Just want to add a family story too: My grandpa was born in 1911 in Kattowitz, it was located in Upper Silesia in far east Germany in those days. 

But when he grew up, WWI came over Europe and following the Treaty of Versailles, the region should be added to Poland. Finally after three German and Polish rebellion-uprisings, two thirds of the territory were added to Germany and one third to Poland. The region which was added to Poland, was Kattowitz. So my Grandpa was now in school with Polish teachers and German language was forbidden. He had to made all the tests for the university entrance diploma in Polish language, which is completely different to German. But he learned fast and got all his diplomas. So also my family was concerned with this skirmish on territories and languages.

Then he went in the mid 1930s to Breslau, still a big German town in German-Upper-Salisia. He went to university for studying mechanical engineering. The family was living there on own property and he had a good job as an engineer. My mom was born there in 1939 and later my uncle. End of WWII, when the Russian Army overrun the region, the whole family had to leave the country. As a refugee family with nothing in their hands, they stranded in the mid 1940s in Bavaria. 


        Biggi. 

the castle at dusk from the town below.

You can't hardly swing a cat in much of Europe without hitting a castle.

Most of the time, tradesman and handicrafts people got the civil rights, so they were members of the urban schuetzengilds. So the established the schuetzengilde to practice together with the weapons. And they wrote down the first constitutions for their schuetzengilds. Often they invited the schuetzengilds of other towns to celebrate schuetzen festivities with a match. And the shot on king's targets. The shooter's king of a town was tax-free for one year and got some presents from the town council. And he had to hold a big party for all the members of his schuetzengilde.

This was the beginning of the shooting clubs in the Holy Roman Empire on North German Territories in Central Europe...

...in Bavaria, they managed it in a similar way. Munich had his "Schützen-Gesellschaft" (shooting society) since 1406, the still nowadays existing "Haupt-Schützengesellschaft", the "Main Shooting Society". They shot with crossbows and each Munich citizen had to practice at least three years each Sunday for being skilled to defend the town. The town council paid for the range, in the old days a place out of the town walls where the shooters could practice. And the town council gave some cents for the best shooters of each internal Sunday match. 

BTW: They called the internal Sunday matches "Vortel", we call it still nowadays like that in Bavaria. This word comes from the word "Vorteil", translated "advantage", because the shooters got an advantage in monetary form or in cloth or foodstuffs for the practice matches.

In the Bavarian countryside, the farmers and other better situated people were forced to be a member of a Landwehr-Infantery. They had to defend the countryside, when the barbarians came from the north to the catholic Bavaria. These landwehr-batallions exist till the mid of 1860s, then the Bavarian king established the compulsory military service for towns and countryside. The schuetzen-societies an Landwehr infantery were not anymore necessary.

In the eastern part of Austria, in Niederösterreich (Lower Austria), there is a small town called Scheibbs. This town is famous for its Shooting-Target-Museum. And they have their schuetzen-society since more than 500 years - and was established for having fun and not to defend the town. Nearly all inhabitants of the town were shooters, so they were all very skilled. And when the Ottoman Empire ("Turkey Army") came over Austria in 1529, the Turk soldiers couldn't enter the town, because each inhabitant was a very good shooter and so they banished the Turks.
 

Back to the old days on German Territories. A big difference between the North German Shooters in their Schützengilds and the Bavarian and Austrian shooters with their Royal Shooting Societies since ever is, that the North Germans only shot from the bench and the Bavarians and Austrians shot offhand! The North Germans (Prussians!  ) were only interested in defending and making war, the Bavarians and Tyroleans liked it to be skilled in very good OH-shooting and having fun in real OH-competition.

When the Deutsche Schützenbund (German Shooting Federation) was founded in 1861 in Prussia (!), they wrote down that real shooting is only OH-shooting. The Bavarians weren't yet member of Germany, they came later (after the war of 1870/71) to Germany. And the Bavarians were very skilled in that real OH-shooting and were most of the time the better shooters at the Deutsche Bundesschiessen. Okay, also shooters from Frankfurt and Hannover established clubs since 1861, where only OH-shooting was allowed. So they made up leeway.

Shooting history all over Europe has completely different history. I have only a well informed view on Germany, Bavaria and Austria. But there are so much other aspects and regions with their own real interesting shooting history, e.g. Belgium in the region of Lüttich, were the famous weapons industry was located.

             Biggi.   

westerner wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2012 at 7:27pm:


I told you always, Bavarians are not a martial nation. So they converted in the last 200-300 years all the old castles to noble palaces. So we have got nice palace castles in Bavaria...

...the Bavarians are peaceable - we don't like wars. Live and let live!   

                Biggi.   

Wow! That a lot of wine!      Must be a big castle. 

Yes, the Bavarians love to party.  Here's my favorite party picture from my trip in April.  Dont be fooled thinking they dont take they're shooting serious, they do. 

      Joe.

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frnkeore wrote on Oct 3^rd, 2012 at 3:31pm:


Huh? What you call "foamy wine", we call Weissbeer! Weizenbeer!      

And I love it... *yum*yum*

         Biggi. "Weisenheimer"