More Than a Shooting Ground
For anyone interested in the history of German sporting arms, the name Halensee is familiar. The shooting ground on the western edge of Berlin appears again and again in contemporary reports on shooting competitions and in the history of German clay-target shooting. For a long time, I regarded Halensee in much the same way: as one of the important centres of German shooting sport in the late nineteenth century. But while researching the great shooting competition held there in July 1897, another picture began to emerge.
Halensee was much more than a place where hunters and competitive shooters met. It was home to the Deutsche Versuchs-Anstalt für Handfeuerwaffen, the German Experimental Institute for Small Arms. Behind this institution stood an ambitious idea: to improve German sporting arms and ammunition scientifically, to establish reliable standards for judging their performance and, ultimately, to strengthen the German gunmaking industry against its foreign competitors. A contemporary account published around 1900 by Captain W. Ahlers makes this intention remarkably clear.
The Problem: England, Belgium and German Gunmaking
The first public initiative for the establishment of such an institution was made at the hunting exhibition in Cassel in 1889.
Its purpose was to create an independent experimental institute near Berlin, working in the common interest of hunters and manufacturers. In the autumn of 1892, the institute finally began its work at Halensee. The reasons behind its creation are perhaps the most fascinating part of the story.
German gunmakers were certainly capable of producing excellent work. But the domestic market presented them with a problem. According to the contemporary sources, many German customers either demanded very inexpensive guns or, if they were prepared to spend substantial sums, preferred English ones. At the same time, inexpensive Belgian guns occupied a considerable part of the lower end of the German market. Ahlers was remarkably outspoken. He recalled the famous judgement of the German engineer Franz Reuleaux that German products were often regarded as “billig und schlecht” – “cheap and bad.” In his view, this description had indeed applied to a large proportion of the sporting guns sold in Germany only a few years earlier.
The problem, therefore, was not simply whether German craftsmen could build fine guns. It was how to create objective standards by which their products could be judged and improved, while at the same time educating hunters about what actually constituted a good sporting arm.
That was the fundamental idea behind the Versuchs-Anstalt.
The Men Behind Halensee
Such an undertaking required more than technicians.
Among the most important figures behind the institution was Victor I, Duke of Ratibor, one of the leading personalities of organised German hunting at the time. He stood at the head of the organisation supporting the experimental institute and was also closely associated with the Allgemeiner Deutscher Jagdschutzverein, the major German hunting association.
The connection was important. By 1900 the Jagdschutzverein had some 12,000 members throughout Germany. The results of the institute’s work could therefore reach a large part of the organised hunting community through its publications and meetings.
Other influential supporters included Landforstmeister Wächter and Freiherr von Schorlemer.
The technical work of the institute was placed in the hands of Major Thiel, its first inspector and technical director. His name became closely associated with one of Halensee’s most important innovations: the systematic evaluation of shotgun patterns.
There was also support at the very highest level.
Kaiser Wilhelm II took a personal interest in the project. According to Ahlers, this made it possible for the Royal Forestry Administration to lease the institute a site on the edge of the Grunewald, an area otherwise closed to private enterprises. The Kaiser visited Halensee several times and had his own sporting arms tested there.
This was clearly no ordinary shooting club.
A Ballistic Laboratory in the Grunewald
The original description of the institute shows just how ambitious the project was. Its purpose was explicitly defined as strengthening the domestic sporting-arms industry and improving knowledge of shooting. The institute was intended to provide an independent judgement of the performance of guns and ammunition. The facilities reflected this ambition. There were rifle ranges, a pistol range and two large clay-target grounds. Hunters could practise shooting, but the sporting facilities were only the visible part of Halensee. The real work took place behind the scenes.
The institute investigated firearms and ammunition under controlled conditions. It measured velocity, recoil, penetration and shotgun patterns. Among its instruments was the Le Boulengé chronograph, capable of measuring projectile flight times with extraordinary precision for the period.
Major Thiel developed the famous Halensee 100-field target, which allowed shotgun patterns to be evaluated systematically This represented an enormous change. Before such standards existed, shotgun performance could be judged by methods that today sound almost comical. Ahlers recalled how one shooter might fire at a sheet of the Schlesische Zeitung while another used the Kölnische Zeitung – and then attempt to compare the two patterns. Halensee replaced this with fixed criteria for pellet count, distribution and penetration. The same principle was applied to rifles. The institute could also act as an independent authority when disagreements arose between a hunter and a gunmaker about the performance of a barrel or firearm. In other words, Halensee was becoming something Germany had previously lacked: an independent scientific authority on sporting arms.
The Halensee 100-Field Target
One of the most important innovations developed at the DVA was the so-called Halensee 100-Field Target, introduced under Major Thiel. A 75-centimetre circle was divided into five concentric zones and a total of 100 fields. Instead of judging a shotgun simply by the number of pellets hitting a target, the system made it possible to measure both the density and the distribution of the shot pattern. What had previously been largely a matter of individual judgement could now be compared under standardized conditions.
A Showroom for German Gunmaking
The connection between science and industry was visible even inside the main building.
The original description of the shooting house mentions a large meeting room which also served as a “Muster-Ausstellung der deutschen Jagdgewehr- und Munitions-Industrie” – a sample exhibition of the German sporting-arms and ammunition industry. That detail is revealing. A hunter visiting Halensee could practise shooting, see new products, learn about developments in ammunition and firearms, and encounter representatives and products of the German gun trade. Halensee was therefore not merely a laboratory, but also a meeting place between gunmakers, ammunition manufacturers, dealers, hunters and competitive shooters.
And that brings us to July 1897.
Halensee, 19–23 July 1897
For five days in the summer of 1897, Halensee hosted a major shooting competition.
At first glance, the programme looks like what one might expect from an important sporting event: shotgun competitions, rifle and pistol shooting, prominent marksmen and an impressive prize table. But the list of prizes reveals something more. Some of the greatest names in the German arms industry were directly involved. The ammunition and powder industry was equally visible. Köln-Rottweiler donated hundreds of cartridges, while the Normal-Pulver-Gesellschaft and other manufacturers supplied prizes and ammunition.
J. P. Sauer & Sohn donated a sporting gun.
The Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken – DWM contributed a Borchardt pistol and a 7.65 mm carbine.
Kommerzienrat Mauser donated a silver liqueur set as a first prize.
Krupp provided a silver cup.
The reports even recorded the powders with which particular prizes had been won which is an extraordinary detail. A victory was not simply a victory for the shooter. It could also demonstrate the performance of a particular gun, cartridge or powder before exactly the audience the manufacturer wanted to reach.
An Early Marketing Ecosystem
Seen in this context, the 1897 competition takes on an entirely different meaning.
The manufacturers were not advertising from a distance. Their products were being used, tested, demonstrated and discussed in an environment populated by serious hunters and some of Germany’s leading competitive shooters. Today we might call this sponsorship, product placement or experiential marketing. In 1897 nobody would have used those expressions. But the principle was already there. Halensee brought together the entire chain: manufacturer, dealer, technical expert, competitive shooter and customer. The institute provided scientific credibility. The competitions provided publicity. The prize table encouraged manufacturers to place their products directly into the hands of successful shooters. This is why the 1897 event is so interesting. It provides a snapshot of a German sporting-arms industry becoming increasingly modern.
The Shooters
The competitors themselves form another fascinating part of the story. Names such as Major Ackermann, Mießner, General von Hanecken and the shooters listed as “Luger I” and “Luger II” appear in the contemporary results. But one name deserves particular attention: Albert Preuß.
Preuß was one of the outstanding German competitive shooters of his time. Between 1891 and 1897 he won the title of Meisterflugschütze seven times, making him one of the dominant figures of German clay-target shooting during precisely the period in which Halensee developed into an important centre of the sport.
But Preuß is interesting for another reason. His career illustrates how closely competitive shooting, technical experimentation and the emerging science of firearms and ammunition were becoming connected. He later became the technical director of the Verband der Schießvereine deutscher Jäger, founded in 1900, and was closely involved in the development of rules and standards for competitive shooting. The emphasis increasingly shifted towards shooting conditions intended to reflect the practical handling of a sporting gun rather than purely artificial competition techniques.
By 1907 Preuß was heading the Versuchsstation Neumannswalde-Neudamm, which published the remarkable journal Schuss und Waffe. Its scope alone shows how far this world had developed since the early days of Halensee: sporting and hunting shooting, firearms technology, ballistics, shooting-range construction, patents, competitions and the products of the gun and ammunition industry were all covered in a single specialist publication.
Preuß therefore provides an almost ideal link between the different strands of this story. He belonged to the generation of elite shooters competing during the Halensee era, but he also became part of the increasingly professional and technical world that grew out of it. What had begun as the improvement of shooting skills was becoming something much broader: the systematic study of shooting itself.
From Shooting Skill to Shooting Science
There was also a deeper change taking place. Shooting was becoming measurable. Patterns could be counted. Velocities could be measured. Penetration could be compared. Ammunition could be tested under controlled conditions. The performance of a gun no longer depended solely on the reputation of its maker or the subjective judgement of its owner. The DVA helped introduce standards. That may ultimately have been more important than any individual shooting competition. It gave manufacturers targets against which products could be developed and gave customers criteria by which products could be compared. The effect on the German industry was considerable. Ahlers claimed around 1900 that German ammunition and powder manufacturers had already “glänzend geschlagen” their English competitors – beaten them brilliantly. Whatever one thinks of the patriotic language of the period, it demonstrates how contemporaries understood the role of the institute. Halensee was part of Germany’s attempt to transform gunmaking from a predominantly craft-based industry into one increasingly supported by scientific testing, industrial production and standardisation.
From Halensee to the International Stage
The shooters and organisations associated with this world did not remain confined to Berlin.
German competitive shooting became increasingly international in the years before the First World War. Clay-target shooters competed at major European events and eventually at the Olympic Games. The development can be followed through contemporary photographs and reports from the period, culminating in images of German shooters at Stockholm in 1912. By then, the combination of organised shooting, technical experimentation and industrial support that had already been visible at Halensee had become firmly established. The story had moved from a shooting ground beside the Grunewald to the international sporting stage.
What Halensee Really Was
The more one looks at Halensee, the less adequate the description “shooting ground” becomes.
It was certainly a place to shoot. But it was also a laboratory, testing station, training ground, meeting place and showroom. Most importantly, it had been created with a purpose. German hunters and gunmakers wanted reliable standards. They wanted better firearms and ammunition. They wanted to reduce dependence on foreign products and prove that German manufacturers could compete with England in quality rather than merely with Belgium on price. Halensee provided the infrastructure to do it. The shooting competition of July 1897 therefore represents far more than an interesting collection of scores and prizes. For a few days, in one place, we can see almost the entire German sporting-arms world of the late nineteenth century assembled together:
The hunters, the gunmakers, the ammunition manufacturers, the scientists, the competitive shooters and the customers.
That is what makes Halensee 1897 so fascinating.
Sources
- Deutsche Versuchs-Anstalt für Handfeuerwaffen: Der Schießstand Halensee bei Berlin-Wilmersdorf. Berlin: Julius Sittenfeld, 1891.
- W. Ahlers: “Die Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Handfeuerwaffen.” Moderne Kunst, Berlin, ca. 1900.
- Wild und Hund. Jahrgang 1897. Contemporary reports on shooting competitions, the Halensee shooting ground and German shooting sport.
- Schuss und Waffe. Vol. 1, 1907–1908. Published by the Versuchsstation Neumannswalde-Neudamm under Albert Preuß.
- Freundeskreis Wurfscheibe: Historical material on German clay-target shooting and the development of competitive shooting.
