the Darß Forestry Office near Born on the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula in the Baltic Sea and lived and worked there for the next 23 years. He reforested cleared forest areas of the Darß near-natural and thus laid the foundation stone for this part of what is now the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park . To this day, 2000 hectares of pine forest have survived, which he planted on a tree-free area. He also put his thoughts on hunting, hunting justice and protection into practice, especially since the wild populations, which are quite isolated on the peninsula, seemed to be well suited for his project. For example, contrary to the opinion of his employers, he let strong animals grow old so that they can pass on their characteristics. His daughter Hildegard Auguste Maria was born in Born on August 18, 1893.
He wrote about his thoughts and experiences in the first issues of the magazine Wild und Hund 1894, sometimes under the code “D. v. D. ". His remarks on the natural gender relationship and the requirement of the fawn shooting in a lecture and its imprint in the game and dog probably led to the clearance of the fawns, which had been spared in Prussia, to be shot . On the Darß he wrote his first three main works Das Rotwild (1898), Das Rehwild (1905) and Das deutsche Waidwerk (1913).
His theses, which were almost revolutionary for traditional hunting, were confirmed. Raesfeld was way ahead of his time when he wrote:
"Take care of rest, allow the game the full years to develop, shoot only inferior ones until the whole thing is brought to a sufficiently high level, and keep no greater number of game than to fully develop and maintain the given conditions to like."
to travel
In 1908 Raesfeld traveled to Tenerife and southern France. His marriage to Adelheid broke up in 1913 because of his affection for a niece of his wife. For these personal reasons and arguments about kills with his superiors, Raesfeld took early retirement and left the Darß. He got an offer to take over a small game area, but turned it down. He traveled through Italy, France and Switzerland and expanded his knowledge of forest, hunting and herding. In order to improve his income, which in addition to his pension consisted of the income from specialist books and fees for publications in hunting magazines, he wrote a few novels and stories with a hunting background on his travels.
Age in Bavaria
From 1915 he continued his hunting studies in southern Germany. On June 28, 1915 the couple Adelheid and Ferdinand von Raesfeld were divorced. In 1916 he married the niece of his former wife, Katharina Charlotte Luise Martha von Brauchitsch (1887–1959) in Weßling, Upper Bavaria . He moved with her first to Jugenheim in Hesse, then to Prien am Chiemsee and finally to Marquartstein im Chiemgau , where he spent the evening of his life. There he called himself, actually unjustifiably, Baron von Raesfeld , because a branch of the old lineage of the von Raesfeld in Bavaria was raised to the baron status.
Raesfeld gave numerous lectures at hunting associations, especially at the General German Hunting Protection Association (ADJV) and its subdivisions. Until 1920 he wrote on his last classic work "The Hege in the Wild".
Ferdinand von Raesfeld died on May 6, 1929 at the age of 73 in Marquartstein in Upper Bavaria. He was buried in Prien, but one year after his death his remains were transferred from Bavaria to his present grave of honor on the Darß.
Honors
In 1996, the Ferdinand von Raesfeld Forest and Hunting Museum was set up in the former Darß Forestry Office in Born . In addition to hunting and forestry, Raesfeld's life and work are also examined. There is a man-high stone block with a bronze plaque near his grave of honor in the Darß forest.
In his hometown Dorsten there is a boulder as a memorial stone with a bronze plate designed by Heinz Kleinespel for Ferdinand von Raesfeld near an educational forest trail in the Barloer Busch forest . In the city library there is a small permanent exhibition with first editions of his works. The "Ferdinand von Raesfeld" working group has been looking after both memorials since 1991; it consists of members of the local homeland associations and herding rings . In addition, a small park path near the old town of Dorsten is named after Raesfeld.
plant
Non-fiction
Ferdinand von Raesfeld's textbooks “Das deutsche Waidwerk” and “Die Hege in der Freie Wildbahn” and especially the monographs “Das Rotwild” and “Das Rehwild” are considered standard works in hunting literature.
Raesfeld's first classic work "Das Rotwild" was published in November 1898 by Paul Parey Verlag , which also published the magazine " Wild und Hund ". "Das Rehwild" appeared in the same format in 1905. The monographs, each with about 400 pages, describe red deer and roe deer in their appearance, their biological structure, behavior and their way of life. In addition, individual chapters deal with the preservation and hunting of game as well as hunting customs.
Up until 1913, Raesfeld wrote the textbook “Das deutsche Weidwerk” on the Darß, in which he summarized his knowledge of large and small game , weapons, types of hunting, guarding and hunting customs and aimed at the hunted layman. The German pasture is a standard in German hunting literature. But only up to and including the 4th edition - those with the spelling "ei". From the 5th edition it was called "Das Deutsche Waidwerk" with "ai" and there was all sorts of drivel in the book, against which old Raesfeld could no longer defend himself.
In the last of his major classic works, "The Hege in the Wilderness" from 1920, he summarized the principles from the previous publications on the Hege des Wildes on about 300 pages.
The essence of the statements in his books are still valid today, but were already made by Ferdinand von Raesfeld himself, and after his death by deserved forest masters and hunters such as Count Sylva-Tarouca, Walter Frevert , Gerd von Lettow-Vorbeck and Detlev Müller-Using brought up to date with the latest knowledge of wildlife biology and weapon technology and adapted to current hunting law . Despite the multiple complete revisions and extensions, the characteristic style of Raesfeld's narrative instruction was retained.
For the first editions of the books, Karl Wagner created numerous vivid drawings. These were supplemented in later editions with drawings and other illustrations by Fritz Laube, Wilhelm Buddenberg , Gerhard Löbenberg and RR Hofmann.
- The deer. Natural history, the preservation and hunting of local noble game in the wild. Parey, Berlin 1898. 9th edition completely revised by Kurt Reulecke, published by Kosmos, Stuttgart 2003. ISBN 3-440-09502-9
- The roe deer. Natural history, protection and hunting. Parey, Berlin 1905. Unchanged reprint published by Parey Zeitschriftenverlag, Singhofen 2000. ISBN 3-89715-541-9 . 9th edition completely revised by Alfred Hubertus Neuhaus and Kurt Schiach, published by Kosmos, Stuttgart 2003. ISBN 3-440-09501-0
- The German woad. An instructional and manual for hunting. Parey, Berlin 1914. 14th edition completely revised by Rüdiger Schwarz , published by Kosmos, Stuttgart 1980. ISBN 3-440-08144-3
- The protection in the wild. A teaching and manual for hunters and hunting owners. Parey, Berlin 1920. 4th edition completely revised by Hans Behnke, published by Parey, Berlin and Hamburg 1978. ISBN 3-490-15412-6
Epic works
The majority of Raesfeld's other works are short stories and novels that can best be assigned to the Biedermeier or late Romantic period. The stories often take place in the hunting environment or in the environment of middle-class families. If they play like “Die Brakkenburg” in Westphalia , he often lets people speak in Westphalian Platt . In some of the stories the autobiographical features are more likely to be decorative, but in some they are clearly in the foreground.
In the volume “From young days”, Raesfeld tells anecdotes about his own childhood and youth in Dorsten using his alter ego “Franz von Oltgrave”. He reports on daily life, school operations, excursions, country festivals and repeated pranks that Franz, his brother Heinrich and their cousins Wilhelm and Johannes Roggenkamp play on the inhabitants of the middle-class town.
In “O Akademia!” There are biographical references to Raesfeld's training at the Eberswalder Forest Academy. He describes his further professional life in “On your own and on someone else's track”.
- In the Wasgenwald. A hunter and war novel from the border region. Neumann, Neudamm 1915
- Hirschbrunn. A story from the forest. Parey, Berlin 1916
- O academia !. A happy book about youth, hunting and love. Neumann, Neudamm 1917. Most recently published by Neumann, Neudamm 2005. ISBN 3-7888-0765-2
- The Wiescherhof. Neumann, Neudamm 1919
- From the hunter's bag . Hunting time and disputes. Parey, Berlin 1920 or 1900, last published by Parey Zeitschriftenverlag, Singhofen, 2005. ISBN 3-89715-549-4
- The white stag. A romance from the Black Forest. Parey, Berlin 1920
- From the younger days. Memories of home and youth. Neumann, Neudamm 1920. Most recently published by Kosmos, Stuttgart 2001. ISBN 3-440-08559-7
- On your own and on someone else's trail. Memories from a forest and hunter's life. Neumann, Neudamm 1921
- The Brakkenburg. Novel. Neumann, Neudamm 1922
Quotes
"For three decades our hunting industry has been moving in the paths that it directed, working and nurturing Germany's hunters as he taught."
literature
- Detlev Müller-Using: Ferdinand von Raesfeld. Life and work. In: Journal for Hunting Science . Parey Verlag, Hamburg 1964, Vol. 10, Issue 1, pp. 19-20, ISSN 0044-2887 .
- Michael Petrak : Ferdinand von Raesfeld. A classic in hunting literature. In: Ferdinand von Raesfelds: From young days. Memories of home and youth. Kosmos, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-440-08559-7 , pp. 251-263 (reprint of the Neudamm 1920 edition).
- Wilhelm Schulte (Ed.): Westphalian heads. 300 life pictures of important Westphalians. 3rd edition Aschendorff, Münster 1984, ISBN 3-402-05700-X , p. 254.
- W. von Raesfeld: The sex of the barons and lords of Raesfeld. 1962, pp. 324-330.
- Herman Kreyenborg: Ferdinand von Raesfeld. A memento for his 100th birthday. In: Westfälische Nachrichten . Münster, September 28, 1955.
- Herman Kreyenborg: Ferdinand von Raesfeld, the last German hunting classic. In: The bell . Oelde, 1st / 2nd October 1955.
- G. Falke: F. v. Raesfeld in memory. In: Wild and Dog . Parey Verlag, Berlin 1979, issue 5.
- H. Garriß: A prophet is not valid in one's own country. Ferdinand von Raesfeld on the 50th anniversary of his death. In: Ruhr Nachrichten Dortmund, May 6, 1979.
- S. Diebäcker: A man of the hunt. In: Dorstener Zeitung. Dorsten, September 28, 2005
- Andreas Gautschi , Helmut Suter : Ferdinand von Raesfeld. Life, work and work of an old master of the German pasture mill. Edition Nimrod, Verlag J. Neumann-Neudamm, 2006, ISBN 978-3-7888-1096-2 .
Individual evidence
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↑ Reprint in: Heimatkalender der Herrlichkeit Lembeck and Dorsten eV , Vol. 53 (1994), pp. 37–45.
Abridged reprint in the prefaces of some editions of the classical works
Web links
- Literature by and about Ferdinand von Raesfeld in the catalog of the German National Library
- Ferdinand August Albert von Raesfeld in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
- Article about the Ferdinand von Raesfeld Museum, a Raesfeld biography in the right margin
- Traces of Ferdinand von Raesfeld in Dorsten
- Part of Ferdinand von Raesfeld's estate in the University and State Library of Münster
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Raesfeld, Ferdinand von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Raesfeld, Ferdinand-August Albert Maria von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Prussian forester, hunter and author of hunting literature and novels |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 29, 1855 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dorsten |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 6, 1929 |
| Place of death | Marquartstein |