Albert Gotthilf Sterzing RIP

This week is the anniversary of the passing in 1889 of Albert Sterzing, the first president of the German Schuetzen Union (DSB). Sterzing was a gifted and extremely competent man and an orator whose friends called him "The Hurricane." He was born in Zella St. Blasii in 1822. His father was a physician and a brother learned the gun making trade. After his education and apprenticeship, he rose through the ranks of the legal bureaucracy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to become an adviser to Ernst II and counsel to the Thuringian railway. He also found time to become the Schuetzenmeister of the Altschuetzengesellschaft of Gotha.
His lasting gift to his fellow man, besides his family, was his leadership in the founding of the DSB. Ernst II, Duke of SCG (see way below), picked Sterzing to organize the Schuetzen societies of Germany into a "national" organization. This was complicated by the fact that at the time, 1861, "Germany" consisted of thirty-nine more-or-less independent states, some of which forbade the joining with "foreign" organizations. He was successful, extremely so. The first "national" Schuetzenfest in 1862 attracted about 8000 participants from around the globe. Much of what fueled the enthusiasm was the strong feeling among Germans for a once-again united Germany, a child that was born in 1871 with the help of the midwife, Wilhelm I of Prussia, and his men in blue.
Sterzing was elected as the first president of the DSB, a post he held, with much esteem, until his death. His real gift, beyond his organizational and motivational skills, was to guide this organization of armed groups, the Schuetzen societies, successfully through the dangers posed by revolutionaries on one hand and suspicious princes on the other. He did this, in my opinion, by steering competition away from military style competition while still emphasizing improvements in arms and marksmanship. Those precious exemplars of Schuetzen art, the rifles of his and later times-up to the time of National Socialism-are decidedly unmilitary. While the first standard competition rifle followed the example of the Swiss model 1852 Feldstutzen, complete with bayonet mount, we end the era with the beautiful but impractical Aydts and Martinis.