Leo Dorn

Thorn with a hunted eagle

Leo Dorn, 1897

Leo Dorn (born January 16, 1836 in Oberstdorf ; † November 5, 1915 in Hindelang ) was a German alpinist and hunter . He was the body hunter of Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria , whose hunting ground he managed, and was known as the "Eagle King".

Life

Leo Dorn was a son of the hunter Ignaz Dorn and his wife Genofeva, nee. Enamel. He was a talented alpinist: Even in his youth, Dorn brought the brood from the eagle nests in the Oytal ; together with Thaddäus Blattner he later dared dangerous climbs to the Höfats .

He was employed by the Prince Regent Luitpold as a head hunter and entrusted with the herding of the red deer in the area around Hindelang. Prince Regent Luitpold had brought 17 red deer from his Forstenrieder Park to the area, which had been shot empty in the course of the revolution of 1848 after the nobility privileges, which included the high hunt, were abolished. The holdings had to be rebuilt and protected from interference, which was among other things Leo Dorn's job as a custodian. In this capacity he not only acted against poachers whom he pursued as far as Tyrol, but also against birds of prey. In Dorn's time, golden eagles were considered pests that had to be destroyed. From 1858 Dorn shot with pointed bullets, from 1867 he used a breech loader .

On November 10, 1890, Dorn shot his fiftieth eagle. Thereupon he was declared "Eagle King" by the Prince Regent. Dorn killed a total of 77 eagles, the last in 1912. He sold the eagle feathers as hat decoration.

There is a bust of Dorn in the local history museum in Oberstdorf . In 1928, Carl Stiegele junior brought out a washer nozzle with a portrait of Leo Dorn engraved on its system case. There were also postcards with photographs by Leo Dorn. Ernst Haeckel sent such a card to Frida von Uslar-Gleichen in 1902. A photograph of Leo Dorn with a hunted eagle and rifle hangs in the restaurant of the Allgäuhalle in Kempten. Otto Keck painted him as the eagle king of Hinterstein .

Leo Dorn in literature

Ludwig Ganghofer described Leo Dorn in detail in his work Bergheimat :

“In order to achieve success as an eagle hunter [...], however, you also need such an ardent love for pasture, such rich experience as a hunter and such an iron, storm and weather-defying health as Leo Dorn possesses, who as chief hunter Allgäu hunting area administered by the Prince Regent of Bavaria. Dorn is a model of the splendid race of people in our mountains: a tall, broad-shouldered figure, limbs as if cut out of stone, sun-burned fists that clasp the fingers of the greeting person as if with steel screws when shaking hands, a healthy red, laughing face with a snow-white full beard and sharp crooked hooked nose and flashing eyes, whose youthful look one does not notice the 70 years that Leo Dorn wears on his broad, unbent back. The small, weather-beaten felt hat sits on his white coiled hair, cheeky and funny, with a long eagle feather pierced by the upturned brim. Year in and year out, in snow or heat, Leo Dorn walks in the same light loden jacket in short leather trousers with bare knees. And the feet are naked in the heavy nail shoes. 'Because you know, I'm so much tender [= pampered , sensitive ] on my feet,' he assured me, 'I don't get woolen socks, they always bite me so much!' When Leo Dorn talks about his eagle hunts and their exertions - he killed most of the eagles in the harsh winter when snow covered the mountains a meter deep - there is not a single word in his chatter that sounds like Latin and exaggeration. Briefly and honestly, he sticks to the truth and smiles happily at the report of the complaints that have been overcome, which, even in such a simple, unadorned description, send a cold shudder down the back of the listener. You shudder, but you also laugh often and heartily. Because the most serious adventure in the mountains always has its funny side. And the Allgäu dialect, which loves the diminutive form, sometimes gives Dorn's descriptions an original contrast between form and content, a touch of involuntary comedy. It sounds funny when he begins the tales of one of his most dangerous eagle hunts with the words: 'Woltern o fests Schneele has gschniebe ghatt in the same winter, and up to the Brüstle I trudged around each other. But as i see the eagle amal hon ghatt, i never leave out. I am diligently looking around with a spotting scope, and how I am speculating my way into the world, I am dragging Lämmle onto the wall, and then I think: 'Wait, you Luedersvögele, now I sit in the snow and stay seated if all my knuckles freeze away from my hands! ‹'"

However, Leo Dorn was not only celebrated as an avid hunter, but was also an important informant for ornithologists . Dorn's observations were also used for Andreas Johannes Jäckel 's work Systematic Overview of the Birds of Bavaria, published posthumously in 1891 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The beginnings of alpinism in Oberstdorf. Oberstdorf municipality, accessed on September 19, 2014 . 
2. ↑ The Höfats - "Queen of the Grass Mountains". In: Wanderpfa.de. Retrieved September 19, 2014 . 
3. ↑ "In the footsteps of the king of the skies" - golden eagle lecture and excursion. 2010, accessed on September 19, 2014 (event information / press release in the Allgäu advertising paper ). 
4. ^ Association history. (No longer available online.) Hindelang Shooting Society, archived from the original on March 6, 2014 ; Retrieved September 19, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ Personalities: Leo Dorn. Bad Hindelang market town, accessed on September 19, 2014 . 
6. ↑ Tour of the Oberstdorfer Heimatmuseum: 23rd Hunt II. Heimatmuseumsverein Oberstdorf e. V., accessed on September 19, 2014 . 
7. ↑ Fire socket "Special pieces". In: Feuerbixler.de. Retrieved September 19, 2014 . 
8. ↑ Ernst Haeckel, Frida von Uslar-Gleichen: The unsolved world puzzle. Letters and Diaries 1898–1903 , Wallstein Verlag 1996, ISBN 978-3-89244-377-3 , p. 785
9. ↑ Gunther le Maire: Images of "earth-grown truth". In: Oberallgäu Kultur , March 10, 2007 ( online , accessed on September 19, 2014).
10. ^ Ludwig Ganghofer : Mountain home in the Gutenberg-DE project
11. ↑ Andreas Johannes Jäckel : Systematic overview of the birds of Bavaria with consideration of the local and quantitative occurrence of the birds, their way of life, their migration and their changes . R. Oldenbourg, Munich and Leipzig 1891, p. IX ( online at Archive.org ).