Book Review: Capital of Animals by Clemens Maier-Wolthausen

 

Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Hauptstadt der Tiere.

Diving both into history and my common topic of animals/nature today with a book about the history of Germany's oldest zoo: Zoo Berlin.

Like said before, this book chronicles the history of Zoo Berlin throughout the ages, from its founding to its growing collection to the eventual dark times that followed especially during two world wars. It also tackles the more modern-day topics and goings-ons at the zoo. There's also a few sections in the books which are dedicated to remarkable or popular species Berlin Zoo houses, such as giant pandas and gorillas.

I was recently in Berlin (as you may have read in other reviews) and when visiting their zoo I saw this book at the gift shop and just instantly knew I needed to read it. I like nature, I like animals, I like history, I like the zoo. So a win-win situation all around, it seemed.

And it was. This is a large and super-thorough look at an already interesting subject. I couldn't have asked for more. Each chapter is dedicated to a certain time-frame in the zoo, and during it we're also given a brief look at one featured species. The book also has many photos and illustrations to add extra context and visual appeal.

Of course there's no beating around the bush that this book also tackles darker topics, particularly around World War II when then-director of the zoo Lutz Heck was an avid Nazi. However even before that obviously there's also instances of animal abuse or just improper care/husbandry as animals are caught directly from the wild and die in various ways due to different standards of husbandry back then. It can also not be denied that Berlin Zoo partook in several exhibits of various indigenous peoples which were there put on display against their will.

The book thankfully doesn't dance around these darker facts at all and puts it bluntly as it is. There's no trying to shove it under the rug and pretend it never happened: the book makes it very clear that it did happen and we can look at this now and acknowledge it is very fucked up. It'd be wrong to not acknowledge this part of the zoo's history, and I'm glad they didn't sugarcoat these facts in the slightest. Colonialism, shitty animal husbandry and the horrors during of Nazism and antisemitism during WWII were horrible and there's no denying that they played a part in this zoo's history.

The book itself is written well and, like said before, super thorough. I definitely learned a whole lot while reading it and the author also happened to have a pleasant writing voice. German isn't my native tongue, so I was worried at times that I wouldn't be able to follow everything going on, but I was pleasantly surprised that this book was written very accessibly even for me who isn't a native speaker.

So yeah, a very neat and thorough book on the subject. I think most people who like history or zoos will appreciate it, however I do recommend reading it after having visited the zoo yourself because it just adds an extra layer when reading about it. I do (as is obvious with what I mentioned before) want to issue a trigger warning for the displaying of indigenous peoples in a zoo, racism, antisemitism, Nazism, and animal mistreatment/death, but if you can handle these topics this is a very interesting and in-depth look into the history of the zoo, both the good and the bad.

Rating: 4/5