Hugo Schmitt, born July 19, 1904, in Bann, Landkreis Kaiserslautern, in Southwestern Rheinland-Pfalz in Germany, dead August 9, 1977, in Sarasota, Florida, United States, was a German-American circus artist, animal trainer and one of the worlds most famous elephant trainers with a record of 55 elephants performing in the ring. Starting his career at Carl Hagenbeck Circus-Stellingen in Germany, Schmitt was elephant superintendent at the world's largest circus, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the USA from 1947 to 1971.
Germany
Tierpark Hagenbeck
Hugo Schmitt, being son to the lumberjack Peter Schmitt and his wife Anna-Maria, started his career at famous German Tierpark Hagenbeck in Hamburg-Stellingen, founded 1907 by Carl Hagenbeck (1844–1913) as Hagenbeck's third zoo in Hamburg.
Schmitt learned elephant training from Hagenbecks famous elephant trainer William Philadelphia, and advanced to head elephant keeper in the zoo, which in this time also served as import and quarantine for elephants imported from Asia and Africa, and thus served as a hub for elephants, elephant training, trade and export throughout the western world.
Carl Hagenbeck Circus
In 1916 Carl Hagenbecks son Lorenz Hagenbeck (1882-1956) bought a dysfunctional circus with 63 horses and 3 elephants from Adolf Strassburger, thereby founding Carl Hagenbeck Circus-Stellingen, after which Schmitt became chief trainer of elephants at the circus, touring Germany and Europe, while being replaced in the zoo in Hamburg-Stellingen by a new head keeper, Fritz Theisinger (born 1906). In 1929-1930 elephants both from the circus and from the zoo was exhibited, with an impressing number of forty-one elephants at Hamburg Heiligengeist Field. After the opening shows in Hamburg, the larger enterprise went to Scandinavia and the smaller to Holland. During those years, the circus also had some African bull elephants, and Schmitt is claimed to have been one of the first western elephant trainers to work African elephants on circus.
During the 1930's Hugo Schmitt went several times to India, in order to select elephants to import to Europe, and he married Jenny, from the island Sylt, part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein in north Germany. During this time, unemployment accelerated in Germany and the circus faced such economy problems, that groups of animals, including elephants, were sold to Circus Sarrasani. But a highlight was a successful elephant breeding, when Minjak, although conceived in Leipzig Zoo, was born in January 1932 in Germany. While Schmitt claimed she was born in a Zoo in Essen, the author Gerhard Zapf writes that she was born in the circus elephant tent while on tour in Essen. Lorenz Hagebeck state she was born in the Hagenbeck Zoo in Stellingen, and some even claim she was born in Leipzig Zoo.
During winter season of 1936 to 1937, Schmitt showed African elephants at the Royal Agricultural Hall in Islington, a district in Greater London in England, while the second unit with Walter Kaden in charge of the elephants toured Montevideo in Uruguay from december 1936, then to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and realizing an important tour along the country in 1937, after which Hagenbecks Circus returned to Europe and took up winter quarters in Hagenbecks Viennese circus building in Austria. By then, the circus still had twenty elephants when the last tour in peace time was ended at the Bremen fair.
Second World War
Then the Second World War started, and in 1940 the circus toured Dessau, and ending up in Danzig, where Lorenz Hagenbecks second son, Herbert Hagenbeck, fell seriously ill and died, before the circus returned to Hamburg.
In July 1943 phosphorus bombs fell on Hamburg, causing the circus large damage, and again in November 1944, when Hagenbecks Tierpark was more or less destroyed in 90 minutes. 450 animals and nine men lost their lives. During the first bombs however, Hagenbeck's elephant head keeper Fritz Theisinger took the chains of the elephants, and released them into the out enclosure, in order to save their life. Lorenz Hagenbeck documented the event in his book titled Animals Are My Life: