What Happened To Adolf Hitler’s Alligator?

As Nazi control of Germany turned into a concerted attempt to subjugate the European continent, matters of cruelty against animals – and the manner in which animals are butchered  – would take a backseat to the practical issue of survival. 

Rationing would become more restrictive, and by the time the Soviet army reached Berlin in April 1945, the slaughter of horses on the street for meat would become a common sight. The more dangerous animals at the Berlin Zoo would even be euthanized  in case they managed to escape and attack the people in the city.

In 1943, a rather peculiar incident occurred at the Zoo in west Berlin. 

A British raid had heavily damaged the crocodile enclosure, killing at least four of the alligators and crocodiles, and littering the streets near the aquarium with animal remains. The resourceful zoo employees were quick to make alligator stew out of the left-over meat that lasted for the next two days but those that survived the bombing were found prowling the area looking for food.

It is thought that one of these alligators – known as Saturn – said to have been given to the city in 1936, after hatching in the wild in the US state of Mississippi, would end up surviving the war and live until his 80s – becoming the so-called ‘last German in Russian captivity’.

In 1945, the Berlin Zoo ended up in the British Occupation Zone of the city. At some point, British soldiers are said to have discovered Saturn – presumably still wandering around the street of the city – and decided to give him to the zoo in Leipzig, part of the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany.

From there Saturn ended up in the Moscow zoo, where the rumour of his connection to Adolf Hitler took off.

Cold-blooded, predatory, and prone to insincere displays of emotion, it is easy to see why the crocodile might easily be considered the Nazi leader’s spirit animal. The alligator is a close relative to the crocodile, with the two defined as much by their similarities as their differences, but is the distinction really necessary here?

The idea that Hitler and Saturn might have been personally acquainted and shared a special connection would prove too attractive to ignore.

Even when there is no evidence of the two having ever met.  

Saturn lived in Moscow from 1946 until 2020 – thought to have reached an incredible 84 years old. 

His death would be reported internationally with indication that the reptile had in someway belonged to the Nazi leader. The Moscow zoo webpage that previously described the alligator’s relationship with Hitler is now offline. It is now suggested elsewhere that Hitler visited the Berlin Zoo a number of times, and possibly saw the alligator. Thus the two were acquaintances. A tenuous connection at best. There exists, however, no evidence to suggest that Saturn belonged to the Führer, as has been rumoured. 

The records of the Moscow Zoo were destroyed in the 1950s during a fire, so there remains no documentation of Saturn’s journey to Russia from Berlin. Similarly the records of the Berlin Zoo did not survive the Second World War, so it unknown what sort of life Saturn had during the Nazi period, beyond his possible escape in 1943.

It was not until the 1950s that the aquarium was re-opened – and a Mississippi alligator named Snappy introduced as the first resident in the new Crocodile Pit. 

The post-war part of Saturn’s biography, put forward by the Moscow Zoo, suggests that he was a gift from the Brits – but it is entirely possible that he was relocated to Leipzig after the attack in 1943 and made his way to Moscow from there. 

Relations between Great Britain and the Soviet Union were not great in 1946 and there is little reason why the British would want to give an alligator – that they are suspected of having found somewhere in Berlin – to Stalin.

The long-time archivist of the Berlin Zoo, Dietmar Jarofke, believes it is possible that Saturn comes from a private collection, saying: “Back then there were enough crazy people in Berlin who kept animals like this at home. It wasn’t forbidden.”

The bigger question here is where did this rumour of the Hitler-Saturn connection come from – and why? Certainly it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of understanding for the Moscow Zoo to simply connect the dots – that Saturn came from Berlin and had been there in the 1930s and 40s; adding the claim that Hitler would have been aware of his presence. 

The rumour no doubt helped increase ticket sales.

Such a shame to think that this poor innocent alligator might be cast the villain of his aquarium  habitat – held accountable for the deeds of a man he had likely never met. The veritable scapegoat of the Moscow zoo – in reptilian form.

Does inaccurately associating Saturn with Hitler not constitute some form of animal abuse in-and-of-itself?

For that matter, what condemnation should there be of those who exploit the reputation of this poor alligator – reducing him to an object of morbid curiosity and suspicion, at best – for profit?

Certainly, Hitler himself was aware of the significance of what an animal was as much of what it meant. 

It is no surprise that, although there exists no documented connection to Saturn the alligator, the Nazi leader should so obviously favour German shepherd dogs. Considering they were coveted as “germanische Urhunde” (original German dogs) during the so-called Third Reich.