Gunshots, Sociability and Community Defence. Shooting Associations in Imperial Germany and its Colonies

Shooting associations represented one of the most popular expressions of sociability in Imperial Germany. Their club houses were to be found in large and medium-sized towns, in villages, and in overseas colonies, too. Middle class men would regularly gather to practice shooting and to organize competitions, activities characterized by clearly gendered rituals of social life. Based on values of loyalty to the Emperor and to fellow members, association life closely reflected the ideological agenda of the protestant Kaiserreich. Their popularity and pervasiveness earned shooting associations a place in George Mosse's groundbreaking work on the nationalization of the masses. Nevertheless, they have been mostly neglected in research on bourgeois sociability and on militarism. This article is the first scholarly attempt to study this form of associationism in Imperial Germany and its colonies. Having developed out of the old tradition of civic militias, shooting societies lost their primary policing and military function during the 19th century. However, community defence remained an essential task, which was viewed then as a moral and civil, rather than military, matter. The article examines the cultural and social aspects of shooting societies and relates this form of associationism to wider issues of military culture in the Kaiserreich.