VIRUS Band 23, pp. 127-144, 2025/04/24
Schwerpunkt: Mensch - Tier - Gesundheit
The article discusses the involvement of veterinarians in the debate on the stunning of slaughter animals in Germany from the late 19th century until the 1930s. In the first part, it illu mi nates general developments and arguments. In the second part, it concentrates on three sig ni ficant figures of the debate: Hugo Heiss, Carl Klein and Max Müller. The article confirms already known facts about the entanglement of the debate with the question of a possible limitation of the Jewish ritual slaughter (shehitah). It argues that anti-Semitic notions were not ne cessarily the main motivation for the involvement in the debate. Rather, various interpretations of the idea of animal protection encouraged German veterinarians to take a public stand. The positions presented in the article vary from a scientific attitude towards stunning methods (Heiss), to a radical form of animal protection (Klein) and finally to a völkisch view of human-animal rela-tions (Müller).
Keywords: Slaughtering of animals, stunning of animals, shehitah, animal protection, veterinarians, German Reich
