Fascist Pigs: Technoscientific Organisms and the History of Fascism

In short, the question was how to balance the demands of the market with the conditions on farms, such as climate and feeding. The veredelte Landschwein (improved Landrace swine) was bred for the purpose of achieving such a balance. As a combination of the previous two types—a mixed type, as Frölich called it—it was bred to be fed on leftovers produced at the farmstead combined with highly nutritious fodders in its early stages, which led to satisfactory development and fattening rates.[39] Like the Edelschwein, the veredelte Landschwein—recognized by the DLG as a distinct breed since 1904—was a product of crossings with English stock, with the difference that some of the characteristics of the German landrace (a larger frame and later maturation) were still recognizable. If the Edelschwein was to supply urban markets with fresh pork, the veredelte Landschwein was to cover the need for sausages and bacon.[40] Not surprisingly, although the veredelte Landschwein ruled in Lower Saxony, accounting for 67 percent of the purebred swine registered there in 1938, the Edelschwein was preferred on the large estates of the east, which focused more on faster returns and on satisfying city dwellers’ increasing demands for pork.[41]

The success of the two races in incorporating the modern traces of the English breeds into German husbandry didn’t owe much to the work of academic breeders, being instead the result of commercial breeders’ practices.[42] But at places such as the University of Halle, sharp distinctions between commercial and academic endeavors were not always easy to make. Gustav Frölich’s experience in commercial operations was shared by most of his colleagues. What makes the case of Frölich so interesting is that his work with Edelschwein at Friedrichswert points to practices that would become the main point of entry into the field of animal breeding for university professors.

It was at Friedrichswert that Frölich began to register the sizes of litters of Edelschwein, concluding from observation of 46 sows producing 1,739 pigs that maximum litter size (8.74) was reached in the second litter.[43] That result was to be contested by further experiments. Three years later, A. Machens, for example, compiled numbers from 362 litters of veredelte Landschwein and asserted that the fourth litter was the largest.[44] The important point here is not to discuss who was right or wrong, but to note the properties the two scholars were registering. Whereas traditional breeders based most of their decisions on the external properties of the animals, Frölich advocated the use of performance records, in this case litter size. Exhaustive records of progeny, he argued, highlighted the value of animals as reproducers and thus established a sounder basis for breeding.

If plant breeders relied on the pure line as their basic building unit, animal breeders were to work with bloodlines selected for their performance records. In the 1920s, it was thus common to find in the pages of the Zeitschrift für Schweinezucht (Journal of Swine Breeding) advertisements praising the virtues of the bloodlines of Edelschwein from Friedrichswert and emphasizing the value of fertility. But, as Frölich pointed out in 1927 in an article published on the page immediately following one such advertisement, to establish such bloodlines—to “think through generations,” as he put—it was necessary to have enough time and enough money to test a sufficiently significant number of animals under controlled conditions.[45] Even large animal-breeding operations, such as the Friedrichswert, had difficulty coping with such demands. In other words, performance records needed the collaboration from academia, making the case for the importance of university animal-breeding institutes for the success of commercial breeding. As cultural historians of heredity have rightly insisted, recording practices were decisive for the transformation of breeding into an academic subject.[46]

Systematic record keeping of the performance of swine in Germany began in eastern Prussia in 1924, promoted by commercial breeders’ associations following the example offered by their Swedish counterparts.[47] Every pig had one ear notched soon after birth, and the number of pigs in the litter was recorded. Also, litter weights were registered when the pigs reached four weeks of age as a proxy for sows’ productivity and their nursing ability. Breeders’ associations in Silesia and Pomerania soon followed the procedure and had technicians sent to their members’ households. Data gathered in the association’s files offered the possibility of comparing the performance of different breeds and establishing criteria for identifying the most promising bloodlines among the herds of its members.