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Resilience Behind Bars

Animals and the Zoo Experience in Wartime London and Berlin

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The Resilient City in World War II

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in World Environmental History ((PSWEH))

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Abstract

Drawing from descriptions of individual animals such as the panda-bear Ming or the elephant Siam, this essay explores how zoo animals in the metropoles London and Berlin emerged as resilient fellow sufferers in times of mass bombings and omnipresent destruction. Not least of all they served to satisfy patriotic needs and helped to illustrate the respective political agendas either as part of the “home front” or the “folk community.” At the same time, at least for some animals, with these new attributes the room to maneuver and their agency increased. They were a part of an overlapping community of fate, in which an interspecies resilience emerged as part of a narrative knot that was tied around their willingness to support the war efforts.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Evening Standard , 29 January 1940.

  2. 2.

    See Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); Bruno Latour, Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

  3. 3.

    See Ingo Schulz-Schaeffer, Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie: Zur Koevolution von Gesellschaft, Natur und Technik, in Johannes Weyer, ed., Soziale Netzwerke. Konzepte und Methoden der Sozialwissenschaftlichen Netzwerkforschung (München: Oldenbourg, 2000), 188.

  4. 4.

    Garry Marvin and Bob Mullan, Zoo Culture: The Book about Watching People Watch Animals (Urbana: Illinois University Press, 1999). See also: Nigel Rothfels, Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002); Stephen O’Harrow, “Babar and the Mission Civilisatrice: Colonialism and the Biography of a Mythical Elephant,” Biography 22, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 86–103; Robert W. Jones, “‘The Sight of Creatures Strange to Our Clime’: London Zoo and the Consumption of the Exotic,” Journal of Victorian Culture 2, no. 1 (March 1997): 1–26. Some other historical zoo studies include Matthew Chrulew, “From Zoo to Zoöpolis: Effectively Enacting Eden,” in Ralph A. Acampora, ed., Metamorphoses of the Zoo: Animal after Noah (Lexington: Lexington Books, 2010). Eric Baratay and Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier, Zoo: A history of zoological gardens in the West (London: Reaktion books, 2003). Christina Katharina May, “Geschichte des Zoos,” in Roland Borgards, ed., Tiere. Kulturwissenschaftliches Handbuch (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler Verlag, 2016).

  5. 5.

    For other zoos during wartime see Mayumi Itoh, Japanese Wartime Zoo Policy: The Silent Victims of World War II (New York: Palgrave, 2010); Frederick S. Litten, “Starving the Elephants: The Slaughter of Animals in Wartime Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 38, no. 3 (September 2009): 1–18; Elia Etkin, “The ingathering of (non-human) exiles: The creation of the Tel Aviv Zoological Garden animal collection, 1938–1948,” Journal of Israeli History 35, no.1 (February 2016): 57–74. For a recent take on the interwar years at the London zoo see Jonathan Saha, “Murder at London Zoo: Late colonial sympathy in interwar Britain,” The American Historical Review 121, no. 5 (December 2016): 1468–1491.

  6. 6.

    Julian Huxley, Memories (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 232.

  7. 7.

    Marvin and Mullan, Zoo Culture, xix.

  8. 8.

    Daily Mail , 22 February 1939.

  9. 9.

    Huxley, Memories, 247.

  10. 10.

    Vuorisalo and Kozlov, this volume.

  11. 11.

    Approximately one month after the beginning of the Blitz , Ming was returned to Whipsnade for fear of her physical integrity. She was however to return to London on a regular basis. See “Hopeful future for the zoo,” The Times , 4 May 1940. Daily occurrences at the gardens, 17 October 1940, Zoological Society of London Archive (henceforth: ZSLArch), Vol. 1940.

  12. 12.

    Huxley, Memories, 248.

  13. 13.

    Daily occurrences at the gardens, 1 September 1939, ZSLArch, Vol. 1939.

  14. 14.

    Daily occurrences at the gardens, 1 September 1939, ZSLArch, Vol. 1939.

  15. 15.

    Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Pantheon Books, 1969), 35.

  16. 16.

    Zoological Society Minutes of Council, Vol. XXXI 1939, Meeting 20 September 1939, 352.

  17. 17.

    Daily occurrences at the gardens, 3 September 1939, ZSLArch, Vol. 1939.

  18. 18.

    Hilda Kean, The Great Cat and Dog Massacre: The Real Story of World War Two’s Unknown Tragedy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017).

  19. 19.

    Star, 5 January 1940.

  20. 20.

    “Stay put,” which aimed to discourage citizens from fleeing in a panic, was a slogan appearing on pamphlets and posters distributed in the coastal regions of southern England. Calder, People’s War, 129.

  21. 21.

    Reports of the council and auditors of the Zoological Society of London for the Year 1939 (1940), 5.

  22. 22.

    Reports of the council and auditors of the ZSL for the Year 1943 (1944), 1. Regarding the concept of “Holidays at Home” see Calder, People’s War, 366.

  23. 23.

    Dominik Ohrem, “An Address from Elsewhere: Vulnerability, Relationality, and Conceptions of Creaturely Embodiment,” in Dominik Ohrem and Roland Bartosch, eds., Beyond the Human-Animal Divide (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2017), 44; Joanna Latimer, “Being Alongside: Rethinking Relations amongst Different Kinds,” Theory, Culture & Society 30, no. 7–8 (December 2013): 1–28.

  24. 24.

    Jonathan Burt, “Violent health and the moving image: The London Zoo and Monkey Hill,” in Mary Henninger-Voss, ed., Animals in Human History: The Mirror of Nature and Culture (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2002), 262.

  25. 25.

    Randy Malamud, Reading Zoos (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 67.

  26. 26.

    Utz Anhalt, Tiere und Menschen als Exoten. Die Exotisierung des ‚Anderen‘ in der Gründungs- und Entwicklungsphase der Zoos (Saarbrücken: VDM Publishing, 2008), 3.

  27. 27.

    John Barrington-Johnson, The Zoo : The Story of London Zoo (London: Robert Hale, 2005), 121.

  28. 28.

    Daily Express, 10 November 1939.

  29. 29.

    Evening Standard , 16 November 1939.

  30. 30.

    “A rival to Ming,” The Times , 4 November 1939.

  31. 31.

    Barrington-Johnson, The Zoo , 127.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., p. 121.

  33. 33.

    See Howard Barraclough Fell, “Animal Behaviour during Air-raids,” Science 93, no. 2403 (1942): 62; Anon, “Animals and Air Raids,” Science, New Series 92, no. 2394 (1940): 446–447; R. D. Gillespie, “War Neuroses After Psychological Trauma,” The British Medical Journal 1, no. 4401 (May 1945): 653–656.

  34. 34.

    Lucy Pendar, Whipsnade Wild Animal Park: ‘My Africa’ (Dunstable, Beds: Book Castle, 1991), 62.

  35. 35.

    Fell, Animal Behaviour, 62.

  36. 36.

    “Rodents are happy in the gloom,” The Evening News, 13 November 1939.

  37. 37.

    Fell, Animal Behaviour, 62.

  38. 38.

    Reports of the council and auditors of the ZSL for the Year 1940 (1941), 8.

  39. 39.

    Birmingham Post, 27 October 1939.

  40. 40.

    Reports of the council and auditors of the ZSL for the Year 1939 (1940), 7.

  41. 41.

    Reports of the council and auditors of the ZSL for the Year 1940–1944 (1941–1945).

  42. 42.

    Daily occurrences at the gardens, 26 and 28 September, ZSLArch, Vol. 1939.

  43. 43.

    Pendar, Whipsnade , 69.

  44. 44.

    Daily occurrences at the gardens, 14 February 1941, ZSLArch, Vol. 1941; Daily occurrences at the gardens, 6 November 1944, ZSLArch, Vol. 1944.

  45. 45.

    Pendar, Whipsnade, 68.

  46. 46.

    Daily occurrences at the gardens, 28 July1944, ZSLArch, Vol. 1944.

  47. 47.

    Jilly Cooper, Animals in War (London: Corgi, 2000), 174, 181.

  48. 48.

    “Ming,” The Times , 30 December 1944.

  49. 49.

    Translated from Kai Artinger, Lutz Heck, in Mitteilungen des Vereins für Berliner Geschichte e.V., 1994. https://www.diegeschichteberlins.de/geschichteberlins/persoenlichkeiten/persoenlichkeitenhn/491-heck.html, visited 25 January 2018.

  50. 50.

    Translated from Lutz Heck, Auf Tiersuche in weiter Welt (Berlin: Parey, 1941), 201.

  51. 51.

    Ibid., 221. On the history of the European breeding project see Raf De Bont, “Extinct in the Wild: Finding a Place for the European Bison, 1919–1952,” in Raf De Bont and Jens Lachmund, eds., Spatializing the History of Ecology: Sites, Journeys, Mappings (New York: Routledge, 2017), 165–184.

  52. 52.

    For a critical historical account on travelling Heck Cattles, rewilding programs, and contemporary approaches toward multiple spatialities of wildness see Jamie Lorimer and Clemens Driessen, “From ‘Nazi Cows’ to Cosmopolitan ‘Ecological Engineers’: Specifying Rewilding Through a History of Heck Cattle,” Annals of the American Association of Geographers 10, no. 3 (May 2016): 631–652; Henrique M. Pereira and Laetitia N. Navarro, eds., Rewilding European Landscapes (Heidelberg: Springer, 2017).

  53. 53.

    Heck, Tiersuche, 289.

  54. 54.

    Luftschutzmaßnahmen in Zoologischen Gärten (Air raid measures in zoos), Runderlass vom 29.01.1940, National Archive Berlin (henceforth BArch Berlin), R 2/4749, Sheet 6-7.

  55. 55.

    Richtlinien für die Durchführung der Räumung zoologischer Gärten (Guidelines for the evacuations of zoos), 10.04.1940, BArch Berlin , R 2/4749, Sheet 9-10.

  56. 56.

    Runderlass: Erfassung von Hunden für Kriegsverwendung bei Wehrmacht und Polizei, (circular decree on the registration of dogs for war purposes in the service of police and Wehrmacht) State Archive of Hessen Marburg (HStaM), Frankenberg, No. 2652.

  57. 57.

    Mieke Roscher, “New Political History and the Writing of Animal Lives,” in Hilda Kean and Philipp Howell eds., The Routledge Handbook of Animal-Human History (London: Routledge, 2018), Chapter 3.

  58. 58.

    Geschäftsbericht für das Jahr 1939 des Aktienvereins des Zoologischen Gartens Berlin (Annual report of the stock corporation of the Berlin Zoological Garden (AZGB) for the year 1939), 7.5.1940, State Archive Berlin (henceforth: LAr Berlin), C Rep. 105, Nr. 4675, 6.

  59. 59.

    Brief Lutz Hecks an den Oberbürgermeister Berlins (letter from Lutz Heck to the Mayor of Berlin), 07.02.1941, LAr Berlin A Rep. 032-08, Nr. 296.

  60. 60.

    Annual report 1939 of the AZGB, 07.05.1940, LAr Berlin , C Rep. 105, Nr. 4675, 6.

  61. 61.

    Annual report 1941 of the AZGB, 15.05.1942, LAr Berlin , C Rep. 105, Nr. 4675, 7.

  62. 62.

    Annual report 1939 of the AZGB, 07.05.1940, LAr Berlin , C Rep. 105, Nr. 4675, 7.

  63. 63.

    Annual report 1940 of the AZGB, 9.5.1941, LAr Berlin , C Rep. 105, Nr. 4675, 7.

  64. 64.

    Bernhard Blaszkiewitz, Elefanten in Berlin (Berlin: Lehmanns, 2008), 14.

  65. 65.

    Annual report 1939 of the AZGB, 7.5.1940, LAr Berlin , C Rep. 105, Nr. 4675, 7.

  66. 66.

    Diane Ackermann, The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007), 53.

  67. 67.

    Ibid., 62.

  68. 68.

    Ibid., 74.

  69. 69.

    Ibid., 95.

  70. 70.

    Ibid., 86.

  71. 71.

    Annual report 1939 of the AZGB, 07.05.1940, LAr Berlin , C Rep. 105, Nr. 4675, 7.

  72. 72.

    There is conflicting information about the exact dates of these shippings. See Heinz-Georg Klös, Von der Menagerie zum Tierparadies, 125 Jahre Zoo Berlin (Berlin: Haude und Spener, 1969), 116–117.

  73. 73.

    Translated from Katharina Heinroth, Mit Faltern begann’s, Mein Leben mit Tieren in Breslau, München und Berlin (München: Kindler, 1979), 131.

  74. 74.

    Heck to the supervisory board of the zoo, cf. Klös, Tierparadies, 119.

  75. 75.

    Bernhard Grzimek, Auf den Mensch gekommen. Erfahrungen mit Leuten (Stuttgart: Bertelsmann, 1974), 188.

  76. 76.

    Translated from Heinroth, Mit Faltern begann’s, 131–132.

  77. 77.

    Heck to the supervisory board of the zoo, cf. Klös, Tierparadies, 122.

  78. 78.

    Translated from Grizmek, Auf den Mensch gekommen, 188.

  79. 79.

    Lutz Heck, Tiere – mein Abenteuer (Wien: Ullstein, 1952), 118.

  80. 80.

    Ibid., 113.

  81. 81.

    At least this is how Klös cites Heck, See Klös, Tierparadies, 122.

  82. 82.

    Cited from: Katharina Heinroth, in: Klös, Tierparadies, 129 f.

  83. 83.

    Blaszkiewitz, Elefanten, 14.

  84. 84.

    Ramon Reichert, “Die Medialisierung des Tieres als Protagonist des Krieges,” in Rainer Pöppinhege, ed., Tiere im Krieg von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Paderborn: Schönigh, 2009), 269.

  85. 85.

    Carl Ollson, “How Germany Conscripts Her Dog Population,” Animals and Zoo Magazine, May 1940., n.p.

  86. 86.

    Carl Ollson, “Fate of Continental Zoos,” Animals and Zoo Magazine, November 1939, n.p.

  87. 87.

    Ibid.

  88. 88.

    Mieke Roscher, Ein Königreich für Tiere. Die Geschichte der britischen Tierrechtsbewegung (Marburg: Tectum, 2009).

  89. 89.

    Pendar, Whipsnade , 64.

  90. 90.

    Urwild refers here to the large animals initially populating the so-called Germanic lands.

  91. 91.

    Translated from Heck, Tiersuche, 195.

  92. 92.

    Ibid., 285.

  93. 93.

    Heck, Tiere, 94.

  94. 94.

    Anthony Read and David Fisher, Der Fall von Berlin (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1995), 463.

  95. 95.

    Frank Uekötter, The Green and The Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 107.

  96. 96.

    Latour, We have never been modern, 109. See also: Pascal Eitler and Maren Möhring, “Eine Tiergeschichte der Moderne. Theoretische Perspektiven,” Traverse 15, no. 3 (2008): 95.

  97. 97.

    Schulz-Schaeffer, Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie, 195.

  98. 98.

    On this topic see Clemens Wischermann, “Der Ort des Tieres in einer städtischen Gesellschaft,” Informationen zur modernen Stadtgeschichte 2 (2009): 11.

  99. 99.

    Heck, Tiere, 118.

  100. 100.

    Of the 300 animals of the private zoo in Aleppo, Syria only 13 survived thanks to the efforts of the military of both parties. “See How Syrian Zoo Animals Escaped a War-Ravaged City,” The National Geographic, 7 October 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgww07Aylw8

  101. 101.

    Mieke Roscher, “Curating the Body Politic: The spatiality of the Zoo and the symbolic construction of German nationhood (Berlin 1933–1961),” in Jacob Bull, Tora Holmberg and Cecilia Åsberg, eds., Animals and Place: Lively Cartographies of Human-Animal Relations (London: Routledge, 2018), 120.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany

    Mieke Roscher

  2. Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany

    Anna-Katharina Wöbse

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  1. Mieke Roscher
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Simo Laakkonen

  2. Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

    J. R. McNeill

  3. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Richard P. Tucker

  4. Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Timo Vuorisalo

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Roscher, M., Wöbse, AK. (2019). Resilience Behind Bars. In: Laakkonen, S., McNeill, J.R., Tucker, R.P., Vuorisalo, T. (eds) The Resilient City in World War II. Palgrave Studies in World Environmental History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17439-2_8

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