Hunting in the GDR
The hunting in the East , by the SED under the name of people hunting propagated was the 1953 subjected proclaimed "Law for hunting management control", the management of the Wild and the subjective right to hunt in the hands of the State put.
Hunting law and hunting practice
Hunting in the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany differed mainly in terms of the legal regulation system. The binding of the right to hunt to real estate in the Federal Republic ( Revierjagdsystem ) was opposed to the people's hunting law in the GDR. Hunting areas were made available by the state. The GDR's hunting law, published in 1953, was commented on with the words “the hunt belongs to the people”. The GDR's only hunting magazine still in existence today had the programmatic title Our Hunt . Due to the fear that arming the people could threaten the autocracy of the SED, the possession of weapons by hunters was set tight. Rifles were only temporarily made available to the hunters organized in hunting cooperatives and, in contrast to shotguns, were hardly accessible. Therefore had hoofed game with slugs are shot. A citizen hunt in the sense of a broad participation of citizens in hunting did not arise. In the GDR press, a strong contrast between people's hunt and “bonzen hunt” was propagated in the Federal Republic as a result of capitalism. According to interview statements by former GDR hunters, the situation in the GDR hunting societies was largely egalitarian.
State hunt
The SED leadership secured special rights when hunting in specially designated areas, which were designated as state hunting, diplomatic hunting and so-called game research areas. These were only available to exclusive groups of people such as high-ranking military personnel and employees of the state security . Among other things, she organized diplomatic hunts and elaborate hunting events with industrial delegations, for example in the Schorfheide . Soviet hunting areas, which were hunted by the Russian soldiers stationed in the GDR, made up just under eight percent of the total huntable area in the GDR. The way of working in the state and diplomatic hunting areas and their complex infrastructure, such as their own roads, exclusively equipped hunting lodges and vehicle fleets, was specifically geared towards high-ranking guests and long-term hunting users as well as trophy hunts over long distances in a short time.
Digression
State hunts were by no means a peculiarity of the GDR. Special hunting areas for the nomenklatura had already been designated in Lenin's Soviet Union. The Romanian dictator Ceausescu was honored, among other things, as a trophy hunter by the International Council for the Conservation of Game and Hunting (CIC), and the Yugoslav ruler Tito was also a passionate hunter, for whom game had to be driven directly to the shotgun in old age.
Prominent hunters from the west also used the eastern game reserves, according to the long-time Bavarian Prime Minister and CSU Chairman Franz Josef Strauss , who combined his hunting trips with informal state visits. In Hungary, the large state hunting grounds had been opened to paying hunters from the "West" long before the fall of the Wall and thus served as a source of foreign exchange income.
With the change of power from Walter Ulbricht to Erich Honecker , hunting was further popularized in the Politburo . Immediately after taking office, Honecker set up the State Hunting Inspection , a working group that centrally carried out building projects and briefing hunting guests in the state and diplomatic hunting areas. The Hubertusstock hunting lodge was the scene of visits by leading Western economic forces, including Berthold Beitz . Honecker's hunting passion was part of a cross-system tradition in terms of effort and practice.
regional customs
The - in some aspects - quite feudal hunting and forestry in the GDR preserved a whole series of hunting traditions including specific uniforms and music. The hobby rituals, which were frowned upon at the beginning, were not waived for purely practical reasons (e.g. signaling). In 1976, the editors of our hunt were urged to "embed the heathen manners and customs in the socialist hunting culture". This gave customs a socialist veneer, simply in that textbooks, articles and essays stopped addressing the origins of traditional actions. Instead, hunting traditions such as bowl driving were founded with the "educational value, which above all should serve to consolidate the collective" and new hobby customs were introduced that were "consistently subject to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism". This included competitions for increased safety in hunting.
In addition to the state-owned forest companies, the most important church forest enterprises in the GDR had their own costumes and badges. Likewise, the title of forest master was awarded to deserving wind group leaders, even if they were not active in forestry.
consequences
The legally manifested dichotomy in hunting in the GDR ultimately led to a division into a public and a secret (special) hunting system. The game that was shot also had to be handed over to the state wildlife collection point as the property of the people. The distinctive artisanal furrier system of the GDR used the pelts and furs that had accumulated. “Citizenship” was a compulsory subject for aspiring hunters and took up more space than dealing with hunting weapons. In 1957 it was decided in the main administration of the German People's Police that deliberately only an insufficient number of rifles should be available for the hunters. The GDR Institute for Game Research, which was only revived at the end of the 1950s, was, according to the official diction, aimed at increasing the game population in order to increase the meat supply for the population.
The export-oriented production of hunting weapons in the GDR was concentrated in Suhl with the vehicle and hunting weapons factory "Ernst Thälmann" and the gunsmiths' cooperative (BüHaG). Private hunting rifles were officially awarded throughout the GDR only about 100 pieces annually, which went to hunters who were particularly deserving in the socialist sense.
A direct consequence of the hunting practice in the GDR, which was geared towards trophies and large hunting ranges, was a significantly excessive game population and damage to agriculture and forestry worth millions .
See also
literature
- Christoph Stubbe (ed.): The hunt in the GDR - without lease another hunt . 1st edition. Nimrod-Verlag, Hanstedt 2001, ISBN 978-3-927848-35-1 , table of contents online (PDF) .
- Meike Haselmann: The hunt in the GDR - between feudalism and socialism . In: Rigo Hopfenmüller (Ed.): Reader - VIII. Colloquium for scholarship holders of the Federal Foundation for Work-Up . Federal Foundation to Process the SED dictatorship, Berlin 2008, pp. 39–43, full text online (PDF) .
- Helmut Suter: Honecker's last stag. Hunting and power in the GDR . Be-bra-Verlag, 2nd edition 2018, ISBN 978-3-898-09146-6 .
- Helmut Suter and Burghard Ciesla: Hunting and Power: The History of the Schorfheide Hunting Area . Be-bra-Verlag 2011, ISBN 978-3-898-09090-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Meike Haselmann: The hunt in the GDR - between feudalism and socialism . In: Rigo Hopfenmüller (Ed.): Reader - VIII. Colloquium for scholarship holders of the Federal Foundation for Work-Up . Federal Foundation to Process the SED Dictatorship, Berlin 2008, p. 39–43 ( archive.org [PDF; accessed January 4, 2019]).
- ↑ Eckhard Fuhr : Hunting pleasure. Why it is nice, good, and sensible to go hunting . Behem, 2012, ISBN 978-3-86995-034-1 , pp. 58 .
- ↑ Eastern Bloc: Feudal splendor . In: Der Spiegel . tape April 16 , 1985 ( archive.org [accessed February 9, 2019]).
- ^ Fred Ruchhöft: Forestry of the Eastern Protestant Churches between 1945 and 1991. BoD - Books on Demand, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8482-0577-6 .
- ↑ Allgemeine Forstzeitschrift, Volume 43, Issues 27–53, Bayerischer Landwirtschaftsverlag, 1988
- ^ Frank Oeser: Brandenburg hunting law. Editor Norbert Fitzner. W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-555-52025-3 , p. 1 f.
