Overview

Contrasting Jewish, Christian and polytheistic traditions and contemporary German attitudes regarding the treatment of animals, Boria Sax documents how 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. This history untangles paradoxes such as the Nazi's rigorous laws regarding the humane transport of cattle in the same railroad cars that carried suffocatingly packed human victims to death camps.

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9780826414083

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Reviews

Rich with evidence and story. H-Nilas

"""[An] insightful book...an informed and important book."" Forward ""Animals in the Third Reich is not just a book about Nazis or animals but also a revealing insight into the rest of us mortals who have increasingly blurred the boundary between humans and animals in a way that betrays both as sentient beings. In the course of his fascinating study, Boria Sax has managed to uncover some very important connections between how the Nazis perceived and treated animals, and how they treated people, especially those-Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill and challenged-they considered to be biologically inferior."" Klaus P. Fischer, author of Nazi Germany: A New History and The History of an Obsession: German Judeophophia and the Holocaust ""In this fascinating study, Sax, an intellectual historian and author, explores the elaborate system the Nazis developed using animal symbols to characterize different types of people and in the process provides a thought-provoking commentary of man's relationship with the animal kingdom."" Book News ""It is difficult to find as aspect of the Holocaust that has not already been extensively analyzed but Boria Sax has done just that with this book on the place of animals in the development and worldview of Nazism. In so doing, he not only throws new light on the Nazis and on the Holocaust, he also forces us to confront our own uncertainties and ambivalences about what is human, what is animal and what is the difference. This is an intensely personal book, eloquently written but nonetheless full of erudition and scholarship. Sax draws the reader in and takes him or her on a smooth but demanding examination of humanity's relationship with animals and nature in the context of the Nazis and the Holocaust. He accomplishes this without trivializing either topic, which is, in itself, a remarkable achievement."" Andrew N. Rowan, Senior Vice-President, The Humane Society of America ""Rich with evidence and story."" H-Nilas ""Rich with evidence and story.""--H-Nilas ""In Animals in the Third Reich, Boria Sax explores an aspect of Nazi ideology and policy that, to my knowledge, no one has seriously studied until now: the Nazi relationship to animals, both as mythic figures and as actual living creatures. I had come across references to Hitler's fixation on wolves in his biographies, but the authors offered no context for this fixation and tended to treat it as yet another idiosyncratic symptom of mental illness. In Sax's book, I learned for the first time the central role that animals, especially predatory animals played in the Nazi worldview, and how this colored their perception of Jews as 'pigs' and 'dogs.' This is an utterly fascinating work, enriched by Sax's wide-ranging erudition, and sure to intrigue ordinary readers, as well as inspiring scholars for years to come."" Barbara Ehrenreich"

Rich with evidence and story. --H-Nilas Animals in the Third Reich is not just a book about Nazis or animals but also a revealing insight into the rest of us mortals who have increasingly blurred the boundary between humans and animals in a way that betrays both as sentient beings. In the course of his fascinating study, Boria Sax has managed to uncover some very important connections between how the Nazis perceived and treated animals, and how they treated people, especially those-Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill and challenged-they considered to be biologically inferior. Klaus P. Fischer, author of Nazi Germany: A New History and The History of an Obsession: German Judeophophia and the Holocaust In this fascinating study, Sax, an intellectual historian and author, explores the elaborate system the Nazis developed using animal symbols to characterize different types of people and in the process provides a thought-provoking commentary of man's relationship with the animal kingdom. Book News It is difficult to find as aspect of the Holocaust that has not already been extensively analyzed but Boria Sax has done just that with this book on the place of animals in the development and worldview of Nazism. In so doing, he not only throws new light on the Nazis and on the Holocaust, he also forces us to confront our own uncertainties and ambivalences about what is human, what is animal and what is the difference. This is an intensely personal book, eloquently written but nonetheless full of erudition and scholarship. Sax draws the reader in and takes him or her on a smooth but demanding examination of humanity's relationship with animals and nature in the context of the Nazis and the Holocaust. He accomplishes this without trivializing either topic, which is, in itself, a remarkable achievement. Andrew N. Rowan, Senior Vice-President, The Humane Society of America [An] insightful book...an informed and important book. Forward Rich with evidence and story. H-Nilas In Animals in the Third Reich, Boria Sax explores an aspect of Nazi ideology and policy that, to my knowledge, no one has seriously studied until now: the Nazi relationship to animals, both as mythic figures and as actual living creatures. I had come across references to Hitler's fixation on wolves in his biographies, but the authors offered no context for this fixation and tended to treat it as yet another idiosyncratic symptom of mental illness. In Sax's book, I learned for the first time the central role that animals, especially predatory animals played in the Nazi worldview, and how this colored their perception of Jews as 'pigs' and 'dogs.' This is an utterly fascinating work, enriched by Sax's wide-ranging erudition, and sure to intrigue ordinary readers, as well as inspiring scholars for years to come. Barbara Ehrenreich

Author Information

Boria Sax received his doctorate in Intellectual History from the State University of New York, Buffalo. He has been a consultant to many human-rights organizations including Amnesty International, Helsinki Watch, and the International League. He is founder of the nonprofit organization Nature in Legend and Story (NILAS, Inc.), which is dedicated ""to promoting understanding of traditional bonds between human beings and the natural world."" He is the author of several books and many articles, and lives in Westchester County, New York.

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