Brooke’s Leopard Blind Reading On – with Africa’s German-speaking Hunters, from Alvensleben to Zwilling Written by Rolf D. Baldus

he libraries of international Namibia, Cameroon and Togo were once hunters abound with books German colonies, and the latter three were written in English, recounting lost during the early days of World War Tthe years when it was still possible to I. Only General von Lettow-Vorbeck in hunt Africa’s big on one’s own, or German continued to lead his tales from their multiple . As Great bush war, right up until he heard about Britain was the leading colonial power, the Armistice in Europe – a week late – English, Scottish and Irish adventurers, and then he gave up. explorers, officers, farmers, game rangers, During the colonial years, there was and professional hunters authored much , as the colonies were exciting books about their hunting true game paradises. However, the time ventures, including Frederick Courteney allotted to that generation of hunters was Selous, John Millais, “Karamojo” Bell, not sufficient to contribute much writing John Patterson, John Hunter, Ionides, to Africa’s hunting history. and Brian Nicholson. The Americans entered the scene at RESEARCHING A BOOK ON the beginning of the 20th century when GERMAN HUNTERS former President Theodore “Teddy” I combed through old bookstores and flea Roosevelt and his son Kermit went on a markets, and my collection grew slowly. full-year safari in 1909, shooting enough Everything changed with the Internet. game to fill the voluminous book, African Suddenly, within seconds, one could Game Trails – an instant bestseller that was locate and price a long sought-after book. translated into several languages. Ernest This new transparency in the book market Hemingway only went on two safaris, but crated a steep, downward trend in prices his stories like The Snows of Kilimanjaro or for old books. Although my collection The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber COLLECTING HUNTING BOOKS continued to grow, once the more common coined the very image of the white hunter ON AFRICA names were covered, the search for rarer that still endures. Robert Ruark’s Horn of Since I was a boy, I collected books about editions became increasingly difficult. the Hunter measures up to Hemingway’s hunting in Africa. They were difficult to , and no hunter doesn’t locate, and they were mostly not cheap. Then I decided it was time to address like Ruark’s Use Enough Gun. Osa Johnson, Most I found in Germany, in German the task systematically myself and produce one of the first women to hunt big game, of course, of editions that were printed a compilation of all the different kinds published I Married Adventure and was in great numbers. There weren’t many of Africa’s German-speaking hunters. the host of TV’s first wildlife series, Osa different titles and they were almost always After five years collecting information, Johnson's The Big Game Hunt. written by the same names. we’ve researched and identified over 200 Now, finally the voices of German, The most obvious reason why German hunting figures from Germany, Austria Austrian and Swiss hunters can be heard hunters published so few books is that and Switzerland, who have written books with the 2014 publication, in German, Germany’s colonial adventure in Africa about their experiences, or have been of the 352-page, Auf Safari – Legendäre lasted only a few years after it started written about by other authors. Afrikajäger von Alvensleben bis with the 1894 Congo-Conference in Together with my co-editor Werner Zwilling (On Safari – Legendary Hunters Berlin during the “.” Schmitz, a professional journalist and of Africa, from Alvensleben to Zwilling), Chancellor Bismarck was not much translator of Ruark’s books, and our 12 edited by myself and Werner Schmitz with interested in colonies, but finally the co-authors from five different countries, 160 fascinating black and white photos German "Reich" grabbed a few stretches of including Fiona Capstick and Brooke with contributions from a dozen authors, the continent that hadn’t been occupied by ChilversLubin, we tell the full-length stories including Fiona Capstick and AHG editor the other colonial powers, mainly British, of 23 hunting personalities and provide the Brooke ChilversLubin. French, and Portuguese. Today’s , biographies and bibliographies of all 203

22 africanhuntinggazette.com Brooke’s Leopard Blind Reading hunters and huntresses we identified. Such “It is good that now a book is With his vast, first-hand hunting collections are never complete, but we’re experience, he understood the dangers confident that our list is both the first of its available which narrates the wildlife faced from economic development. kind and comprehensive. story of the German-speaking And in 1896, he initiated comprehensive It astonishes how many hunters felt hunting legislation and created the first compelled to press their experiences hunters.” – Gerald Bigurube, modern, protected areas in Africa; one of between two book covers. Their desire former General Director of them became the Selous Game Reserve. to share their stories combined with Ironically, while sitting in a blind in the demand of the armchair public to Tanzania National Parks Germany waiting for a roebuck to appear, experience their exotic adventures. Of a hunting accident ended his life. course, most hunters are better raconteurs A co-conservationist in spirit was Carl than writers, and are more skilled with Georg Schillings (1865–1921). Living the a Mauser rifle than a pencil. Many a life of a country gentleman, estate owner, manuscript has been lost in the bush or and dandy in Germany’s Rhineland, eaten by termites. hunting was his main occupation, when The result is that the number of German- not racing horses. language authors and books remains small Schillings’s African exposure came when compared to the number of people who, he joined a friend on a safari to German for whatever motif, actually hunted. East Africa. His large collection of African game inspired him to become a passionate 203 NAMES naturalist. Kitting out his own first safari, The picture we developed over our years of his baggage in1899 included a lot of bulky research is a colorful mixture of motives, camera equipment. Already an experienced necessities, desires, passions, imperatives, hunter, he also became good at photographing or just coincidences for why people took wild animals. Using flashlight powder at up rifles and shotguns to hunt in Africa. night turned out to be more difficult and The early 19th century explorers and dangerous than bagging game with his rifle. researchers hunted to feed their large Schillings’s book, With Flashlight and Rifle, caravans of porters. Others hunted to became a bestseller in Imperial Germany collect specimens for research and natural and was quickly translated into English. history museums; some selected their Roosevelt referred to it in preparation for research topics to have an excuse to travel Alfred Brehm in his travel suit, his his own safari, naming it one of the three to Africa and to hunt. hunting rifle in hand, before setting out most valuable books of its kind in its time, At some stage, it became chic for the rich on his journey to Abysinnia. alongside books by Selous and Millais. and the nobility to go on safari to Africa. Schillings deplored the widespread Aristocrats from Germany and Austria destruction of wildlife in Africa by the chartered Nile steamers and traveled expansion of agriculture, and by the towards the Sudan, hunting along the way, such example was Alfred Brehm (1829– irresponsible killers of game who called sometimes firing directly from the boat, 1884), author of the multi-volume, much themselves “sportsmen,” for many a hunter with more or less success. re-issued and re-published, Brehm’s Life of regarded the game as being endless and That was more comfortable than the Animals, which became an early natural practiced widespread slaughter. laborious foot safari with porters starting history reference book and bestseller. It Schillings called for “sustainable use,” at the coast. Later, ’s Railway was Brehms’s lust for hunting – inherited and saw it as the task of true hunters to (“The Lunatic Express”) and the Usambara from his father, a pastor and self-taught engage in the survival of game. He proposed Railway in opened ornithologist – that initially drew him to conservation legislation of astonishingly an easy entry into the interior of Africa to Africa. His first African species was the modern content, and even called for the every would-be sportsman. falcon he shot as a teenager in Cairo, from investment of hunting revenues into There was also the usual lot of settlers, ivory the top of the Great Pyramid of Giza, a.k.a., conservation, mainly for entertaining game hunters, sportsmen, colonial administrators, the Pyramid of Cheops. Brehm collected scouts. He did not believe in the complete or officers of the Schutztruppe, who hunted. birds and other wildlife on his travels along preservation of wildlife, but rather in the Occasionally, officers were so involved in the Nile and into the Sudan. The majority principle of “use it or lose it.” Sustainable hunting that the Imperial Government in of his vast collection is in New York’s hunting would develop as a form of land Berlin wrote notes stating that the Herren American Museum of Natural History. use, and revenues could contribute to officers should attend more to their duties Some called Hermann von Wissmann economic development. and less to hunting! Germany ultimately (1853–1905) “Germany’s greatest produced its share of Africa’s professional Afrikaner.” This officer and keen hunter NOT TO FORGET THE HUNTRESSES hunters, outfitters and game wardens. was the first to cross Africa from West German women also played a part in to East on foot. In 1889, he put down a hunting history. The most famous is A WIDE RANGE OF MOTIVES, rebellion on the East African coast by Arab Margarete Trappe (1884–1957), a strong LIFESTYLES AND PASSIONS slave-traders, and became Governor of the and tough settler woman who became an Some hunters became famous people, but young Germany East Africa colony a few excellent professional hunter. General von that they were hunters was forgotten. One years later. Lettow-Vorbeck said she had “courage for

africanhuntinggazette.com 23 Brooke’s Leopard Blind Reading

General von Lettow-Vorbeck with three askaris and his largest Cape buffalo trophy, The studio photo shows Adolf Friedrich during World War I’s East African campaign. Duke of Mecklenburg upon return from his Africa expedition 1907-1908.

24 africanhuntinggazette.com Brooke’s Leopard Blind Reading three men,” and was the best huntress he knew. Nevertheless, women didn’t have a chance then to join the East African Professional Hunters’ Association. Vivienne de Watteville (1900 –1957) was a Swiss aristocrat who accompanied her father on his 1,200-mile-long African foot-safari as both companion and skinner. As they collected specimens for the museum in Bern, her father became increasingly addicted to hunting. His 19th lion killed him, but instead of aborting the safari, de Watteville fills her father’s hunting license, even killing a white rhino on her own.

OR THE PHS Of course, there were the professional AHG Editor Brooke ChilversLubin writes hunters, too. Some were businessmen about the famous German wildlife painter, who as early as pre-WWI saw the financial Wilhelm Kuhnert, pictured here on safari, potential of the safari hunting industry, his Mauser rifle hanging over his shoulder. Christoph Schulz and his wife: Both were and they set up offices in Mombasa and The artist got the nickname "Lion successful professional and game catchers in to outfit and guide hunting safaris. Kuhnert" due to the many excellent, large German East Africa before WWI. Several One PH was Paul Huebner, who’d been lion paintings he created, some of which of their descendants are still in the exotic Nairobi’s Municipal Commissioner around 1901. He was also one of the three hunters hang today in the Fort Worth zoo. animal business in the USA today. who’d waited inside a wagon near Tsavo to shoot the man-eating lion that grabbed the English police officer Charles Ryall from the wagon and made off with him. Interested sportsmen could book a safari with Huebner from Berlin, London or New York. The Austrian Ernst Alexander Zwilling (1904–1990) became a well-known PH, starting his career in Cameroon then moving to Kenya and Uganda. Werner von Alvensleben (1913–1998) is more familiar to English-speaking hunters due to Brian Marsh’s book, Baron in Africa. Alvensleben supposedly fled Hitler’s Germany in 1935 and was interned in Rhodesia at the outbreak of World War II. He escaped to Mozambique and later started the hunting company Safarilandia, which went on to become the largest and most famous hunting outfit in the Portuguese colony. Marsh’s book is vague when it comes to the baron’s youth and flight from Germany, and the little it does expose is incorrect, as we learned. Alvensleben himself used to put a written note into every copy of the book, which he sold himself, telling readers to ignore completely what was written about Hitler and their supposed meeting. Instead, our research led us to Alvensleben’s membership in the Waffen- SS and a political assassination attempt in Austria in 1933. Alvensleben’s activities during the war, while living in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique, can be studied

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in Washington, D.C., in the OSS files, – was never drawn to African safaris, Dr. Rolf D. Baldus has developed and the secret service that preceded the CIA. although there were certainly opportunities managed African conservation areas for Alvensleben was a spy for the United States! in their African socialist brother-states, like many years. The author of numerous books After independence of most of Africa’s Tanzania, Mozambique or Angola. and articles about hunting and conservation, colonies, the type of hunters changed. Only a peculiar hunter from East today he advises wildlife authorities in Africa One of the few PHs we portray is Anno Germany, Heinz Meynhardt (1935– and Central Asia. Hecker (born 1928), an excellent hunter 1989), who’d made contact with a pack of who trained Tanzania’s game wardens at wild pigs and had been accepted by them The handsome hardcover, with 352 pages the Mweka College of African Wildlife as a member of the family, made a safari and 200 black & white photos, edited Management. Other PHs include Count to the Selous Game Reserve. He was a by Rolf D. Baldus and Werner Schmitz, Meran (born 1924), and the flamboyant well-known personality in both East and Auf Safari – Legendäre Afrikajäger von playboy Count “Alfie” Auersperg, both West Germany, due to his self-shot movies Alvensleben bis Zwilling (On Safari from Austria; Robert von Reitnauer (born showing his life with his foster-family of – Legendary Africa Hunters from 1933) a descendant of German immigrants wild boars. As he earned foreign exchange, Alvensleben to Zwilling), is published by and author of the book Kwaheri!, and he was allowed to travel abroad, a rare KOSMOS Publishers, Stuttgart 2014. several Namibians of German descent. privilege for a GDR-citizen. We also include the “paying guest” ISBN: 978-3-440-14007-9 hunters from central Europe: industrial HUNTING AND CONSERVATION tycoon Karl Friedrich Flick (1927– Africa has seen more than its share of The cost: 34.99 € (Euros), plus shipping. 2006), who shot a buffalo with a 54- wanton killing of wildlife during its history. To order, contact: [email protected] inch spread with PH Robin Hurt in the Many hunters from Germany, Austria and Kenyan Masailand. And politician-hunter, Switzerland acted as if this were normal Bavarian strongman, and long-serving at that time. And indeed it was. The conservative state-premier, Franz Josef fauna was clearly divided into useful and Strauß (1915–1988), who experienced harmful. And the use of the resource was A BIBLIOGRAPHY a remarkable, private hunting safari for subjected to few restrictions. The following is a selection of old and Cape buffalo in Tanzania during the days However, the more sensible and farsighted new books, in English, by or about of socialist President Julius Nyerere. hunters realized that wildlife would become German-speaking hunters and authors. extinct if the usual exploitative practices They are available from bookshops, CHIMP MEETS WILD BOAR continued. They called for sustainability book dealers, or on the Internet. The political elite of the former German in use, for conservation, and for proper Democratic Republic (1949–1990) – the game laws. It was these responsible hunters Capstick, Fiona Claire: The Diana fourth-largest German-speaking country, who became the mentors of modern Files, The Huntress Traveler through whose communist leaders used their conservation in the German colonies. History, Rowland Ward, 2005; and hunting privileges at home to their utmost Between Two Fires – the African Saga of Margarete Trappe, Rowland Ward, 2011. Freyberg, Hermann: , London, 1933. Hecker, Anno: That’s Africa, Rowland Ward, 2007. König, Oskar: Pori Tupu, London, 1955. Marsh, Brian: Baron in Africa – The Remarkable Adventures of Werner von Alvensleben, Safari Press, 1997. Niedieck, Paul: With Rifle in Five Continents, London, 1909. Reitnauer, Robert: Kwaheri! On the Spoor of Big Game in East Africa, Safari Press, 2004. Rogister, Maximilian von: Momella. An African Game Paradise, London, 1957. Schillings, Carl Georg: With Flashlight and Rifle, London, 1906. Watteville, Vivienne de: Out in the Blue, London, 1927; Speak to the Earth, 1935. Zwilling, Ernst Alexander: Jungle Fever, London, 1956.

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