Erfahrung & Hausverstand...und die gelegentliche Lektüre besagter Boulevardpresse. For the rest of the readers: Experience & common sense...and reading said yellow press now and then.
Even by your standards, an extraordinarily one-eyed post. Would you really have advocated that the excessive staffing of the DDR era should be maintained once state control diminished? Are you really arguing that those animals which left the Tierpark at the time - most notably the great apes - should not have left the collection? And would you really contend that Dathe could have stayed in post, following the collapse of the political system in the DDR?
Lets put it simply: zookeeping tends to attract strong, passionate characters. People who didn't get on with one director will likely not get on with the new director. Although I hope not. And two big zoos with 20,000 animals and lots of staff and buildings are bound to have problems, each and single one will attract press. If not an elephant with pox, then a pregnant antelope, fox in a bird exhibit, modernizing an un-modernizable building etc. I, in any case, hope for the best for Mr Knieriem. And for more funds. Berlin city council wants to raise attendance of Tierpark to balance the budget. Attracting a so many people more, realistically, is a big challenge. Tierpark needs more than a children zoo, renovation and cosmetics. I hope Mr Knieriem comes with some more ideas and city council backs it with funds.
As I understand it, one huge advantage that West Berlin had prior to unification was that the three Western occupying powers (UK, France and USA) provided generous funding to the Zoo. So in the early 1990s Berlin (at least the West) lost one source of capital and began having to compete with others for money as Berlin was being torn apart to accommodate the government in 1999. Germans will know better than me how much of a strain this has been. Remember also that Berlin, like Washington may be the seat of government, but not the seat of finance, which remains Frankfurt. Fundraising in Berlin strikes me as being both an art that has had to be learnt recently and one being pursued in challenging terrain.
To keep yourself better informed, I suggest you find somebody to translate the following article: Berlin: Abwicklung im Reich der Tiere | DIE ZEIT Archiv | Ausgabe 05/1991 As for the primates: I had only the opportunity to follow up the doom of one of them. At Berlin Zoo the orangutan was pushed around from one group to the next until she was discarded to France, where she died shortly after -not even 20 years old. 17 aquariums including 104 species of fish, the famous snake farm with 161 snakes, and 43 tortoises were also transfered. Although it took only 3 days to oust Dr. Dathe and a few days more for him to die, the City of Berlin has honored him since in many ways. His successor - a friend of the Berlin Zoo director, the Berlin Zoo curator Blaszkiewitz.
Thank you for this. So, is it correct to conclude that your unblinking hatred for the current director is caused, in part, because you see him as having replaced the unfairly-treated founder of the zoo? I think this is an irrational response - people do leave jobs, often reluctantly, particularly when they are in the 80s, and particularly when, nationally, tectonic plates are shifting. However, I can understand where you are coming from. I find myself feeling rather suspicious of Mr Knieriem, because it is he who is coming in at what I see as an unfortunate juncture. I hope I shall not hold it against him, though. Your complaint about animals leaving the Tierpark is one I found harder to fathom. Would you like to have seen the apes remaining, in what is now the sun bear house (only without any outdoor area)? Are you dissatisfied with the numbers of reptile and fish species currently held at the Tierpark? Blaszkiewitz has his faults - who does not? But it is clear that your hatred is based not just on these faults, but on something deeper and more visceral.
@Taisha: Skirmishs, power games and mud-wrestling are nothing new when it comes to the position of zoo director in Berlin. Just another example: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-28956824.html
Is anyone getting Déjà vu? @Taisha - we get it; you despise Blaszkiewitz and everything he stands for, and cannot wait to dance on his metaphorical grave once he is gone. All well and good. But it's an argument which comes across as a personal vendetta rather than a desire for true discussion. As such, why don't you post in the non-Berlin thread of your choice about something *else* that interests you other than Herr Blaszkiewitz as a means of getting some distance from the debate In other words, remember what you said a day or two ago!
Even moderators can be mistaken. If you had read my last posts carefully you would have discovered, that I did nothing more than answer other posts. The latest topic went around the events of 1990 when the wall came down. But then, guess who came in to provoke with the restart of a never ending debate, and being at that rather charming by the way without any rebuke from your side? Should I apologize for stating the fact that respected Dathe was replaced by B.? Looks as if longtime ZooChatters have to stick together.
Indeed; this being entirely okay - but my point is that this is how the same old argument always begins. Someone mentions something relating to the upcoming change in leadership, then you join in, then someone else asks a question about what you have said, then you answer, then someone disagrees with you, then you fight back, and so forth going through the same points and arguments again and again. Hence my advice - you're never going to see eye-to-eye with certain people on this matter, so just stay away from the topic of Blaszkiewitz altogether so that the argument never begins in the first place. I barely know sooty mangabey at all, actually. My point was aimed at you in order that you would not reply to his post in haste, and thus continue the same old argument again.
Taisha, you have an ax to grind. Clearly you hate Dr. B. Take your vitriol elsewhere. -From the one moderator who actually knows Dr. B.
Sooty, Kifaru, Tim, and Jbnbsn99, thank you so much for standing up for Dr. Blaskiewitz. You are all correct -- he did a great job for the 2 Berlin zoos. Their excellence is a testament to his leadership, his vision, and his hard work.
@Sooty: I actually think Dathe did a great job over decades considering the difficult circumstances (of course he didn't leave behind an easy legacy, but I don't think he is to blamed for it) and received far too little recognition for it, yes even was got rid off in a rather shameful manner. Here I even agree with Taisha for once. But in my opinion the exact same thing can be said about Blaszkiewitz now. In a way I feel like history repeats itself. I have no ill feelings towards Knieriem, however, as this isn't his fault just as the bad treatment of Dathe wasn't Blaszkiewitz' fault. But I agree with Blaszkiewitz that Knieriem will have to prove himself in Berlin (and who would know better about this than Blaszkiewitz). As the cases of both Dathe and Blaszkiewitz show this won't be easy at all!!! As I am mostly interested in a positive development of the Tierpark, I honestly hope that Knieriem will have success and that Berlin will keep giving more money for strategic investments now. He has the comfortable situation to start with the public image of the white knight who finally drives away the black knight as well as some 9 mio funds for a large children area and new outside enclosures for the big cats of the Brehm-building. Besides that most enclosures are quite up to date now and a lot of buildings have just been renovated. So he can mainly concentrate on the task to make the park more popular and more attractive for regular folks. Personally I hope he also will improve some points that Blaszkiewitz perhaps negclected without destroying any of Blaszkiewitz' achievements. I also hope that in years to come Blaszkiewitz will receive some more recognition as did Dathe.
I cannot agree more with what our honorable friend markmeier - a Berlin Zoos regular - has said on the subject. I will / do agree with Taisha that the legacy and treatment of Prof.Dr. Heinrich Dathe was - well … - unceremoniously - and undeservedly so - put aside and his track record was in fact a most respectable one up till the very end (it is fair to say the Tierpark Berlin had a zoological standing far beyond the former DDR ..). I also have to agree that the laying off of staff from the Tierpark following the Fall of the Berlin Wall seemed rather nothing unlike a purge (think Iraq … and take out all elements even remotely associated with a former undesirable figurehead and ye have what ye experienced at Tierpark in those days). And yes, there was a take-off of important species into Berlin Zoo quite at the start. So, it is not at all a pretty picture. In the end both Berlin Tierpark directors, be they Prof.Dr. Heinrich Dathe or his successor Dr. Bernhard Blaskiewitz got more or less the same ill treatment from Berlin's … supposedly finest! In the end, as it stands … I really really do hope Herr Knierim will not suffer the same fate as his illustrious predecessors and will be able to finally give Berlin Tierpark the financial backing and standing that it does deserve and need. For what it is worth, I do hope we can now move on … and bring in the news thread again zoo news rather than token discussions on who should or should not be in charge at the Berlin Tierpark ...
A very apt observation in regard to the careers of zoo directors in both zoos in Berlin, East and West, including the already mentioned Katharina Heinroth. Otherwise, splendid and diplomatic statement, @markmeier!
I couldn't agree more. After all this is a news thread. As to real news I only can serve with a rather hilarious plan by some politicians to have an adventure swimming pool in or next to the Tierpark. So far it's only a vague plan, but there seems to be an actual momentum towards implementing it which I didn't expect at all. I hope not, but let's wait and see...
I have visited many zoos behind the iron curtain,before and after its demise. Tierpark was managed by the state; it had to employ many more staff than it needed. Dr B told me he was extremely worried about fund raising to run the Tierpark as the East German government had always provided the funds and there was no experience of having to fend for themselves.I think he and all the other former Eastern zoos have done a pretty good job. Personally it has been Leipzig that has made the most dramatic changes with the help given by the City, but Berlin has 2 fine zoos hat complement each other.
A new species for the Tierpark, could be the first time it can be seen in Germany, but Frankfurt has kept another species from the same Genius : www.Zootierliste.de
