PubMed2000
The article surveys the development of legislation to the slaughtering of warm-blooded animals in Germany since 1933. It examines the ritual slaughtering of the Jews (Schechita) on the one hand, and of the Moslems (Dabh) on the other hand. While 1933 the legislation was coined by the political situation, after 1949, legal setting and decisions reflected the changing sensibility to animals' protection. Before 1945, Schechita was the matter of legal dispute, more recently, the discussion has centred on the ritual slaughtering of the Moslems, with different arguments. The "Law on the Slaughtering of Animals" of 21-04-33 was part and parcel of the Third Reich's policy against Jews implicating a nation wide practical inhibition of Schechita by decreeing a general obligation of stunning before slaughtering. In 1945, the inhibition of Schechita became invalid after the occupation of the Reich by the Allied Forces. For the first time, the "First Amendment to the Animal Protection Law" of 1986 permitted ritual slaughtering by the way of exception as long as it was covered by the religious obligations. In 1995 the Federal Administrative Court judged that an inhibition of the ritual slaughtering by Moslems could be possible, because there are no religious obligations for Moslems. Nowadays, the ritual slaughtering of the Moslems is, de facto, forbidden, Schechita is performed in some cities for the needs of the residential Jewish population.