The Fight Against Vivisection

By Hermann Göring

Broadcast speech on August 28, 1933

Source: Hermann Göring — Speeches and Essays, 2nd Edition 1938 Central Publishing House of the NSDAP, Franz Eher Nachf. Munich

Publication for research purposes.

It does not correspond to the German sensibility, it certainly does not correspond to the National Socialist conception, as the mindset of the German people, to equate the animal with an inanimate object and to grant the owner the absolute right of disposal.

Fellow countrymen! Since the day I issued my decree against the cruelty of vivisection, I have received a flood of telegrams and letters expressing the liveliest approval and great joy that finally, an energetic step has been taken to combat this cruelty to animals. It may have seemed surprising that my decree struck like lightning out of a clear sky. For years, the struggle against vivisection has been ongoing. Much has been talked about and debated in scientific and unscientific forms, yet nothing has been done. The National Socialist government was clear from the very first day that decisive measures had to be taken against this, yet it took months for such a law to be passed in all its preparation.

To prevent the further expansion of cruelty to animals during this preparatory period, I have now intervened with this decree and have exercised my right to impose protective custody in the concentration camp on those who still believe they can treat animals as lifeless commodities.

With particular affection, the German people have always regarded animals and issues of animal welfare. They have always seen creatures of God especially in those animals that have been their companions in house and yard for millennia, indeed, one could say, their collaborators and—think only of the horses—their comrades in arms. For the German people, animals are not only living beings in the organic sense, but creatures that lead their own sentient lives, feel pain, show joy, loyalty, and attachment. It would never have corresponded to the popular sentiment to equate the animal with an inanimate, dead, and insensitive object, to consider the animal only as a sentient and soulless object of exploitation, as a tool of labor that one could perhaps use for reasons of utility and, for similar reasons of utility, torture or destroy. The myths and legends of the Aryan peoples, especially the German people, reflect this spirit of solidarity that the Aryan man extends to the animal.

It is all the more incomprehensible that the previous jurisprudence does not correspond to popular sentiment in this regard, as well as in many other areas. Under the influence of foreign legal conceptions, foreign legal concepts, under the impact of the unfortunate fact that the leadership of the law had passed into the hands of people alien to the nation, a jurisprudence could exist to this day that legally equated the animal with a dead object, a jurisprudence that gave the owner of the animal all the rights he has over any other dead object in his possession. It does not correspond to the German sensibility, it certainly does not correspond to the National Socialist conception, as the mindset of the German people, to equate the animal with an inanimate object and to grant the owner the absolute right of disposal. That the owner could destroy it within his four walls like any inanimate object, without any legal recourse for punishment, or even torture it out of base motives, we could not understand.

Until the National Socialist uprising, legislation only aimed to punish brutality and violence towards animals if they caused public outrage. There had to be witnesses, other individuals present, who were offended by the cruelty to animals. Only then was the possibility of punishment even considered. The Criminal Code draft from 1927 sought to break with this approach, aiming to punish cruelty to animals itself; however, its justification included the interpretation that interventions on animals, if carried out solely for religious or scientific reasons, should not be considered as cruelty. This is a meager and inadequate formulation that neither meets the necessity of comprehensive fundamental protection of animals from cruelty nor provides any clear indication of the extent to which interventions on animals for scientific purposes may be carried out.

The use of animals for scientific purposes cannot be left to the discretion of every individual who feels called to experiment. Interventions on animals to ascertain diseases in humans, to obtain aids, and for research purposes require detailed legal regulation and state supervision. Unfortunately, it has been a characteristic of science in the last two decades before the war and after the wartime, that, thinking materialistically and grossly chemically and physically, and protected by the deficient legal situation, the nature and extent of their experiments on animals far exceeded what is tolerable for a German person. Not only French experimenters like the notorious Claude Fernar, but also German, largely alien to the people, scientists have conducted experiments, the cruelty of which can no longer be justified by any intended benefit. Examples from the scientific literature of recent times, in which operations without anesthesia, burnings, frostbite, hunger, and similar torture without any trace of human compassion are described, show that strongly isolated, again mostly alien to the people, scientists have been either desensitized or completely devoid of feeling for their behavior.

Vivisection, the dissection of a living unanesthetized animal, was practiced. Experimental animals, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, and, what is most repugnant to popular sentiment, even the companion of humans, the dog, had their bodies cut open, their hearts exposed, their skulls split open, limbs cut off, to observe how the organs function and what consequences arise after their loss. It is incomprehensible to the sentiment of National Socialism, but unfortunately a fact, that perhaps the entirely possible anesthesia of the animal before the operation was not performed or not performed with the necessary care, as it was only an animal.

It may remain debatable to what extent such vivisections have been necessary and beneficial for understanding the structure and life of the human body in past decades. However, today, even science itself takes the standpoint that the torturous killing of animals through vivisection can no longer advance our current knowledge. Consequently, more and more, such experiments have been discontinued. Therefore, a fundamental and decisive ban on vivisection is not only a commandment of compassion towards animals and consideration for their pain but also of general humanity. Animal protection is not only necessary to protect animals; it also simultaneously combats thoughtless indifference, human brutality, and cruelty towards animals and their suffering.

Therefore, I have issued an immediate ban on all vivisection in Prussia and have made it punishable, initially by being sent to concentration camps, until the law itself can prescribe strict penalties for it. I have instructed the relevant ministers in Prussia to ensure that a draft law on this matter is prepared as quickly as possible, and I can already announce today that the Ministry of the Interior of the Reich, which is responsible for this matter, will bring such a law for adoption in the next few weeks.

However, vivisection does not encompass all possibilities of unnecessary animal cruelty. Both scientific experiments of tormenting nature, such as animal cruelty, as they occur in daily life, require a legislative reform. The comprehensive regulation of all animal welfare legislation, finally achieved in an exemplary manner, will be the result of the processing of animal welfare issues initiated by my decree through the experts.

The task of the experts will be and must be to determine in detail to what extent interventions on animals are still necessary to recognize diseases in humans, produce remedies, and thus promote progress. I am thinking here of methods for recognizing severe diseases and infectious diseases that threaten both humans and animals alike. If it is not possible to detect the pathogen of such diseases through microscopic examination and this can only be done through animal experiments, then it may be conducted using anesthesia and protection. The blood sampling of animals to obtain serum directly serves the fight against the most dangerous human diseases. However, the minor interventions necessary for this purpose cannot be described as animal cruelty or vivisection because they primarily serve the greater goal of combating severe infectious diseases. Just think, for example, of the experiences of war, how invaluable the serum has been in the fight against tetanus and gas gangrene. If blood sampling is carried out conscientiously, no harm is done to the animal. After all, even in times of great danger, humans willingly donate blood to help fellow humans.

If animal experiments on pigs have enabled the discovery of the Germanin, the remedy named after Germany, which possesses world recognition as the only effective treatment against the dreadful sleeping sickness, it is understandable that this remedy continues to be tested on animals for its reliability. However, these tests must also be conducted with the necessary protection and anesthesia.

Medications derived from animal organs, such as insulin, the successful treatment for diabetes, for which the industries of civilized countries currently compete in production and sales, cannot be adequately tested chemically and are mostly tested on animals for their effectiveness.

Important nutritional deficiency diseases like scurvy could only be recognized through animal experiments. Such nutritional experiments will hopefully continue to promote the important area of restructuring our diet.

I do not intend to multiply these examples individually. They are evidence of successful work by our scientists. However, even with the necessary interventions on animals, everything that is not urgently necessary must be avoided, and every measure must be carried out with the greatest care. Anesthesia and local pain relief must benefit not only humans during surgery but also animals to the same extent and with the same care if they are to serve science and thereby humanity.

Animals with which we have special bonds, such as dogs and cats, must be spared from all experiments that can be conducted with other, lesser animals. The rat, a parasite that is to be eradicated anyway, is certainly less sensitive to pain and less deserving of our sympathy than the domestic animals of humans. Nevertheless, the same care, the same consideration must prevail in experiments, and experiments should only be allowed to the extent that they are absolutely necessary for humanity.

The circle of individuals permitted to conduct such experiments must be limited to serious scientists and the institutes led by them, so that only those experiments are conducted from which suffering humanity can expect healing benefits. However, the state must also supervise and intervene if abuse occurs. For educational purposes, animal experiments can largely be replaced by images and film screenings.

All such details will be clarified by the conference of experts in science and animal welfare, which I have now convened, and they will submit their proposals to me. I deliberately invited primarily those experts who have been advocating for animal welfare for years, who have been passionately fighting against the cruelty of vivisection for years, to give them the opportunity to prepare a clear formulation for the next future law. For decades, the struggle between those who have long recognized the necessity of animal welfare and those who want to use animals for human-serving purposes without regard has been an eternal point of contention. It is not acceptable for anyone studying medicine to believe that they can improve their knowledge by conducting experiments on any random animal.

Through the legislative reform initiated by me, we will finally come to a solution to this burning question. This will bring about the restoration of internal peace in a part of our German cultural life. The necessary will remain, the unnecessary, harmful vivisection and animal cruelty, will and must disappear, so that the harmony so necessary for the development of our internal and external political life will also be achieved here.