Carl Hagenbeck

Carl Hagenbeck (10 June 1844 – 14 April 1913) was a German merchant of wild animals who supplied many European zoos, as well as P. T. Barnum. He was also an ethnography showman and a pioneer in the display of members of "savage tribes" in Völkerschauen, known nowadays in English as "ethnic shows" or "human zoos". These racist displays were controversial at the time and are now widely considered unethical. The transformation of the zoo architecture initiated by him is known as the Hagenbeck revolution. Hagenbeck founded Germany's most successful privately owned zoo, the Tierpark Hagenbeck, which moved to its present location in Hamburg's Stellingen district in 1907.

When Hagenbeck was 14, his father gave him some seals and a polar bear. thumb Hagenbeck with his lionsIn 1876, he sent a collaborator to the Egyptian Sudan to bring back some wild beasts and Nubians. The Nubian exhibit was a success in Europe, and toured Paris, London, and Berlin. In Beasts and Men Hagenbeck claimed he had received reports of "a huge monster, half elephant, half dragon" inhabiting the interior of Rhodesia. Hagenbeck thought the animal was some kind of dinosaur similar to a Brontosaurus and unsuccessfully searched for it. His claim made headlines in newspapers around the world and helped launch legends of living dinosaurs.

Hagenbeck died on 14 April 1913 in Hamburg from a bite by a snake, probably a boomslang. After Hagenbeck's death, his sons Heinrich and Lorenz continued the zoo and circus business; the Nazis banned the Völkerschauen upon coming to power, as they were opposed to the possibility of sexual relationships between the performers and German citizens. The Hamburg zoo still retains his name.