The alien tree? Forest experiments and co-construction of alterity in Spain and Germany in the long 19th Century

One of the Prussian state's largest research investments at the end of the 19th century concerned not coal and steel, but wood and trees. In 1880, at the behest of Otto von Bismarck, large-scale experiments with so-called "foreign trees" began. In a cultural history of technology and environmental history inspired by the digital humanities, the work examines the co-constructions between cultural connotations of the foreign and the experimental, scientific and technical handling of trees ("alien" or "other" trees as technology) in a transnational context. In a second step, the consequences of these co-constructions for the subsequent utilisation of trees in both countries will be examined. The project focuses on the experimental cultivation and handling of trees deliberately imported from abroad in experimental stations and their distribution in the reforestation programmes of the first half of the 20th century in order to deconstruct statements about social notions of foreignness.

The period under investigation covers the period from 1870/71, when forestry experiments were started in Prussia and Spain, to the end of the Second World War. Forestry scientists, aristocrats and gardeners were already conducting experiments with "foreign" tree species before 1871, as previous research has emphasised. For this reason, this prehistory of alien tree cultivation will be briefly considered. The project focusses on research in forestry research stations, primarily Eberswalde in Prussia and the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Montes near Madrid in Spain. The focus is on the two most widespread "foreign" tree species in the respective study regions: Firstly, the Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in the German Empire or Prussia, the " flagship tree" among the " alien" tree species in Prussia, and secondly, the eucalyptus (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) in the Spanish Kingdom. The latter was cultivated in numerous regions of Spain from 1870, especially under the dictator Francisco Franco after the end of the Spanish Civil War, making it the most widespread foreign tree species in Spain today. Its history as a medicinal plant also offers the opportunity to contrast a purely economically orientated perspective of "foreign cultivation" as timber production with alternative forms of use. The findings on Douglas fir and eucalyptus are also categorised in the context of the import and cultivation of "other" tree species in other European countries and how they are dealt with.

The mid-20th century was chosen as the end point because, firstly, the political conditions in both countries changed dramatically when the fascists came to power, radicalising the cultural discourse in particular, i.e. the language used, the historical mental attitude towards "others" and the "foreign" and the actions towards the "foreign". However, a caesura can also be identified in environmental history, which changed the forestry discourse: in 1925, the "Swiss needle cast of fir" first appeared in Prussia after the plant fungus P. gaeumannii had "followed" the Douglas fir from North America. At the beginning of the 1930s, the number of publications attempting to determine the damage increased, which led to a re-evaluation of Douglas fir - although the "foreign country trials" that had been started were continued.

With regard to calamities in the Spanish eucalyptus populations, the literature to date assumes that these remained without threat for almost 100 years, i.e. until the 1970s - which was the reason for their success. With regard to an caesura around 1930, it should also be examined whether a qualitative difference can be identified in the reforestation programmes of both states under the respective fascist dictators. However, it may also be useful to extend the period to include the dictatorships up to 1945 in order to take into account the long lines of discourse surrounding the "cultivation of foreign lands" and reforestation - especially as Fascist dictatorships came to power in both countries with a specific understanding of nature, identity and foreignness offers a further level of comparison beyond the originally federally organised, relatively young nation states.

The relevance of the topic is emphasised by the fact that the "foreigner experiments" in Prussia were extensive and can be identified as a major research investment by the German Empire. A particular point of the topic, however, is that Douglas fir and other "foreign tree species" only account for around two per cent of the forest area in Germany. While the scientific discourse was strongly propagated by German forestry science, the implementation of the measures mentioned was relatively restrained for reasons that need to be investigated.

In Spain, too, the experiments were highly culturally explosive and are still widely discussed today. This is also due to the fact that these experiments introduced "foreign" species into the "native" flora - a process whose consequences could by no means be estimated. In retrospect, introduced tree species could turn out to be "invasive", i.e. they could threaten the livelihood of the native flora and be difficult to remove.