Dealing with wolves has been discussed in northern Germany for months - wolf protectors face cattle farmers and frightened residents. But the excitement about the wolf is not new:Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the "strangler from Lichtenmoor" caused real hysteria in the area around Nienburg in Lower Saxony.
Well packaged and archived in individual parts:Parts of the skeleton of the "Strike from Lichtenmoor".The legendary "strangler" has not entirely disappeared. What is left of him is now stored in a yellowed cardboard box in the State Museum in Hanover:the original skeleton of the wolf.
Wearing white fabric gloves, curator Christiane Schilling examines the paper-wrapped remains of the once "mysterious monster" from Lichtenmoor. Spine, ribs, shoulder blade - everything is almost complete. Schilling and her colleagues sorted smaller bones into resealable bags. The original skull of the "strong male", as the scientist describes it, with the mighty fangs still impresses today.
"Würger vom Lichtenmoor":a media summer slump event
The voracious "strangler" is said to have killed hundreds of sheep and cattle in the summer of 1948. How many there actually were remains his secret. A sensationalist journalist had given the wolf, which crept through the woods near Nienburg, this murderous-sounding name. The excitement about the "strangler" was a media summer slump.
The newsreel "Welt im Film", produced by the British and Americans, also reported in a dramatic tone:"The strangler is on the loose. For four months, the farmers near the Lichtenmoor between the Weser and Aller have been terrified by a mysterious predator hunted. Almost every morning dead cattle, horses and sheep were found in the pastures. 182 head of cattle had already fallen victim to the nocturnal animal killer."
Hysteria takes on grotesque features
The "Strike from Lichtenmoor" was a big topic in the media in 1948.Mysterious, horrible, according to the newspaper reports from that time. People's imaginations blossom. Eyewitnesses remember this woman a good twenty years ago:"People were afraid. It was blueberry season, no one went to the forest to pick blueberries anymore. And some of them smelled like a lion or a puma."
The hysteria takes on grotesque features. The zoo in Hamburg is called for help to track down the mysterious predator, reports Christiane Schilling from the State Museum in Hanover:"Then Hagenbeck came and found no tracks of a puma. Then there was a huge hunt. 1,500 beaters, in June 1948, and nobody found him." At that time there was no talk of species protection.
"Problemwolf" was not inconvenient for the population
Christiane Schilling has dealt extensively with the "strangler". The curator helped prepare a wolf exhibition two years ago at the Landesmuseum in Hanover. According to her, the veritable press system back then is one of the important ingredients for the wolf hype. But despite all the primal fear of the mysterious monster:the people in the country also had their decisive part in the legend of the strangler, she says.
Lower Saxony's probably first problem wolf was apparently not inconvenient for the starving population at the time, according to the scientist:"I know from the village that on many a Sunday the wolf was toasted over many a roast. Long may it continue to exist. Because of course they all slaughtered it illegally and then said it was the strangler. That gave them a free pass to stuff their stomachs."
"An adult wolf bastard"
The voracious teeth of the wolf:It is still unclear how many animals it really killed.At the time it was an open secret. The crime scenes are too far apart, the wounds on some sheep and cattle appear too smooth. But the hunter Hermann Gaatz from Eilte is convinced of the existence of the wolf. In his diary he describes in detail how he hunted down the animal one evening at the end of August 1948.
The next day he presented the shot predator to the crowd of journalists, reports the newsreel "Welt im Film" documented in the Federal Archives in every detail and noticeably impressed:"It was a full-grown wolf bastard 1.70 meters long. The murderous teeth showed tusks five centimeters long The lucky predator hunter was honored and filmed - and the invented mythical creatures disappeared from the popular imagination."
Parallels to today's wolf debate
The skeleton in the museum archive and a single head preparation are still reminiscent of the predator from the moor area. The legend of the "Strike from Lichtenmoor" has become a piece of regional history.
Curator Christiane Schilling sees parallels in history with what is happening today. When it comes to wolves, she says, there's always a lot of gossip. It is often exaggerated, but:"The primal fear of a large predator, and that's the wolf, I can't take that away from anyone today." For a very long time there were no wolves in Germany:"We're not used to it anymore."