Rieke (giraffe)

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Rieke's skeleton in the veterinary library of the Free University of Berlin in Düppel

Rieke (* October 1938 in Berlin ; † February 25, 1957 ibid) was a female Uganda giraffe ( Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi ) that belonged to the Berlin Zoological Garden and was one of the visitors' favorites. She was the only evacuated animal that returned to the Berlin Zoo after the Second World War .

Life

Birth and Survival in World War II

Rieke (according to other information "Rike") was born in the Berlin Zoological Garden. Mother ("Anneliese") and father animals were caught in the wild from the area of Lake Turkana in East Africa and came to Berlin. The animals were kept in lattice enclosures at the time and systematized as Powell-Cotton giraffes, named after the British zoologist and explorer Major Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton (1866–1940). This subspecies, no longer managed as an independent form, is now counted among the Uganda giraffes . It is the most commonly kept giraffe species in zoos.

Rieke grew up with her parents on the grounds of the antelope house . Maasai giraffes were also kept there in the 1930s , but only pure subspecies breeding took place. During the Second World War, the zoological garden was not spared from air raids. In a severe attack on November 22nd and 23rd, 1943, 30 percent of the remaining livestock were killed in just 15 minutes. The antelope house was also destroyed by explosive and incendiary bombs, and Rieke and her parents were the only remaining giraffes on the premises. The parent animals were killed. The five-year-old giraffe herself was slightly injured in the knee by a fragment of a bomb while she was on the run.

Due to the heavy air attack, which killed seven elephants, an African rhinoceros, six big cats and half of the antelopes and deer, the zoo was closed until July 25, 1944. After her injury had healed, Rieke was evacuated to the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna on November 15, 1944 . At the end of April / beginning of May 1945 the zoological garden was almost completely destroyed in the final battles of the Battle of Berlin . Of the 900 animals of around 325 species that remained in Berlin on December 31, 1944 - after the Russian troops withdrew from the zoo on May 23, 1945 - only 91 animals of 45 species survived the war.

Evacuation to Vienna and return to Berlin

Rieke spent the next eight years on the Schönbrunn giraffe facility, which was also damaged by war, but still exists today. The animal was not supposed to return to Berlin until 1953. In 1951 the reconstruction of the Berlin antelope house began. The former lattice enclosures were converted into spacious outdoor areas. Katharina Heinroth , scientific director of the zoological garden since 1945, met Julius Brachetka , then director of the Schönbrunn Zoo , in the International Association of Zoo Directors after the war . The good relationship between the two contributed to the repatriation of the fifteen-year-old giraffe.

On August 18, 1953, Rieke was evacuated from the Schönbrunn Zoo. With the participation of the press and in the presence of the Vienna zoo director, the animal arrived a day later at Berlin-Grunewald train station , where it was received by Katharina Heinroth. The same day the giraffe arrived in its old stable in the antelope house, in front of which several hundred visitors had gathered. However, Rieke initially refused to enter the giraffe enclosure. “Des Tier [sic] could not be drawn out even by the most beautiful delicacies. After the long crate journey, she liked the stable much better; maybe she also remembered the terror of the bombs that she had experienced there in the open air ”. Heinroth recalls the welcome party in her autobiography Mit Faltern began it. (1979). Rieke was the first giraffe in the Berlin Zoo after the end of the war. At the same time, she was the only evacuated animal that was brought back. In 1943/44, around 750 animals of 250 species were evacuated from the Berlin Zoological Garden to the zoos in Breslau , Mulhouse , Munich , Posen , Prague and Vienna due to the chaos of the war .

New partner animal and death

The reconstruction of the antelope house lasted until 1956. In 1954 Rieke lost weight and had a severe cough. The animal was diagnosed with tuberculosis . Wilma von Düring , the first zoo veterinarian after the war, successfully applied a “cure” and Rieke gained weight again. After she had remained without bacterial findings for a year, she was given a partner animal, "August". The approximately two-year-old reticulated giraffe bull ( Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata ) was caught in the wild from Tanganyika and was donated to the zoo by the Berlin department store DeFaKa . An animal of the same subspecies could not be obtained. The reason for the donation was the opening of the DeFaKa branch in Tauentzienstrasse near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, not far from the zoo .

After August's arrival on September 22, 1955, Rieke's behavior changed. The more than 16-year-old, calm and deliberate giraffe mother mothered the not yet fully grown bull and became alert and jumpy in the process. “When our August started to gallop playfully, she was visibly startled and immediately dashed off. She was infected by her companion's scare games, ” said Heinroth.

Rieke was never able to completely cure her lung disease and died, seriously ill, on February 25, 1957 at the age of 18 (according to other information, 19 years old). The day after the death of the giraffe, the West Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel announced that Rieke was “undoubtedly one of the 'most prominent' zoo residents” . August (nickname: "August Drahtbeen") remained alone. The animal was later exchanged for a Maasai giraffe bull, while a female animal was again donated by DeFaKa department store . The new pair of giraffes was named "Rieke" and "August" again.

Rieke's skeleton is exhibited today in the Veterinary Medical Library of the Free University in Berlin-Düppel . In 2010, the animal was ranked among the 30 most popular zoo animals in the zoological garden in a documentation by the rbb .

literature

  • Bernhard Blaszkiewitz: Knautschke, Knut & Co. Berlin's favorite animals from the zoo and zoo . Lehmanns Media, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86541-264-5 .

Web links

  • Pictures by Rieke in the Galerie Historische Zoo-Stars at einestages.spiegel.de, 4th December 2008
  • Picture gallery on the website of the Veterinary Medicine Library of the Free University of Berlin

Remarks

  1. ↑ Documents from the Schönbrunn Zoo record the arrival of a female giraffe from the Berlin Zoological Garden one year earlier, on November 16, 1943. The telegram from Berlin, dated November 10, 1943, reads: "Giraffe leaves Zoo Berlin Thursday evening". However, this animal was listed as a "swap" in Vienna.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Rike and August. In: Bernhard Blaszkiewitz: Knautschke, Knut & Co.: Berlin's favorite animals from the zoo and zoo . Lehmanns Media, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86541-264-5 , pp. 45-46.
  2. ↑ The Antelope House. In: Heinz-Georg Klös, Hans Frädrich, Ursula Klös: Noah's Ark on the Spree: 150 Years of the Berlin Zoological Garden; a zoo-horticultural cultural history from 1844–1994 . FAB Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-927551-29-5 , p. 126.
  3. ↑ cf. Inventory lists in: Heinz-Georg Klös: From menagerie to animal paradise: 125 years of Berlin Zoo . Haude & Spener, Berlin [1969], p. 124.
  4. ↑ a b c d e The Antelope House. In: Katharina Heinroth: It began with butterflies: my life with animals in Breslau, Munich and Berlin . Kindler, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-463-00745-2 , pp. 233-234.
  5. ^ Heinz-Georg Klös: From menagerie to animal paradise: 125 years of Berlin Zoo . Haude & Spener, Berlin [1969], p. 119.
  6. ^ A b Heinz-Georg Klös: Animal husbandry in old Berlin: Part II. In: Bongo. 14: 105-114 (1988).
  7. ↑ Rike and August. In: Bernhard Blaszkiewitz: Knautschke, Knut & Co.: Berlin's favorite animals from the zoo and zoo . Lehmanns Media, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86541-264-5 , pp. 45-46.
  8. ^ A b c Heinz-Georg Klös: Animal husbandry in Berlin (West) Part III. In: Bongo. Berlin 16, 1990, pp. 91-94.
  9. ^ Information from the historian Gerhard Heindl, historical research and documentation of the Schönbrunn Zoo, dated May 19, 2011.
  10. ↑ Report in the daily mirror. August 20, 1953, No. 2415, p. 4.
  11. ↑ Where the other animals stayed. In: Der Tagesspiegel. August 21, 1953, No. 2416, p. 4.
  12. ↑ The Antelope House. In: Heinz-Georg Klös (Ed.): The Berlin Zoo as reflected in its buildings: 1841–1989; a historical and monumental documentation about the Berlin Zoological Garden . Heenemann, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-87903-069-3 , pp. 57-62.
  13. ↑ Report in the daily mirror. September 23, 1955, No. 3052, p. 10.
  14. ↑ The Antelope House. In: Heinz-Georg Klös, Hans Frädrich, Ursula Klös: Noah's Ark on the Spree: 150 Years of the Berlin Zoological Garden; a zoo-horticultural cultural history from 1844–1994 . FAB Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-927551-29-5 , p. 291.
  15. ↑ a b Giraffe cow "Rieke" perishes. In: Der Tagesspiegel. February 26, 1957, No. 3488, p. 10.