AN alligator said to have belonged to Adolf Hitler has died aged 84. The reptile, named Saturn, was found by British soldiers in Berlin after World War Two. It was handed to the Red Army and taken to Moscow. Saturn died at the Russian capital’s zoo — where it had been an attraction since 1946. […]
AN alligator said to have belonged to Adolf Hitler has died aged 84.
The reptile, named Saturn, was found by British soldiers in Berlin after World War Two.
It was handed to the Red Army and taken to Moscow.
Saturn died at the Russian capital’s zoo — where it had been an attraction since 1946.
The alligator was born in the wild in Mississippi in 1936 before being caught, shipped to Germany and placed in Berlin zoo pre-war.
The story circulated that he was in the Nazi leader’s pet collection.
Saturn escaped after the zoo was bombed in 1943 and was found in 1946.
It is not clear where he had been kept or hiding.
A zoo obituary for Saturn said he “arrived after victory (in the war) and met its 75th anniversary”.
Saturn was not quite the world’s oldest alligator. One in Serbia’s Belgrade zoo is thought to be 85.
