Animal welfare under National Socialism

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Animal protection under National Socialism was justified and propagated in an anti-Semitic , biological and racist way .

Many Nazi leaders, including Adolf Hitler , Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring , publicly showed themselves to be supporters of animal welfare . Environmental protection , species protection and animal welfare became important propaganda topics of National Socialism . The first Germany-wide animal protection law was one of the central early legislative measures of the early days of the regime and received intensive propaganda support. Later on, animal welfare aspects were increasingly subordinated to economic and military objectives.

Preparatory work on the Animal Welfare Act of 1933 took place in the Weimar Republic . Several animal welfare laws in German-speaking countries are largely based on the concept adopted during the National Socialist era. Right-wing extremist positions on animal welfare and especially on slaughter are partly in the tradition of National Socialist animal welfare.

Historical background

At the end of the 19th century, animal welfare in Germany was often associated with anti-Semitic theories. Significant parts of the animal protection movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries in Germany saw vivisection and slaughter as an expression of a "Jewish" medicine and established a direct connection. Vegetarians , animal welfare and naturopathic associations were part of the social movement that came to be known as life reform and was widespread in all social classes and political groups, including National Socialism .

A legal and social recognition analogous to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals sponsored by Queen Victoria was initially lacking for German animal welfare. The Imperial Criminal Code of 1871 did not punish animal abuse as such, but only public nuisance . It fell short of the English animal welfare regulations , for example . On the other hand, the to a large extent right-wing and often anti-Semitic animal welfare associations were unsuccessful.

With the “Gossler Decree” in Prussia in 1885, the existing regulations on vivisection were tightened. Further petitions and initiatives on animal welfare were rejected several times with reference to this regulation. The demands of the anti-vivisectionists met with great approval from the growing number of people with a völkisch mind. In 1930 the so-called “Grimme Decree” resulted in a further tightening of animal protection legislation, which, however, was not sufficient for the animal rights activists involved in over 700 different associations and organizations. As early as January 1930, the Bavarian State Parliament passed a law on the slaughter of animals , which only permitted the slaughter of cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys, mules, mules and dogs after they had been completely stunning. According to the relevant law, anesthesia could be carried out using mechanical devices or a head blow. Violators were punished with fines or imprisonment for up to six months.

Animal welfare in the time of National Socialism

The arguments of National Socialists and radical animal rights activists were closely related to anti-Semitism. Animal experiments were considered by many to be the work of Jewish scientists and "embodied the alleged efforts to detach Germanic people from their closeness to nature and to establish a mechanistic science that exploits nature in their place." Some of the animal rights activists and opponents of animal experiments, the who criticized anti-Semitic tendencies went into exile after the takeover in 1933, such as the writer Magnus Schwantje and the historian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ludwig Quidde .

In 1927 a Nazi representative in the Reichstag demanded measures against "animal cruelty and shafts". In 1932 the NSDAP proposed a ban on the vivisection of animals. On April 21, 1933, slaughtering was made a criminal offense. The "Law on the Slaughter of Animals" of April 21, 1933 required warm-blooded animals to be anaesthetized during slaughter before the bleeding began. Exceptions were only permitted for emergency slaughter . For intentional or negligent violations were fines or imprisonment up to six months detention period threatened. The law came into force on May 1, 1933 (RGBl. I, p. 203.) and was one of the first legislative measures of the Nazi era that was used to a considerable extent for propaganda purposes. It served a variety of widespread anti-Semitic resentments and severely restricted the religious freedoms of Jews. In the final phase of the Second World War, the Wehrmacht High Command issued an order that allowed Muslim prisoners of war to be slaughtered. This exception to the ban on slaughter is an indication of the anti-Semitic nature of the 'law on slaughtering animals'.

The first German animal protection law ( Reichstierschutzgesetz ) was passed on November 24, 1933. For the National Socialists, animal welfare was a welcome and popular topic. A complete ban on animal experiments , as announced by propaganda, was not intended. The legislation introduced a stricter approval process for animal experiments in research. In connection with the threat of imprisonment in a concentration camp , the system of concentration camps was mentioned more broadly in public for the first time. A cartoon in the Kladderadatsch on the ban on vivisection in September 1933, which showed experimental animals showing the Hitler salute to Hermann Göring , became known.

Animal experiments were carried out , for example, in the field of cancer research . However, the focus soon shifted to "war-important" research projects that received permission to unreservedly exceed the Animal Welfare Act. This included work on biological warfare agents that were tested on animals and concentration camp inmates .

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Images of animals were used in the Nazi ideology for racist and anti-Semitic purposes. As an example, the comparison of Jews with rats as “deceitful”, “cowardly” and “cruel” animals can be cited, as was used for propaganda purposes in the film The Eternal Jew . This shows how animals are also ideologically hierarchized and the resulting classification as " pests " or " parasites " and thus animals not worthy of protection was visually transferred to certain groups of people.

The Reich Animal Protection Act after 1945

The Reich Animal Protection Act initially remained in force in the Federal Republic, the GDR and Austria . Essential aspects from the Reich Animal Protection Act have been incorporated into the new animal protection laws. For example, a new animal welfare law was promulgated in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1972 , which was amended several times - the last time being on July 24, 2013 (see Animal Welfare in Germany after 1945 ). In 1986 in the Federal Republic of Germany, with the new version of § 1, the “responsibility of humans for animals as fellow creatures” was raised to the principle of animal protection law, and in 2002, with the amendment of Article 20a of the Basic Law, the protection of animals became a national goal.

See also

literature

  • Daniel Jütte: Animal Welfare and National Socialism, The Origin and Effects of the National Socialist Reich Animal Protection Act of 1933 . IDB Münster. Ber. Inst. Didaktik Biologie Suppl. 2 (2002) Download (PDF; 388 kB) ( Memento from December 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  • Edeltraud Klueting: The legal regulations of the National Socialist Reich government for animal welfare, nature conservation and environmental protection . In: Joachim Radkau, Frank Uekötter (ed.): Nature Conservation and National Socialism , Frankfurt / New York (Campus Verlag) 2003
  • The German Reich Animal Welfare Act of November 24, 1933 . Download (PDF; 128 kB)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arnold Arluke, Clinton Sanders: Regarding Animals . Temple University Press (1996), p. 132, ISBN 1-56639-441-4 .
  2. ^ Robert Proctor: The Nazi War on Cancer . Princeton University Press (1999), p. 5. ISBN 0-691-07051-2 .
  3. ^ Edeltraud Klueting: The legal regulations of the National Socialist Reich government for animal welfare, nature conservation and environmental protection . In: Joachim Radkau, Frank Uekötter (ed.): Nature Conservation and National Socialism , Frankfurt / New York (Campus Verlag) 2003, pp. 104f.
  4. ↑ Johannes Straubinger: Sehnsucht Natur: Birth of a Landscape . 2009, p. 150, ISBN 3839108462 , ISBN 9783839108468 .
  5. ↑ Arnold Arluke, Clinton Sanders. Regarding Animals . Temple University Press (1996), p. 133, ISBN 1-56639-441-4 .
  6. ↑ Eric Stritter: Animal protection as a cover for Nazi ideologies , from: Netz gegen Nazis , accessed on June 7, 2010
  7. ↑ KP Schweiger: Old wine in new bottles: The dispute over the scientific animal experiment in Germany 1900-1935 . Dissertation, Göttingen 1993 ( The struggle in Germany around scientific animal testing 1900–1933 )
  8. ^ Hanna Rheinz : Kabbalah of the animals, animal rights in Judaism . In: Animal rights, an interdisciplinary challenge . Ed. IATE, Heidelberg 2007, pp. 234-252
  9. ^ Daniel Jütte: The Origin and Effects of the National Socialist Reich Animal Protection Act of 1933 . IDB Münster, Animal Welfare and National Socialism, Ber. Inst. Didaktik Biologie Suppl. 2 (2002), p. 167–184, p. 167. ( Online (PDF; 388 kB))
  10. ^ The ban on slaughter in Bavaria , in: Bayerische Israelitische Gemeindezeitung , June 1, 1930, p. 170.
  11. ^ Daniel Jütte: The Origin and Effects of the National Socialist Reich Animal Protection Act of 1933 . IDB Münster, Animal Welfare and National Socialism, Ber. Inst. Didaktik Biologie Suppl. 2 (2002), 167-184. S. 174. ( Online (PDF; 388 kB))
  12. ↑ Andrea Heubach: "Hitler was a vegetarian" - on the attribution of inhuman animal love. In: Chimaira - Working Group for Human-Animal Studies (ed.): Animals, Images, Economies. Current research questions in human-animal studies. Transcript publishing house. Bielefeld 2013. pp. 213-239. Pp. 221/222.
  13. ↑ Boria Sax (2000). Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust. Continuum International Publishing Group, p. 181, ISBN 0-8264-1289-0 .
  14. ↑ RGBl. 1933, Part I, p. 203 as well as VO also from April 21, 1933, p. 212f.
  15. ↑ RGBl. I 1933 p. 203 (via ALEX )
  16. ↑ Julius Ludwig Pfeiffer: The Animal Protection Act of July 24, 1972. The history of German animal protection law from 1950 to 1972. (Legal history series, Volume 294), Verlag Peter Lang, Bern / Frankfurt am Main, 2004, ISBN 3-631-52708- X .
  17. ^ Daniel Jütte: Schächtet for Germany. When Muslims were allowed to slaughter ritually before. In FAZ of January 17, 2002, p. 44.
  18. ↑ Boria Sax: Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust . Foreword by Klaus P. Fischer. Continuum, New York / London 2000, ISBN 978-0-8264-1289-8 .
  19. ↑ "Heil Göring". Kladderadatsch, September 1933
  20. ^ Daniel Jütte: Animal Welfare and National Socialism. The emergence and effects of the National Socialist Reich Animal Protection Act of 1933. IDB Münster. Ber. Inst. Didaktik Biologie Suppl. 2 (2002) [1] (PDF; 0.4 MB). P. 180/181
  21. ↑ Andrea Heubach: "Hitler was a vegetarian" - on the attribution of inhuman animal love. In: Chimaira - Working Group for Human-Animal Studies (ed.): Animals, Images, Economies. Current research questions in human-animal studies. Transcript publishing house. Bielefeld 2013. pp. 213-239. P. 229.
  22. ↑ Julius Ludwig Pfeiffer: The Animal Protection Act of July 24, 1972. The history of German animal protection law from 1950 to 1972 (= legal history series; Vol. 294). Peter Lang, Bern and Frankfurt a. M. 2004, ISBN 3-631-52708-X .
  23. ^ Daniel Jütte: Animal Welfare and National Socialism. The emergence and effects of the National Socialist Reich Animal Protection Act of 1933. IDB Münster. Ber. Inst. Didaktik Biologie Suppl. 2 (2002) ( PDF ( Memento from December 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )).
  24. ^ Almuth Hirt, Christoph Maisack and Johanna Moritz: Tierschutzgesetz. 2nd edition . Munich: Verlag Franz Vahlen 2007. ISBN 978-3-8006-3230-5 .