Then there's this bit of irony, [which unfortunately reminds me of 21st century radical environmentalists who destroy property, hurt people, and call for the end of the human race, yet love animals]:
In one of their first acts in the countries they occupied, German soldiers took over important horse stud farms and riding schools, such as the famed Janow Podlaski Stud Farm in Poland, near the border with Russia, and the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, which had the world’s most impressive collection of Lipizzaners. “It was a quirk of Nazi philosophy, so inhumane to humans, that animals were treated with the utmost care and kindness,” writes Letts. “In a cruel and ironic twist of fate, the German invaders, whose express aim was to relocate, enslave, massacre and eventually annihilate Poland’s human inhabitants, prized the well-bred Polish horses.”While I haven't seen it since I was a kid, I remember being entertained by this Disney movie back in the early 1960's that tells a portion of this story: Miracle of the White Stallions.