Barney P. Hartston

Pigeon sport changed dramatically in Central Europe between 1870

and 1914 due to the rapid development of networks of

poultry-breeding clubs, the expansion of homing pigeon use by

European military forces after the Franco-Prussian War, and attempts

to promote pigeon racing as a modern sport rather than just a

hobby. Although military leaders coordinated closely with pigeon

clubs and encouraged them to align their activities with military

priorities, individual club members also celebrated their status as

independent modern sportsmen, used racing events as loci for

male sociability, and touted their own individual skill and expertise.

In Germany, the Association of German Pigeon Fancier Clubs

became an influential interest group that defended the sport –

including advocating for laws to protect homing pigeons from

farmers and hunters. After 1900, however, as homing pigeon sport

spread to the working class populations of the Ruhr, local farmers

increasingly complained about damage to their crops. In response,

the leaders of the Association of German Pigeon Fancier Clubs

would forge an alliance with Prussian military officials to resist calls

by powerful agricultural interest groups to limit pigeon-keeping

and racing.

In 1900, Prussian government officials sent special police commissars to intervene in a sensational ritual murder investigation in the West Prussian town of Konitz. Despite occasional displays of incompetence, these special investigators generally held themselves aloof from popular anti-Semitic pressure and worked diligently to secure an acquittal for the Jewish defendant. But was this intervention by outside investigators an isolated case in Imperial Germany? Did it represent a trend of "responsible" government behavior in dealing with anti-Semitic incidents? This article will attempt to answer these questions by examining government actions in four additional anti-Semitic causes célèbres in the early Kaiserreich.