Shooting platforms in the tradition

Apart from hunting, there is probably no trade that invokes tradition while simultaneously letting the tail wag the dog so extensively.

When travelling by train from Basel to Hamburg during the leafless season, one sees, every few moments — both on the outward journey and on the return on the other side — countless elevated hides belonging to hobby hunters. A so-called furnishing of the landscape with high seats and pulpits. One is inevitably reminded of the horrific images of the Nazi concentration camps, or of watchtowers at borders and prisons. As a traveller passing through the forests of the cultural landscape, one rarely catches sight of any wildlife, yet the visual disfigurement of nature by these hobby hunters is striking.

The practice of lounging above the ground during driven stalking is no epochal hunting tradition. It likely owes its breakthrough to the disability of Kaiser Wilhelm II's left arm in the 19th century, who had to prop up his rifle when shooting. In the Swiss canton of Obwalden and among indigenous peoples with genuine hunters, elevated hides — then referred to as shooting platforms — are still regarded as prohibited aids or as unsportsmanlike conduct. The word and concept of “hunting” are also out of place in the context of stalking from a high seat. Sniping, as practised in terrorist organisations, is more apt. Not infrequently, the elevated hides are erected illegally by hobby hunters, entirely without a permit.

Under the last German Emperor Wilhelm II. (1859–1941) of the House of Hohenzollern, many of the so-called traditions of today's eco-terrorists were established that persist to this day. Emperor Wilhelm II. is said to have shot 7 animals per day or a total of 75’000 wild animals with his arm, which had been disabled since birth. These are not figures from the medical records of a mentally and physically impaired patient — they were more or less common practice among the nobility before the First World War. Equally lacking in fair chase conduct was, for example, the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who is said to have killed 275’000 wild animals over the course of his life as a Habsburg — including, allegedly, a white chamois one year before the 1914 assassination in Sarajevo (the Sarajevo assassination, in which he and his wife were killed, is regarded as the trigger for the First World War) — something which, according to hunters' belief, brings misfortune.

After the nobility had reprimanded him for his hunting excesses, Wilhelm II. first classified stags into a hierarchy based on antler size, in order to hunt for quality rather than quantity. In 1880, the world's first antler competition exhibitions took place in Graz. The breeding and production of impressive antlers for trophy display began. These hierarchies are not biologically necessary but arose for reasons of prestige. The pursuit of trophies and the decoration of walls with skulls is not a primordial human culture either, but derives from feudal courts afflicted by severe hereditary diseases. Wilhelm II. was later also charged with war crimes and fled into exile in the Netherlands, where he developed a fondness for felling trees.

Further hunting customs and ideology trace back to Wilhelm II.: He began the practice of drawing the break (a sprig of foliage) through the wound of the shot animal and presenting it to the marksman. At the same time, the peculiar concept of “Waidgerechtigkeit” (fair and ethical hunting) also emerged — a term that to this day cannot be substantiated with any concrete content.

Hunting tradition is: things are as they really should not be

Later, under National Socialist concepts of genetics, targeted culls were developed that were intended to improve populations through selective breeding — a practice that is now standard among hobby hunters. Hobby hunters manipulate and selectively alter the natural evolution and genetics of wildlife, as if in a large animal testing laboratory. Under the yoke of hobby hunters, wild animals are bred into livestock and pets.

Hunting culture ultimately amounts to excommunication from the realm of any ethical culture and can at best serve as a synonym and illustration of a contemptible subculture.

Dr. Gunter Bleibohm

Why are slavery, witch hunts, cannibalism, or apartheid no longer considered traditions — yet murder, manslaughter, violence, and cruelty to defenceless beings in hunting are supposed to be tradition?

We are familiar with various manifestations of the concept of culture. Culture in general refers to everything produced by human beings themselves, as well as intellectual constructs such as law, morality, religion, ethics, etc. The concept of culture encompasses not only descriptive components but also normative ones. Normative components include guidance on how or what something ought to be, visions of a desirable situation, visions of an aspirational state — including, among other things, non-violence. Violence as an aspirational state would accordingly have to be described as a culture of violence — in common understanding, an inversion of the concept in a negative direction, describing a lack of culture, an absence of culture.

1. Safety and Accidents Involving Raised Hides

• The Social Insurance Institution for Agriculture, Forestry and Horticulture (SVLFG) once again highlighted in 2025 that accidents involving raised hides are among the leading causes of accidents in hunting. For the 2024 hunting year, three fatal accidents connected with raised hides are cited, including accidents occurring during the erection and repair of shooting platforms as well as during descent with a loaded weapon.
• Hunting media continue to report on serious individual cases, such as a collapsed raised hide in Saxony in 2025, in which a hunter had to be resuscitated.
• These “shooting platforms” are problematic not only aesthetically and ethically, but also in terms of safety.

2. Illegal or Problematic Raised Hides

• There are currently increasing reports of damaged or destroyed hunting blinds, for example in Thuringia and the Weimar region, where unknown individuals regularly sabotage or destroy elevated stands. This shows that hunting blinds are increasingly becoming a focal point of a societal conflict between hunters and their opponents. The description as a symbol of a “culture of disregard” and as a visible manifestation of the conflict remains apt.

3. Internal hunting debate on “Fair Chase” ethics

• At the same time, the hunting lobby is attempting to reframe the concept of “waidgerechtigkeit” in a positive light, for example in current campaigns and social media posts, where “ethical hunting” is portrayed as responsible, suffering-minimising and nature-connected.
• This confirms the observation that waidgerechtigkeit continues to be defended as a nebulous, ideologically charged concept and used propagandistically, without there being a uniform, substantiated ethical foundation.