Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 2 (2004), p. 230

From comparable medieval origins in privilege of royalty and aristocracy, the development of hunting in the United Kingdom and Germany experienced quite different paths of development, especially from the mid-nineteenth century. The hunting of foxes never achieved anything like the following in the latter country that it did in the former. Manifestly more edible and prized for trophies, wild boar and deer survived longer in relative abundance for stalking and shooting in a country that remained comparatively heavily forested and therefore impractical for the chase. In Germany, enclosure, providing clear property rights over consolidated area of land and hedgerows or fences for jumping, was relatively rare and belated. The presence of rabies motivated prohibitions on chasing foxes on horseback, as kills merely increased the fecundity and encouraged the movement of foxes – and the rabies virus – to new areas. From 1934 the Nazis banned all forms of killing fauna involving the use of dogs because ‘cruelty to animals was involved’. This coincided with the elimination of the remaining cavalry regiments in the German army and the creation of Panzer divisions. A few drag hunting clubs still exist in Germany, mainly in the northwest – as do a few wild pigs. Otherwise, apart from decimating declining numbers of hares and grouse, the ‘sport’ essentially embraces the stalking and shooting of deer.

Until the 1970s the German deer-hunting fraternity had successfully convinced the general public that their hobby was environmentally friendly and necessary to maintain the ‘balance of nature’. This changed from 1971, when a programme broadcast on national television pointed to the devastating effect upon forests and wildlife of trophy-driven hunting. The work under review investigates the hunting code of today as derived from legislation dating from the aftermath of the Revolutions of 1848–49 and the extent to which hunting in Germany was consequently ‘bourgeoisified’ by the elimination of aristocratic privilege.

The supposed ‘primitive instinct’ of humanity to hunt was an invention of the post-1850 era, initially to distinguish the activity from its antecedence in privilege based upon noble birth. The ‘instinct’ presumably was not shared by the ‘lower orders’. In response to the 1848 abolition of privilege connected with hunting, and ensuing mass slaughter of wildlife for food and to eliminate agricultural pests, an enactment of the Reaction from 1850 effectively precluded over nine-tenths of landowners from hunting on their own land. Although the author of this work does not mention it, fear of a peasantry armed for the hunt justified the restrictive legislation. Access of the bourgeoisie to hunting was catered for by a provision for hunting leases, with the practice diffusing into ever more remote areas with the spread of railways.

At the same time it became necessary to distinguish the hunter from the poacher and, from 1891, when rabbits were declared ‘free wild’, the rabbit shooter. This was done by creating a hunter-specific concept of prey, encapsulated in the ‘noble stag’. A ‘tradition’ was invented, with its own particular rules and regulations extending inter alia to hunting costume. In the process the actual kill came to be represented as but a moment in the ritual of hunting, which resulted in a ‘beautiful death’, a humane killing compared with that resulting from a Darwinian struggle for survival. But in the author’s view, this was mere flimflam, intended to disguise the urge to festoon walls in homes and public houses with antlered heads. Since 1970 this fetish has come to be increasingly questioned from perspectives ranging from the ecological to the psychological.

Criticisms may be levelled against this monograph. One is that, apart from the secondary literature, the sources are confined to periodicals of the hunting fraternity. Another is that striving for objectivity is eschewed in favour of an anti-hunting polemic. These two facets of the work are related, and justifiable, in that the author is concerned to analyze and criticize hunting on the basis of perspectives presented by hunters. He is probably correct in believing that change in the activity of hunting has only come about through external pressure. And his excellent appraisal of hunting’s own invented traditions will lend weight to the reformist case.