He watches over the animals with fatherly pride. This grandson of an earlier military pigeon breeder has raised many of this generation himself. On the day of the NZZ’s visit, a new brood hatches.

His breed was right. His father, old red Kaiser, captured in a German trench in the Argonne, is still the oldest military pigeon in the business (24 last month), and his Scotland-hatched mother ...

In 1907, Julius Neubronner, a German pharmacist who used the birds to deliver medicine, invented a miniature pigeon camera that the German military used briefly in the war for aerial reconnaissance.

The Dickin Medal, also known as the animals' Victoria Cross, was awarded for bravery 54 times between 1943 and 1949: to 18 ...