I was talking with Hans Schotte, Chief of the Shooting Association, and Herbert Zimpel, Editor of the Association's magazine Unsere Jagd-Our Shooting. They were telling me how it's done in East Germany officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Casually I said, "I'd like to have a go at hunting here."

They considered for a moment, then Chief Schotte reached for the phone and made arrangements-time, place, permits, equipment.

There was a hare shoot near Dresden on Sunday. My wife Nedra and I drove down in the Volga Station Wagon. Fritz Minert, Chief Forester of the district, was waiting for us-with boots, green coat, and a Merkel 12-gauge over-and-under, a handsome East German-made gun.

We pulled up in front of the local pub in Ebersbach, about a half hour from Dresden, at eight in the morning. Some of the shooters and drivers were already there. Others were inside, getting the shoot off to a good start. I was introduced all around. The Shooting Association Chief of the District greeted me and welcomed me to the shoot.

Everyone had assembled outside the pub. There were twenty-two shooters and thirty-one drivers. The dogs, mostly German shorthairs and longhairs, strained at their leads, eager to begin the shoot. The drivers, largely local farmers, young, old and in-between, came out for the fun of it. They are given a hare each at the end of the shoot- not as compensation, but as a symbol of their participation.

The Chief spoke. He introduced me to those I hadn't already met and said on behalf of the Association how pleased they were to have me as their guest. He gave instructions: a hundred and twenty hare were to be shot that day. He called for discipline from the shooters and from the drivers. Nobody was to shoot in the direction from which the drivers would be coming, regardless of how far away they were.

Three of the participating shooters blew their circular horns to begin the shoot. One of the dogs howled and fidgeted with impatience.

The men climbed aboard the big lorry. The dogs were hauled up, barking and howling with excitement. We drove out to the starting point and were broken up into groups. The shooters went first. We were placed in strategic positions where we were to wait. It was a wooded area, and the drivers, banging their sticks against trees and making as much noise as they could, would be coming through the woods toward us.

When the last man was in position the horn was blown. The second horn responded, signalling that the first drive was to begin. It was a bright day, cool and crisp, perfect for shooting, the way it is in autumn with the leaves brown and yellow and red.

I heard noise coming from the woods. Two roe deer came running in my direction, startled by the on-coming drivers. They broke from the woods a short distance from me, crossed the clearing and were gone, small beautiful creatures.

There were several shots fired in the distance. The drivers were approaching. When they reached the edge of the woods they stopped. The horn sounded again, signalling the end of the drive. Four hare had been killed.

Everybody was required to unload his gun and keep it broken open until the signal is given for the next drive to proceed. We reassembled and were placed elsewhere along the edge of the woods. Three more hare were bagged.

By the end of the fourth drive we were a long way from the hundred and twenty hare we were supposed to account for; it didn't look to me like we'd wind up with anywhere near that number. The fifth drive began on the edge of an open field. The leader of the shoot sent one man off to the left, accompanied by a driver or two, then another man, with drivers, to the right, until we were all distributed, forming a giant circle about a half mile in diameter.

When we were spread out the man with the horn signalled that we were ready. We loaded our guns. The second horn sounded and we could proceed, hunters and drivers together moving toward the centre. We could shoot at hare in front of us, or behind.

As the circle began to grow smaller the surrounded hare tried to break through. The guns were banging away. Usually one shot did it; the hare would roll over, stone dead. Most of the men were excellent shots. Sometimes they had to shoot twice to make a kill. But they hit a lot more often than they missed.

My turn came. The hare was moving toward me. I brought the gun up to my shoulder and fired. He rolled over a couple of times, then he got up and started running again as if he'd never been hit. The next gunner down the line stopped him for good.

When we had advanced about three-quarters of the way toward the centre of the circle, the horn sounded again. The shooters stopped. The drivers continued forward. Now we could shoot at hare only in the direction from which we had come - behind us. A few more kills were made. The dogs picked them up, and the drivers carried them. When the drivers met in the centre of the circle the horn was blown, and another drive had come to an end. There'd been fourteen kills.

The hare were brought back to the starting point where the lorry was waiting. They were hung up on the bars in the lorry.

It was time to eat. The food came to us. A car drawing a trailer pulled up. The people who ran the pub also brought the food. There were hot sausages, big, fat and juicy. And hot drinks - one of them Cuban rum.

After lunch we went out again - the same kind of drive as the last. I preferred it to standing and waiting. There was more action. Hare were all over the place, running in every direction. Shots rang out, and hare tumbled over. Occasionally one got through, even with everybody nearby shooting at him.

Roe deer were trapped in our circle. I counted twelve. They didn't seem particularly worried; the circle was still pretty big and they didn't yet know they were being closed-in on from all sides. They were a lovely sight running along together; they disappeared over a ridge.

The roe deer, discovering their encirclement, reappeared, really frightened now. They ran first to the left, then to the right, not sure where to try and break through. We were getting closer; they saw this. They had to do something - fast. They decided to go through a gap near me. They ran, not twenty feet from me, making their escape.

The first horn sounded. The shooters stopped. The drivers advanced. Hare were still breaking out, most of them not getting very far.

The drive ended and we walked back to the edge of the field. Everybody was carrying a hare, or two. We deposited them in a long row that kept getting longer. Altogether there were fifty-two.

We returned to the pub. A hare each went to the drivers. We went inside to hear the final tally. A hundred and fifteen hare had been killed. The top man got ten. He was crowned King of the Hunt. In his honour the horn blowers played "The Dead Hare." The second man got eight. Four others got six each. The "King of the Hunt" is expected to buy drinks for everybody. The low man is also expected to buy drinks for everybody. "Now we'll start drinking," one of the in-betweeners said.

They thanked me for coming and we all shook hands again. Weid-mannsheil - long live the hunter.

Hans Schotte, Shooting Association Chief, was a rugged-looking man of forty-seven. Until going to work for the Association he had never been shooting. After the war he went into the Forestry Department, became an auxiliary gamekeeper, later returned to university for a two year course in forestry, and worked in lumbering. Back again to get his degree, he worked his way up to his present post.

Schotte had four sons. The sixteen-year-old shot on the Youth Champion Team, and studied to become a gun maker. Schotte himself broke 85 out of 100 clays, with an over-and-under. For shooting he used a twenty-gauge side-by-side double. For crows, wild cats and wild dogs he used a scope-sighted .22 Winchester, loaded with long rifle cartridges.

Herbert Zimpel, Editor, looked fifteen years younger than his sixty-eight years. Friendly and warm, he was the intellectual sportsman, studied what other countries were doing in game management, and worked in close cooperation with the Czechoslovak Department of Game. He phoned Prague frequently to talk over a problem. "The Czechs," Mr. Zimpel explained, "are very good with pheasants and we are learning from them."

There were thirty-five to forty thousand shooters in the GDR - all members of the Shooting Association - out of a population of over seventeen million. The State provided birds for restocking, dogs, and even guns. Members paid twenty-five marks, up to a hundred, depending on income, for membership. The State added another hundred and twenty-five marks for each member. There were approximately a thousand Shooting Associations in the GDR, with about thirty-five members in each, with five to six hundred acres of land allotted per shooter.

To become a member of the Association one first had to have a physical examination. One then had to spend a year as an assistant to an experienced member as a kind of apprentice. Here the candidate acquired practical experience and knowledge about shooting - to prepare him for the written examination that would come at the end of the year. Meanwhile, he also studied about shooting from a book. The examination had two hundred questions. Some of the topics were: weapons and safety, dogs, shooting traditions, natural game conditions, economic base for shooting, knowledge of the shooting laws.

After satisfactorily completing the test a certificate was given: a licence from the police had to be obtained, which acknowledged that the person was of good character and not a criminal, and agreement by the local Shooting Administration also had to be given. After six months another examination was given-to see if the candidate had been a good sportsman, and put into practice the things he was supposed to have learned. Old members also attended evening classes during part of the year, and had to apply for a new shooting certificate annually. Members were provided with guns-both rifles and shotguns-by the Association, at no cost. They could buy their own if they preferred, but first had to get permission from the local police.

A good double-barrel shotgun cost about 700 marks, an over-and-under about 1200. 600 marks was considered a pretty reasonable month's salary. Some guns went 1800 marks-a Drilling triple-barrel, for example.

Members of the Association included engineers, factory workers, university professors-anybody interested in shooting. Minimum age for membership was 18. A member could go shooting by himself any day of the open season, with or without a dog. But in groups there had to be a dog for every three guns. A consistently bad shot could lose his shooting certificate. Each district had about forty women members. They made up some of the champion shots in the G DR.

The State encouraged pure-bred shooting dogs, helped by providing food or money, and exempted them from licences, which are required for house pets and cross-breeds. Dogs from the GDR were exported to other countries and often won international prizes.

Three thousand red deer were shot annually in the GDR-30% of the herd. There were 174,000 roe deer; the annual kill was 120,000-60% of the herd. 22,000 wild boar were harvested each year. There were a million hare-and 400,000 killed.

Pheasant breeding was in its infancy. At the time there were only about 150,000, and 50,000 were taken each year, males only. Pheasant breeding had been in the hands of local Associations who hadn't the money or the know-how to develop pheasant shooting to its fullest. But now Mr. Zimpel was working to coordinate the pheasant-rearing programme with centralized control from the Head Office. Although there were 264,000 partridge they were not considered to be in sufficient number yet to permit shooting.

Twenty thousand geese were shot each year, but only two thousand ducks. Seventeen thousand marten were trapped, five thousand skunks, three thousand ermine. Two hundred thousand crows were eliminated; shooters got half a mark for killing these. There was an intensive programme to kill wild dogs and cats, which are game destroyers.

All game bagged was brought to the local Association office to be reported and weighed. The shooter got half a mark for a hare, and 20% of the total kill. If he was planning a big dinner and wanted more than 20% he could take it and pay it back next time. With deer, the shooter kept the trophy and 20% of the meat, as well as the heart, lungs, and liver. With wild boar he kept 30% of the meat. The reminder of the meat was sent to shops and restaurants, where after inspection it was sold. Hides also became property of the State and were sold and processed.

The local Shooting Association was responsible for its grounds-for creating conditions conducive to good shooting. They looked after the game in winter, and destroyed predators.

GDR shooters had created excellent conditions for their sport.