The Third Reich passes the first animal welfare law
By the 19th century, most states in the German Confederation had introduced legislation to protect animals from cruelty. However, the 1871 Imperial Penal Code only prohibited cruelty to animals when it occurred in public and caused offence to observers. Consequently, there was mounting public pressure to establish stricter animal welfare laws. However, many of the vegetarian, animal welfare and “natural healing” associations were also motivated by anti-Semitism, as they opposed “Jewish” methods of slaughter and experiments conducted on animals as part of what they saw as “Jewish medicine” or “Jewish science”.
The Third Reich also followed in this tradition and established an “Adolf Hitler Medal” to recognize opponents of cruelty to animals. Although Hitler was not a strict vegetarian – he ate small amounts of meat – he was an animal lover, especially fond of sheepdogs and wolves, and liked to be photographed with his sheepdog “Blondi”. Nazi ideology maintained a hierarchy of animals and ascribed them certain characteristics. Whilst dogs and horses were attributed the characteristics of strength, honour and loyalty, species such as rats were considered to be “deceitful”, “cowardly”, “parasites” or “vermin” – just like the Nazi view of Slavs and Jews. Heinrich Himmler, largely responsible for organizing the Holocaust, claimed that Germans were “the only people in the world with a decent attitude” towards animals. He called it “a crime against our own blood” to worry about Russian “human animals” who “collapse from exhaustion” during forced labour. The Reich Animal Protection Act enacted on 24 November 1933 contained regulations for the protection of domestic and working animals, required a permit for animal experiments and established a list of criminal offences pertaining to the maltreatment of animals. Well-regarded across the world, the law continued to apply in the Federal Republic of Germany, but was renewed and supplemented several times. Animal welfare was also enshrined as a national objective in the Basic Law in 2002.
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