Militant Sociability
- Object
- Heinz Julius Niehoff (?)
- Großörner (Ort)
- 1937 (date of exposure); ca. 1995 (date of print)
The photographies of the Marksmen’s Fair in Großörner provide an impression of the »militant sociability« (Frank Bösch) of many shooting associations after the First World War. These associations frequently combined community care with nationalism, militarism and the rejection of the Weimar Republic. Shooting was not only a matter of preserving tradition or of sport. It was also used to »militarise the people«, and – after 1933 – upgraded to paramilitary training. Shooting associations (re)produced the guiding principle of a soldierly masculinity able to defend itself. Women were often only an »ornamental factor« – for instance, as »maidens of honour«.