Gli animali e il nazismo

by Boria Sax

Indagando i rapporti tra Terzo Reich e mondo animale, questo libro mostra come i nazisti abbiano sfruttato simbologie animali per ribadire e diffondere il loro sistema di differenze razziali. I nazisti tendevano a risolvere i problemi etici riducendoli al principio biologico della lotta per la sopravvivenza. In quest'ottica, i predatori, simbolicamente legati ai funzionari di partito, venivano esaltati, mentre i nemici venivano associati alle prede. Il libro inoltre mette in luce alcuni dei paradossi più stridenti dell'ideologia nazista, nella quale promozione del vegetarianesimo e leggi per tutelare gli animali coesistevano con un metodico sistema di sterminio dell'essere umano. In queste pagine il lettore troverà non solo un originale approfondimento su alcuni aspetti dell'ideologia nazista, ma anche l'attenta ricostruzione di un capitolo poco conosciuto nella storia dei diritti degli animali.

Genres: Animals, Nonfiction, History, War, Germany, Science

304 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

About the author

I first became interested in the literature of animals around the end of the 1980's, not terribly long after I had obtained my PhD in German and intellectual history. I was feeling frustrated in my search for an academic job and even study of literature. By accident, I came across an encyclopedia of animals that had been written in the early nineteenth century. There, without any self-consciousness, was a new world of romance and adventure, filled with turkeys that spoke Arabic, beavers that build like architects, and dogs that solve murders. Within a few months, I had junked my previous research and devoted my studies to these texts.

Today, I shudder how nervy the switch was for a destitute young scholar, who, despite one book and several articles, had not managed to obtain any steady job except mopping floors. But soon I had managed to publish two books on animals in literature, The Frog King (1990) and The Parliament of Animals (1992). Around 1995, I founded Nature in Legend and Story (NILAS, Inc.), an organization that combines storytelling and scholarship. It was initially, a sort of rag-tag band of intellectual adventurers who loved literature but could not find a niche in the scholarly world. We put together a few conferences, which generated a lot of excitement among the few who attended, but little notice in academia or in what they sometimes call "the real world."

From fables and anecdotes, I moved to mythology, and published The Serpent and the Swan (1997), a study of animal bride tales from around the world. This was followed by many further publications including an examination of the darker side of animal studies, Animals in the Third Reich (2000), and a sort of compendium, The Mythical Zoo (2002), and a cultural history of corvids entitled Crow (2003). My most recent book is City of Ravens: London, its Tower and its Famous Ravens (2011), and Imaginary Animals will be published soon by Reaktion Books in London.

When I embarked on the study of animals in myth and literature, even graduate students did not have to mention a few dozen books just to show that they had read them. In barely more than a couple decades, the literature on human-animal relations has grown enormously in both quantity and sophistication. NILAS, I am proud to say, has become a well established organization, which has sponsored two highly successful conferences together with ISAZ.

But as the study of animals, what I like to call "totemic literature," becomes more of a standard feature of academic programs, I fear that something may be lost. It is now just a little too easy to discourse about the "social construction" and the "transgression" of "boundaries" between animals and human beings. Even as I admire the subtlety of such analysis, I sometimes find myself thinking, "So what?"

Having been there close to the beginning, part of my role is now to preserve some the sensuous immediacy, with that filled the study of animals in literature when it was still a novelty. That sort of "poetry" is not simply a luxury in our intellectual pursuits. With such developments as cloning, genetic engineering, and the massive destruction of natural habitats, we face crises so unprecedented that traditional philosophies, from utilitarianism to deep ecology, can offer us precious little guidance. The possibilities are so overwhelming, that we hardly even know what questions to ask. But neither, I am sure, did the fugitive who once encountered a mermaid in the middle of the woods.

Reviews

[Marcel Uhrin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nepodarená kniha, nedočítanú som ju nakoniec odložil. Možno dostane inú šancu inokedy.

[Sandra Shelden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield. I took his class PHI 313 Animals and Human Civilization. The course examines the role of animals in human civilization starting with the "Epic of Gilgamesh." This book examines the treatment, symbolism and role of animals in the Third Reich. Extremely interesting, surprising and well written.

[Erik B.K.K. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was a bit boring tbh. The title's misleading, or maybe it's meant to be a pun, because the book still largely focused on (the Nazis view on) Jews and less on Nazi totemism/animal symbolism.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

50% hypothetical 50% nonsensical but i guess thats what the third reich specializes in

[SenecaCZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bohužel jen výjimečně se v historiografii stává, že by kniha říkala tak moc o společnosti v době, o které sama pojednává, tak i o společnosti v době, ve které žije její čtenář. Ochrana přírody na vysoké úrovni v době, kdy se částem populace odebírala základní práva – vůdčími osobnostmi laskaní a milovaní mazlíčci v době, kdy svým árijským soukmenovcům kázali o fauně v domácnosti jako o buržoazním přežitku – zvýšená péče o humánní zacházení s hospodářskými zvířaty v době, kdy se již rozdmýchávaly osvětimské pece. A jako vrchol všeho rétorika, myšlenkové rámce a metodologické postupy tak pokrokové a osvícené, že se jich nejeden demagog, nedouk či populista drží dodnes...