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Four men working in a basic slaughterhouse with arched windows and doorways. One woman looking on through a doorway. Two large birds and one large animal hang upside down from the ceiling. Two men, in back view, handling the birds. One man, in back view, slicing open the belly of the animal, revealing red flesh and blood. One man, in profile, kneels on the floor, slicing the neck of another animal. The figures wear medieval garments in red, green, white and brown. Red is echoed in the picture frame and the tiled floor.

Compassion Mobilized: Antisemitism, Racism, and the Politics of Animal Welfare in Germany, 1945–2002

In Judaism, the protection of life, including animal welfare, is a biblical commandment, and only the meat of uninjured animals is considered kosher (prepared or kept in conditions that follow the rituals of Jewish law). The Jewish method of slaughter (schechtia) is carried out without prior stunning and is intended to ensure rapid loss of consciousness and maximal exsanguination of the animal. It is performed exclusively by a shochet, a religiously certified slaughterer whose training encompasses not only technical precision and physical skill, but also strict ethical and spiritual qualifications. The act involves a single, uninterrupted incision across the animal’s throat using a flawlessly smooth and extremely sharp knife (chalaf). This cut severs the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries, jugular veins, and major nerve pathways, leading to quick unconsciousness and substantial blood loss, as required by Jewish dietary law. Animals that are diseased, injured, or show internal defects are disqualified from kosher status. These conditions are identified during the ritual inspection (bedika), following which the meat may be certified as kosher if no disqualifying signs are found.

Common stunning methods, such as a percussive blow to the head or the use of a captive bolt, cause injury to the animal’s skull and are therefore deemed unacceptable by Jewish authorities. For over 150 years, significant segments of German majority society have rejected the Jewish method of slaughter, demonstrating hate and hostility. Since the Second German Empire, animal protection societies have mobilized against shechita, denouncing it as a ‘cultural disgrace’ and ‘Jewish cruelty to animals’. Although numerous independent experts have disproved the allegation of cruelty, these societies have persisted in their calls for obligatory stunning in German slaughterhouses. Antisemitic voices have swiftly echoed this demand, while the rhetoric of animal welfare activists is itself not devoid of antisemitic undertones.

Apart from isolated regional restrictions, shechita remained protected by the right to religious freedom until the 1930s. However, the debate did not diminish. Ultimately, the National Socialists abruptly ended it in 1933: as one of their first actions, they introduced a new animal protection law (Reichstierschutzgesetz) that effectively banned shechita, initiating the regime’s broader campaign of anti-Jewish discrimination. The Nazis actively incited revulsion against Jewish ritual slaughter, portraying Jews in publications such as Der Stürmer and the propaganda film Der ewige Jude (1940) as representatives of a dangerous and bloodthirsty ‘race’.

After the war, decrees issued by the Allied military governments reinstated the legality of shechita. Due to the small size of the remaining Jewish community in Germany, the demand for ritually slaughtered animals was insignificant and tacitly tolerated. Yet, as discussions unfolded around the nationwide animal protection law enacted in 1972, many longstanding arguments re-emerged. In pamphlets addressing shechita, animal welfare activists once again employed images, distortions, and slogans reminiscent of those propagated under National Socialism. From the 1960s onwards, these arguments also increasingly merged with racialized discourses about Muslims. Although both religious groups were subject to moralizing and derogatory rhetoric, they were typically associated with different kinds of negative emotions: Muslim migrants were more frequently portrayed as ‘ignorant’ and ‘pre-modern’, but were assumed to be capable of ‘converting’ to modern slaughterhouse techniques through education and strict legislation. Jews, in contrast, were often depicted as inherently malevolent and metaphysically stubborn.

My project investigates the enduring presence and transformation of antisemitic tropes and emotions after 1945, focusing on their intersections with animal welfare debates and anti-Muslim racism. I focus primarily on the Federal Republic of Germany, while occasionally drawing comparisons with shechita debates in other countries. The study explores legal frameworks, veterinary and sensory assessments, public controversies, and the ideological and emotional undercurrents shaping these discussions. My research visit to England, supported by the GHIL, was highly valuable for my project. I examined several archival collections to broaden my perspective: the debate on ritual slaughter was not exclusive to Germany, although it was particularly intense and aggressive there. Similar discussions took place in other countries from the nineteenth century onwards, with the influence of antisemitic agitators varying in strength but never entirely absent. Comparative analyses of different countries are valuable not only in identifying ideological, rhetorical, and legal similarities but also in highlighting the unique features of the German debate.

A comparative analysis of England and Germany could be very fruitful: the idea of animal protection originated in England, where it gained recognition and support, with even the royal family backing it as a noble cause. As in most Western European countries, obligatory stunning before slaughter was one of the central demands of animal welfare advocates. While the debates in both countries largely overlapped, they developed in distinct ways.

Germany and the UK: A Comparative Perspective

The campaigns against shechita in Germany were predominantly battles against the practice in general: despite the right to religious freedom, animal protectionists felt that it needed to be banned for moral reasons. In contrast, consensus was found in the UK around improving the method rather than simply condemning shechita and calling for an outright ban. With the emergence of the debate, Jewish leaders began commissioning and publishing expert opinions from the leading physiologists of their time. Rudolf Virchow, Emil Du Bois-Reymond, and hundreds of other scientists testified in favour of the Jewish method of ritual slaughter, stating that it was not a cruel practice but rather a suitable and painless method of slaughter. This was due to the sharpness of the knife and the subsequent bleeding, which interrupted the oxygen supply to the brain, leading to the animal’s rapid loss of consciousness.

However, even Jewish authorities acknowledged that the preliminary process of ‘restraining’ led to complications and occasional animal suffering.1 This issue was alleviated by the ‘Weinberg Casting Pen’, a device invented in 1927 that helped to position the cattle properly. It secured the animal inside an adjustable chamber, which was then gently rotated 180 degrees, placing the animal on its back with its legs in the air. This method eliminated the older, more stressful practice of tying the animal’s legs before strapping it down or throwing it to the ground. As a result, the slaughter process became significantly quicker and less traumatic, typically completed within 30 seconds. The device was subsequently used in the UK, becoming mandatory by law in 1950.2 This illustrates how concerns about animal welfare were addressed and improvements were accepted and even welcomed by the Jewish community.

Black and white photograph of a large metal contraption, circular on a rectangular base, with handles, standing on a factory floor with ceiling lights suspended above.
Fig. 1: Mechanical ‘Weinberg Casting Pen’, taken from Solomon David Sassoon, A Critical Study of Electrical Stunning and the Jewish Method of Slaughter (Shechita) (Letchworth, 1955), 18–19. Courtesy of Special Collections, Hartley Library, University of Southampton.

Nevertheless, this technical innovation did not silence critics of shechita. The UK’s Slaughter of Animals Act of 1933 regulated slaughter processes in similar ways to the laws in Germany: on the one hand, only slaughter avoiding ‘unnecessary suffering’ by applying mechanical stunning devices was considered humane (these devices were referred to as ‘humane killers’); on the other hand, ritual slaughter was exempted from this requirement.3 As a result, shechita remained exposed, and the ‘juridical otherness’ of Jews was embedded in subsequent legislation, as David Fraser observes: ‘There is no explicit, statutorily embodied, and confirmed recognition of the historic arguments about the humanity and non-cruel nature of shechita. Instead, the practice is legislatively marginalized. It is permitted and tolerated, but it can never be juridically normalized. It remains ineffably Jewish.’4 This legal—and moral—exposure provided a fundamental point of leverage for animal protection activists, who pushed for the enforcement of stunning requirements, refusing to take religious sensitivities into account any longer.

This became a reality in Nazi Germany from 1933 onwards. However, because of the antisemitic spirit of the German laws, according to Roger Charlton and Ronald Kaye, the question of stunning did not feature prominently in the British discourse of the 1930s. In fact, one of the proponents of the 1933 British bill explicitly stated:

It is not wise at the present time to interfere with the fundamental right of any race. My view is that we should put our own house in order first before seeking to put others right. But if we can induce our Jewish friends to adopt our methods we shall have achieved a great purpose. For the moment we propose to exempt Jews and Mohammedans.5

Obviously, the rhetoric and motivations at play here were different from those in the German Reich. However, following the war, a vigorous campaign against shechita erupted again in England. Unlike in the United States, where shechita was recognized as a humane slaughter method in 1958, the conflict regarding the balance between animal rights and religious freedom remained unresolved in Germany, Britain, and most other European countries. In the 1950s, prominent animal welfare organizations, together with more radical smaller groups, pushed to reinstate a ban on shechita in both West Germany and the UK. Circulating pamphlets were strikingly similar, propagating both false claims and antisemitic motives. My aim is to analyse these in detail, exploring both the overlaps and the differences.

In contrast to Germany, the Jewish community of Britain was institutionally well prepared for this debate. A ‘London Board of Shechita’ had been established in 1804.6 This board not only supervised and improved the practice of shechita but also coordinated its political and legal defence. Whenever debates arose, the Board of Shechita would organize letters to Members of Parliament, publish information pamphlets, reach out to scholars, connect with organizations like the Council of Christians and Jews to gain public support, and maintain international correspondence with Jewish communities to strategize their defence.

Nine men, some wearing skullcaps, sitting around a table with papers. Most figures in profile or half-profile. Two in frontal view. One man smoking a pipe. Black and white charcoal sketch on yellowed background.
Fig. 2: Sketch of the London Board of Shechita, in Die Yiddishe Stimme, 9 Nov. 1951. Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections / University of Southampton Library.

The archives of the London Board of Shechita, part of the Special Collections of the University of Southampton, and the collections of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in the London Archives provided crucial sources for my research—both for the German context and for a comparative study of both national contexts. At the Hartley Library in Southampton, I also had access to publications from animal welfare and Jewish organizations that are unavailable in Germany. Additionally, in the RSPCA archives in Horsham, I was able to examine minutes, periodicals, and correspondence from the world’s oldest animal welfare organization. This visit proved to be a rewarding experience for me, since the German archives of relevant organizations were mostly destroyed during the Second World War. The archivist Mark Trevin was extremely helpful and open-minded in discussing these critical aspects of animal welfare history and in locating useful sources. Such openness is rarely found among German advocates of animal protection when it comes to this subject.


Featured image: Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, Cod. Rossian. 555, fol. 127 bis verso. Public domain.

  1. See Meyer Keyserling, Die rituale Schlachtfrage oder: Ist Schächten Thierquälerei? Auf Grund der eingeholten und mitabgedruckten Gutachten (Aarau, 1867) and Hirsch Hildesheimer, Neue Gutachten über das jüdisch-rituelle Schlachtverfahren (Schächten) (Berlin, 1906). []
  2. See ‘Schechita Question Looms Large in Europe; Jews Seek to Check Hostile Movement’, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 5 June 1927. []
  3. See Hansard, HL vol. 154 (18 Mar. 1948). []
  4. David Fraser, Anti-Shechita Prosecutions in the Anglo-American World, 1855–1913: ‘A Major Attack on Jewish Freedoms . . .’ (Boston, 2018), 205. []
  5. Quoted in Roger Charlton and Ronald Kaye, ‘The Politics of Religious Slaughter: An Ethno-Religious Case Study’, New Community, 12/3 (1985), 490–503, at 491. []
  6. Albert M. Hyamson, The London Board for Shechita 1804–1954 (London, 1954). []

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OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Fabian Weber (August 29, 2025). Compassion Mobilized: Antisemitism, Racism, and the Politics of Animal Welfare in Germany, 1945–2002. German Historical Institute London Blog. Retrieved January 22, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/14jni


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