Synopses & Reviews
This book is a must for all collections in German history and animal rights. It is a deep and profound reflection on the complex and perplexing ways that animals can shape human culture and politics.
Synopsis
Animals in the Third Reich begins by contrasting Jewish Christian and polytheistic traditions and contemporary German attitudes regarding the treatment of animals. Boria Sax documents how the Nazis manipulated these attitudes to conform to their own symbolic system -- Aryan wolves and horses; Jewish pigs and apes.
By equating the Nazi party with "nature", the Nazis reduced all ethical issues to biological questions. Thus predatory animals were exalted along with their human counterparts -- party leaders and functionaries -- while enemies were identified as sheep destined for slaughter.
Rich in anecdotal examples and accessibly written, this fascinating social history untangles paradoxes such as the Nazis' rigorous laws regarding the humane transportation of cattle in the same railroad cars that carried suffocatingly packed human victims to death camps.