Cover of The Great Cat and Dog Massacre
The Great Cat and Dog Massacre The Real Story of World War Two's Unknown Tragedy
by Hilda Kean
University of Chicago Press, 2017
Cloth: 978-0-226-31832-5 | Paper: 978-0-226-57394-6 | Electronic: 978-0-226-31846-2
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226318462.001.0001

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ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

The tragedies of World War II are well known. But at least one has been forgotten: in September 1939, four hundred thousand cats and dogs were massacred in Britain. The government, vets, and animal charities all advised against this killing. So why would thousands of British citizens line up to voluntarily euthanize household pets?

In The Great Cat and Dog Massacre, Hilda Kean unearths the history, piecing together the compelling story of the life—and death—of Britain’s wartime animal companions. She explains that fear of imminent Nazi bombing and the desire to do something to prepare for war led Britons to sew blackout curtains, dig up flower beds for vegetable patches, send their children away to the countryside—and kill the family pet, in theory sparing them the suffering of a bombing raid. Kean’s narrative is gripping, unfolding through stories of shared experiences of bombing, food restrictions, sheltering, and mutual support. Soon pets became key to the war effort, providing emotional assistance and helping people to survive—a contribution for which the animals gained government recognition.

Drawing extensively on new research from animal charities, state archives, diaries, and family stories, Kean does more than tell a virtually forgotten story. She complicates our understanding of World War II as a “good war” fought by a nation of “good” people. Accessibly written and generously illustrated, Kean’s account of this forgotten aspect of British history moves animals to center stage—forcing us to rethink our assumptions about ourselves and the animals with whom we share our homes.
 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Hilda Kean is visiting professor at the University of Greenwich and an honorary senior research associate at University College London. Her many books include Animal Rights: Political and Social Change in Britain since 1800 and London Stories: Personal Lives, Public Histories.

REVIEWS

“This is a brilliant telling of an important but neglected story of Britain’s ‘People's War.’ Kean's reconstruction of the unnecessary slaughter of hundreds of thousands of pet animals at the outbreak of war will live long in the reader’s memory. But it is matched by her meticulous recovery of the changing aspect of animal-human relations throughout the remaining six years of conflict.”
— Jerry White, author of London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People

“The tremendous loss of human life during World War II has made this episode an unsuitable one to criticize. Kean’s book brings to light an uncomfortable chapter in British history.”
— Wall Street Journal

“Kean’s snapshots of life during wartime are engaging. . . . Her book suggests that history should acknowledge ‘everybody’ to include bodies with four legs as well as two.”
— New York Times Book Review

“This is a profoundly important book. Like a piece of paper folded into origami, it reveals new dimensions to a tragic subject. It reshapes our historical understanding by giving us a remarkable model of cross-species inclusivity. I want to start reading it all over again to see just how Kean pulled this off.”
— Carol J. Adams, author The Sexual Politics of Meat

“Beginning with the mass slaughter of household pets immediately after Britain’s declaration of war on Germany in 1939, Kean’s compelling account explores the varied ways in which domesticated animals experienced the Home Front. With the exception of what contemporaries criticized as ‘the holocaust of pets,’ most of these experiences were shared by human and non-human animals. By retrieving evidence of the lives of individual companion animals, as well as by documenting the increasing official acknowledgment of their value and standing, Kean offers a fresh perspective on what has often been called the ‘People’s War.’”
— Harriet Ritvo, author most recently of Noble Cows and Hybrid Zebras: Essays on Animals and History

“By unearthing this odd but significant moment of compassionate hysteria, Kean’s book undercuts this portrayal of the resolute Empire, suggesting the terror and irrationality beneath the stiff upper lip.”
— Los Angeles Review of Books

“A multifaceted history. . . . Pursuing questions as varied as a pet’s value in the years leading up to the war, how the idea of war-preparedness (or ‘doing things’) goaded people into acting drastically (and often pointlessly), and how the event shaped thinking on animal rights, Kean achieves an unusual psychological portrait of a society in wartime.”
— New Yorker

“For those who think everything has been said about Britain’s war, here is a book that will change our perspective on the popular image of the British people calmly coping with the challenges of the home front. Kean not only brings animals into the wartime narrative in their own right, but challenges the way historians have treated the wartime experience. This is a remarkably rich and detailed history, not only reconstructing the unknown story of the animal massacre, but in the process offering a profound view of the way animals and humans interact.”
— Richard Overy, author of The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945

“I was completely riveted, not least by what The Great Cat And Dog Massacre tells you about our unexpectedly ambivalent attitudes towards animals.”
— Daily Mail

“Kean’s book, which has some excellent illustrations, insightful anecdotes, and shrewd analysis, lists the ways in which domestic animals both suffered in the war and also contributed to the war effort.”
— Literary Review

“The shocking story of why up to 750,000 animals were killed in the first week of the Second World War is the subject of a fascinating new book.”
— Daily Express

“The central historical event around which Kean's book revolves is shocking. . . . Contains a wealth of fascinating detail. . . . Raises sobering questions about how far attitudes of disposability towards the animals we call our companions still persist.”
— Times Literary Supplement

“This is a well-researched and well-crafted book, and by bringing animals into the wartime narrative in their right, Kean does help to reshape our historical understanding of what has often been called the “People’s War.”. . .Kean recovers how animals and humans meaningfully interacted and, in so doing, challenges the ways historians have interpreted the wartime experience. For this reason, this is a book that should be read not only by historians of animals but also those interested in domesticity, memory, war, and British history.”
— Journal of British Studies

“Clearly illustrates how the widely accepted narrative of Brits keeping calm and carrying on was not all that it was cracked up to be. Kean does a thorough job of collecting anecdotes, letters, news clippings that collectively shed light on the many experiences of pet owners, their children, vets, animal rescuers, politicians, and the animals themselves. Because this was not a phenomenon that was widely publicized and, after the war, was quickly forgotten, this book provides an important historical record. [The Great Dog and Cat Massacre] does a service to those animals who gave their lives before their time.”

— EcoLit Books

“Remarkable. . .This remarkable book begins with a shocking event: the killing of at least 400,000 pet cats and dogs in London during four days of the first week of World War II. . .Without doubt, Hilda Kean has written an original and challenging monograph whose message forces readers to rethink their attitudes about themselves and the animals around them.”
— Cercles

“In The Great Cat & Dog Massacre, Kean shows how one can take an imaginative approach to historiography for animals. . . . The interesting thing about this book, especially for interdisciplinary readers, is
that it goes beyond that approach, opening up processes and possibilities for a history in which animals’ subject status is foregrounded. This type of history has relevance beyond disciplinary concerns and narrative reconstructions. There is much of value to the practice and teaching of veterinary medicine in this book.”
— Society & Animals

"The many personal, and often moving, reminiscences collected in this book reveal just how many enduring wartime memories, happy or sad, featured an animal. It is in times of greatest difficulty that one discovers who one’s friends are."
— Journal of Animal Ethics

TABLE OF CONTENTS


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226318462.003.0001
[diaries;experience;Home Front;materials;narrative;people’s war;representation]
This chapter introduces the 1939-45 war as a mythologised, good war, a people’s war that remains strong in British collective and popular memory. It suggests that there has been scant scholarly work on the history of animals in the twentieth century and highlights the absence of companion animals in any serious analysis of the Home Front during the 1939-45 war. The chapter discusses the representation of the war and animals’ role within these parameters including the dogs Baerchen and Hippy as well as Faith, a London church cat. In contrast to some Animal Studies scholarship this chapter argues that it is indeed possible to write animal-centered histories. Contemporary materials show that animals were not viewed as separate from the daily life of the war or a sentimental diversion; rather they formed an integral part of both lived experience and war narratives. In particular, companion animals feature in diaries and letters as well as in family memory and stories that have been transmitted across generations. Such material can help new histories be made: Animals can disrupt humans' previous perceptions of the war.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226318462.003.0002
[1914-1918 war;animal welfare;canine psychology;changing animal-human relationships;NARPAC;physical space;veterinary profession;World War I]
This chapter situates the animal-human relationship of 1939-45 against both the legacy of the 1914-18 war and the changing patterns of living in the 1920s and 1930s. If humans changed so did the animals who lived with us. For example, the physical space for dogs was altered while cats were given houseroom in return for “services rendered”. The breeding (or not) of different types of companion animals meant that different physical and emotional characteristics were developed resulting in animals compatible with contemporary human requirements. Rudimentary veterinary treatment was often provided within the family with kittens still being drowned at birth. A new interest in canine psychology emphasized the importance of building relationships with both dog and human being active participants in the process. But the human understanding of felines and canines was by no means intuitive: Manuals were needed for humans to understand animals. There was also increased state attention to animal welfare aided by the establishment of new organizations such as the Cats Protection League or the Tail Waggers. By August 1939 the National Air Raids Precautions Animals’ Committee (NARPAC) was established bringing together the veterinary profession and animal charities under the aegis of the state.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226318462.003.0003
[Chiennes D’Histoire;Darnton’s cat massacre;euthanasia;individual action;Munich crisis;panic]
This chapter refutes the idea that panic caused the cat and dog massacre. It was not the circumstances of the animal or human as such but the nature of the pre-existing relationship that determined life or death. Animal charities and individual animal supporters criticized this unnecessary slaughter but it must be stressed that the majority of people did not kill their animals. In the Munich Crisis of 1938 many people had panicked and killed their animals: Animal charities were now better prepared to deal with animal death by new methods of euthanasia having been introduced in the 1930s. There was no one reason for the deaths as the different stories of Marx, Angus, Lulu, and Minnie illustrate. The chapter situates this massacre against other animal mass slaughters including Robert Darnton’s account of the 1730s cat massacre in Paris or Avedikian’s film Chiennes D’ Histoire about the rounding up of stray dogs in Constantinople in 1910. The chapter concludes that the 1939 massacre was perpetrated by individual humans from a range of backgrounds, with individual relationships of varying strengths between humans and animals contributing to an outcome of animal life or death.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226318462.003.0004
[animals;blackout;Dunkirk;evacuation;memory;physical environment;Phony war;disrupting;narratives]
This chapter argues that it is incorrect to call the period from September 1939 to spring 1940 a time of Phony war if the role of animals is included in this narrative. Physical environments changed and routines of animals (as well as humans) were disrupted particularly by the blackout. Animals became an integral part of the evacuee story—and memory. Like children they too were evacuated. There was a backlash against the September massacre. People started to notice—and value—different animal characteristics that animals employed to ensure their own survival—but in turn these actions were observed by humans to also facilitate their own survival. The Phony war period ended with the mass evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk. Although usually presented as a human story, animals, particularly dogs, feature prominently in memories: Animals were there. Their presence disrupts the popular memory of this event and leads us to question whether the treatment of dogs—at least by the military police—was indeed part of the good people’s war.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226318462.003.0005
[animal charities;animal-human divide;budgerigars;cross-species food;queuing;rationing;Waste of Food Order]
This chapter argues that the diet of both animals and humans started to change during the war resulting in shared cross-species experiences. Food for humans was rationed: and although considered by civil servants food for cats and dogs was not strictly rationed. Working animals as opposed to "pets" were given priority. Animal charities offered advice but inevitably individual animals, like Little Doodle, Gyp or Bob had their own preferences. The system of acquiring—and queuing for—non rationed food epitomized not only a blurring of class divisions but also the way in which the divisions between animal and human became broken down. What had been defined separately as either human or animal food became somewhat interchangeable. Food consumed was “cross-species.” Material shortages and the time and ingenuity humans spent in obtaining food for dogs and cats seemed to strengthen the animal-human relationship. But budgerigars and canaries suffered and were often killed since it was thought they that needed a highly specialized diet that became unavailable. The Waste of Food Order targeted the feeding of wild rather than companion animals. The chapter concludes that total war meant that the animal-human divide was being eroded.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226318462.003.0006
[air raid shelters;animal agency;animal-human spaces;Mass Observation;people’s war;stress]
Using archival material from Mass Observation in addition to people’s memories and diaries this chapter argues that the plethora of extant material refutes the idea that there was only a human response to total war and that animals merely reacted to humans. Some physical spaces previously designated simply for human use became shared animal-human spaces. Thus the construction of different types of air raid shelter often brought companion animals and humans physically closer together and this animal presence is recorded in wartime memories. Distinctive animal skills and agency helped animals and humans alike. Animals would often literally lead the way to shelter. Although medication and ear muffs were available to alleviate animal anxiety some such as Mick the dog suffered from stress due to aerial bombardment. Human moods affected animal moods, but the very presence of an animal could also profoundly influence human behavior, as the story of Dale illustrates. Animals came to the fore as protagonists in the survival of the nation on the Home Front. Increasingly the term people’s war is revealed to be a misnomer.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226318462.003.0007
[animal citizens;animal-human families;animal rescuers;civil servants;mass evacuation;morale;rescued animals]
This chapter illustrates the way materials in the National Archives acknowledge the existence of a strong animal-human family relationship that was recognized by the state as important for the nation at war. Thus unrealized plans for mass evacuation in the event of invasion included animals. Civil servants discussed restricting dog ownership but abandoned the idea as it would depress morale. Importantly British propaganda encouraged dog owners to remain supportive of the war effort because of the threat to pets if the Nazis were victorious: They were reported to ill treat dogs. Certain non-human animals were valued as some sort of citizens “for the duration.” Animals were literally signed up to total war particularly though registration with NARPAC. Cats like Bob and Scamp had their own identity disks. Fewer animals than anticipated were killed due to their ability to go to ground. Air raid and animal wardens rescued animals including cats such as Bob’s mother – an action unanticipated by the Cats Protection League - and reunited them with their carers. Animals, however, were also proactive in rescuing humans and other animals.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226318462.003.0008
[cross- species relationships;emotional support;Mass Observation;positive relationships;state recognition;training;use]
This chapter draws on material including the Mass Observation archives to offer a window on the history of emotions that is both trans-personal and trans-species. The war created emotional responses in animals and humans both discretely and in conjunction with each other. Animals had not been bred specifically to find people and animals under rubble, instead former family pets were trained to rescue people with an emphasis placed on training through the building of positive relationships between humans and dogs. Human effort here was key. State institutions officially recognized the use value of animal emotional support to humans. Thus cats were officially described as doing work of national importance. Other animals including Clarence, a pet sparrow, also contributed to morale including creating joy in the aftermath of bombardment. More conventionally some animals were depicted almost as the embodiment of particular human emotions. The war created contexts for particular, documented, cross-species relationships including that of the German cat Muschel and Victor Klemperer and Nelson the cat who lived with Winston Churchill.


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226318462.003.0009
[Animals in War memorial;commemoration;cross-species relationships;new histories]
This chapter describes the position at the end of the war when many animals were again treated as disposable things. In concluding the book the chapter relates the past to the present by arguing that there has been scant public commemoration of animals’ wartime role on the Home Front; their role has been forgotten in the public domain. Although the Animals in War memorial in London was unveiled in 2004 to both acclaim and controversy there is no similar recognition for those thousands of animals who died not as “heroes” but as victims of human action within a family context at the start of the war. The notion of killing animals “to be kind” is for children: as adults we need more complicated and honest narratives. Acknowledging a strong animal presence in different ways in wartime also allows non-human animals to exist in new and different sorts of histories for the present. The development of cross-species relationships during the war also demonstrates possible ways of living in the present.

Book published by University of Chicago Press, 2017. Page maintained by BiblioVault.