Deutscher Riese - weiss
(2006)

Giant rabbits are known as ‘Deutscher Riese’, that is to say as ‘German giants’. They originate from rabbit farms in the 19th century from the area around Ghent in Belgian Flanders. Imported to Germany around 1880, they were long known as ‘Belgian or Flemish giants’ according to their place of origin. In Germany, the breed was bred to even larger animals with an average weight of eight to nine kilos and single-coloured fur. The most common fur colour is wild grey.

Sonja Alhäuser’s protagonist is a giant white rabbit. The animated film consists of 86 hand drawn pages. The opening page begins with the juxtaposition of the rabbit and its skeleton, allowing us to expect a narrative about its life and death. Afterwards the pet can be seen hopping over a meadow and landing in a frying pan. Rabbits were once kept not only for recreation and small animal breeding competitions, but also and especially in poorer areas for consumption. “German giant – white” shows the predetermined fate of a bred rabbit.

Now, two things stand out: The motif of the meal is doubly formulated. The pet eats something that falls from above and then bursts open. The final scene shows the roast rabbit prepared for serving. The chunks of food that are deadly to the rabbit recall targeted killing operations, whether by the keeper or as a method of warfare, whereby the unspeakable history of the 20th century and the war fronts of the First and Second World Wars are also brought into the picture.

The motif of the white rabbit has been coined by cultural history. Magicians prefer to conjure such as these from out of their hat. In the story of “Alice in Wonderland” (the children’s book by Lewis Carroll was first published in 1865 under the original title of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”) the girl follows a rabbit into the other world of dreams, fantasies and fairy tales, beyond our normal being. The white rabbit stands for something distinctive. It is just such an animal which must perish in Sonja Alhäuser’s animation. But it experiences an apotheosis: the white fur vanishes into the sky, whilst its body is vanquished in the pan.

There is a connection between death, ascension, and the body of Christ in Roman Catholic theology but also in other religions. This transformation of Being is called transubstantiation and means the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. In the churches this is symbolized by the host, the wine or Easter biscuits such as the Easter lamb, which are consecrated and offered to the believers in the ceremony for direct consumption. The artist grew up in the catholic Westerwald forest region and may have been influenced by these symbols of faith which inspired her to compare the death of the hare, the lamb and Jesus.

Andrea Domesle, translated by Christopher Haley Simpson