Animals under the Swastika

Drawing from diaries, journals, school textbooks, and printed propaganda, J.W. Mohnhaupt tells the stories of animals during the Third Reich, focusing each chapter on a different facet of Nazism by way of a specific animal species: red deer, horses, cats, and more.

Format: Hardback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 30 August 2022
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Never before or since have animals played as significant a role in German history as they did during the Third Reich. Potato beetles and silkworms were used as weapons of war, pigs were used in propaganda, and dog breeding served the Nazis as a model for their racial theories. Paradoxically, some animals were put under special protection while some humans were simultaneously declared unworthy of living. Ultimately, the ways in which Nazis conceptualized and used animals—both literally and symbolically—reveals much about their racist and bigoted attitudes toward other humans.
 
Drawing from diaries, journals, school textbooks, and printed propaganda, J.W. Mohnhaupt tells these animals’ stories vividly and with an eye for everyday detail, focusing each chapter on a different facet of Nazism by way of a specific animal species: red deer, horses, cats, and more. Animals under the Swastika illustrates the complicated, thought-provoking relationship between Nazis and animals.

Dimension: 229 x 152 x 14 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780299338008