Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 11:10:02 -0600
Subject: German "cherished forests"
From: MM1905@ACSPR1.acs.brockport.edu
I am a grad student in world/environmental history at SUNY Brockport. I have seen references in historical literature to the Germans' love of their forests; e.g., "...cherished forests (Waldsterben)..." in Gilbert's *The End of the European Era.* or a magazine article (and I don't remember which magazine or article, except that it was published within the last year) which showed infra-red satellite photographs of the substantial difference in forest cover between Berlin and Paris. However, I have been unable to find sources that relate the how and why, the cultural/social bases for these comments. I am currently trying to determine why it is that the forest cover in Germany is so much more extensive than, say, France and why the perception is that the Germans have a greater consciousness of or affinity for their forests.
I would be grateful to learn of any material which would shed light on this
matter.
Thanks a lot in advance.
Martin R. Mulford
mm1905@acspr1.acs.brockport.edu
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 12:29:35 -0600
Subject: Re: German "cherished forests"
From: Nicolas Wolfe Proctor <nprocto@emory.edu>
I'm sure you're already familiar with them, but the opening chapters of Simon Schama's _Landscape and Memory_ examine the different ideas of "forest" in Britain, France, and Germany.
Nicolas Proctor
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 12:53:52 -0600
Subject: Re: German "cherished forests"
From: L F HAMMOND <lhammond@UVic.CA>
Anna Bramwell has a book on Rudolf Steiner and also material in Ecology in the 20th Century: a history. Helmut Maier of Ruhr-universitat Bochum gave a good paper at the last ASEH. There is also a very interesting film made in 1935 linking Nazi ideology with forest images. Not on video as far as I know (drat). Look into the history of North America's early forestry schools, most follow the German model. Also there is something in an old Forest & Conservation history on German foresters and hunting culture. There has to be a lot more than that, but I have not had time to search them out. It is certainly part of the blood soil and forest ideology: viz SS uniforms and their oak leafs. The film makes a big deal about forest "violated" by French occupation, French logging companies hauling good German trees away in chains, plays up race by pointing to the presence of African troops in the German woods, and has a final scene where church spire, tree trunks and shafts of Nazi banners are edited together in one a big upward camera pan.
The film invokes a historical context of the forest as a nurturing protective buffer going back to pre-Roman times (again, see Roman & medieval lit). I could use some leads to material on those areas. It is also interesting that early German mining and smelting takes place within forests Some forests are reserved for exactly those purposes (smelting, timber for mine tunnels, splitting ore with heat and water, etc.) So early industry in German is not in the industrial centres but in the forests.
German essays i suggest to students in my topics list relate to Nazi ideology and the environment; the rise of the German Green party, Petra Kelly, or, precursors of the German greens (meaning go back into the early 1800s and work your way up to the 1930s. Outside of germany, the global impact of german forestry is a big story in world history. There seems to be interesting material as well on irrigation, co-ops, the state and agriculture, such as the paper i heard by Rita Gudermann of the Free University of berlin at the last ASEH.
Lorne Hammond
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 12:53:53 -0600
Subject: Re: German "cherished forests"
From: srr5@cornell.edu (S. Ravi Rajan)
Two good recent articles are:
See also Fernow's history of forestry. Also, since you are in NY, come down to Ithaca and look at the Fernow papers in the university archives at Cornell.
Finally, there are two great 19th century classics:
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 16:51:57 -0600
Subject: Re: German "cherished forests"
From: c.vernon@qut.edu.au (Christopher Vernon)
For more on the Nazi dimension to forestry and native plants (and the larger context of 20th century German landscape architecture), see work by Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn and Gert Groning in recent issues (ie 1991-) of 'Landscape Journal' (University of Wisconsin Press) and 'Journal of Garden History' (London: Taylor and Francis).
Hope this proves to be of interest,
Christopher Vernon
Lecturer in Landscape Architecture
Queensland University of Technology
GPO Box 2434
Brisbane
Queensland 4001
Australia
tel (07) 3864.2671
facsimile (07) 3864.1528
email: c.vernon@qut.edu.au
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 16:51:55 -0600
Subject: Re: German "cherished forests"
From: Richard Grove <rgrove@uncecs.edu>
You might look at Radkaus article on German Forestry in Vol 2 no 1 of
Environment and History for 1996. Back issues available from White Horse
Press 10 High St Knapwell, Cambridge aj@erica.demon.co.uk if you can't
find it in your library.
yrs
Richard Grove
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 16:51:55 -0600
Subject: Re: German "cherished forests"
From: Priya <PRIYA@UKCC.UKY.EDU>
Regarding German sentiments towards nature, an interesting perspective is provided by Anna Bramwell in her account of Walter Darre (the minister for agriculture in the early part of Nazi rule in Germany) in a book titled Blood and Soil. Also in two other books written by her and published by Yale University Press: 1) Ecology in the 20th century, A history; 2) The Fading of the Greens. You might find other references in her book.
All the best,
Priya Rangan
Department of Geography
University of Kentucky
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 14:48:57 -0600
Subject: Re: German "cherished forests"
From: Randy DeLay <rdelay@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
This film was interesting--I have seen clips on it and is a fascinating example of the social (re-?) construction of nature by the Nazis. Recently I also saw a new, (made in 1995-6 I believe) video on Goering or Goebbels and the effort made to preserve and restore forest in Germany and German occupied territory, especially as Poland. I am wracking my brain - I may have seen the documentary on the Discovery Channel - a history/educational cable TV outlet in Canada. You could try them, it may also be possible to track down the original film from the video producers
Grin at life,
Randolph DeLay
University of Alberta
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 08:20:47 -0600
Subject: Re: German "cherished forests"
From: "Cynthia Miller" <CMILLER@SOCIOLOGY.Lan.McGill.CA>
For Randy Delay:
I think I might have seen the same installment of "Discovery", if memory serves me right. On Poland, Mach's _Symbols, Conflicts and Identity_ has a rich 'forced re-location' narrative that speaks to attitudes on landscape/belonging nicely.
Oh -- and thanks for the prompting to grin! Now, if life would grin back...
Cynthia J. Miller
Department of Anthropology
McGill University
Montreal, Quebec
cmiller@sociology.lan.mcgill.ca
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 13:06:39 -0500
Subject: the german cherished forests
From: MM1905@ACSPR1.acs.brockport.edu
This is to express my sincere gratitude to all who were kind enough to respond to my request for sources for German cultural/social traditions in reference to their forests. In particular I should like to thank Cheryl Oakes of Duke for her patience with my misreading of her transmission. Also, extra thanks to those numerous replies that directed me toward Schama's *Landscape and Memory*, his work conveys exactly the feeling that I have been trying to uncover. Thanks also to the rest of the respondents, too numerous to name idividually. You have given me material for considerable investigation and contemplation.
Martin R. Mulford
MM1905@ACSPR1.acs.brockport.edu
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 16:51:06 -0500
Subject: Re: German Cherished forests
From: DONALD HUGHES <dhughes@du.edu>
An interesting book on the subject of "German cherished forests" is:
National Socialism and the Religion of Nature
Robert A. Pois
London & Sydney: Croom Helm, 1986
J. Donald Hughes
John Evans Professor of History
University of Denver
Denver, Colorado 80208, U.S.A.
Tel. 303-871-2952
Fax: 303-871-2957
Email: dhughes@du.edu
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 09:29:22 -0500
From: H-GERMAN EDITOR Dan Rogers <drogers@jaguar1.usouthal.edu>
Subject: Re: German "Cherished Forests"
Submitted by: John M. Kleeberg <KLEEBERG@amnumsoc.org>
The question about the German relationship to the forest brings up many interesting aspects; I have been interested in the economic aspects, because I have done work on the history of privatization and a major privatization in Central Europe in the mid-nineteenth century was the sale of state forests. There were extensive sales of state forests in Austria-Hungary (there is an apocryphal story of someone buying the Wienerwald); the Duchy of Brunswick also privatized its forests, which were sold off as the Harzer Werke (which included iron smelters). There is an excellent four volume account of the forestry industry in Austria-Hungary: _Geschichte der oesterreichischen Land- und Forstwirtschaft und ihrer Industrien 1848-1898_ (Vienna, 1899). The theoretical discussion about state management of forestry resources and the proper rate of exploitation is fascinating, and part of Cameralwissenschaft: there are interesting details in Lorenz Stein, _Lehrbuch der Finanzwissenschaft_ (Leipzig, 1860) pp. 125-128, who refers to the theories of the earlier authors in the field. Theories of forestry exploitation are linked to theories of "natural rents," "natural rate of interest," and the like. Bismarck referred to himself as a "Holznarr," and had extensive forestry holdings; Fritz Stern has a good discussion of this in _Gold and Iron_ (New York, 1977). Then there are sentimental forestry references in trashy literature. There is a story about Bismarck, which may well be apocryphal, that he did not turn against Caprivi until Caprivi had the trees cut down in the Chancellory garden; and after that Bismarck began his _fronde a l'outrance_. The opening scene of Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia by Louisa Muehlbach (pseudonym for Clara Mundt), a popular historical novelist, takes place after the battles of Jena and Auerstedt and the heroes recuperate underneath a German oak.
On the development of early industry in the forests: the remarks of Helen Liebel-Weckowicz are quite apt. By weight, fuel is (after air) the largest component used in smelting metals; in the twentieth century one said, "Eisen geht zur Kohle," and this is true of charcoal too. The use of coal to smelt iron began in the Ruhr in the 1840s, and was introduced by Charles Detillieux among other innovators; on Detillieux, see Rondo Cameron, _France and the Economic Development of Europe_ (Princeton, 1961). (As is so often true in the case of industrial innovations, it was pioneered by many different people at the same time.) One of the largest steel companies in Germany, the Dortmunder Union, continued into the 1880s to use charcoal to make iron at its plants where the iron supplies were distant from the coal supplies. But this only applies to _primary_ industries like mining and some closely related industries like minting; manufacturing (secondary industries) developed in the cities.
One thing to keep in mind is that in German, "Wald" is used in two senses:
So far as the question of more extensive forest cover in Berlin as compared with Paris is concerned, one thing to examine is the different tax treatment of forestry in different countries. During the Second World War, Britain introduced favorable tax legislation for forests to insure pit props for coal mines, and this tax legislation was retained, with the result that people in the 1980s would buy up land and plant monotonous stands of conifers as a tax shelter. I suspect one reason for different forest cover in different countries is the tax treatment of agricultural land versus forest land.
The question of untouched forests is also very interesting. I was wondering if much work has been done on the case of Iceland? Its forests were virtually untouched when the island was first settled in AD 874, and the island was rapidly denuded of its forests. I have often wondered if the abusive treatment of the forests and the wooden houses might explain why Iceland went from affluence in the tenth century to near starvation a few centuries later.
John M. Kleeberg
Kleeberg@AmNumSoc.Org
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