An alligator that many people believe once belonged to Adolf Hitler has died in the Moscow Zoo. The zoo said the alligator, named Saturn, was about 84 years old when he died on Friday.
Born in Mississippi, United States, Saturn was soon brought to Germany, residing at the Berlin Zoological Garden. It was here that his association with Adolf Hitler originated, as Hitler reportedly enjoyed visiting the zoo and especially liked the alligator. His whereabouts were unknown after he escaped the zoo when it was bombed in 1943.
By the end of the war, out of the zoo's 16,000 animals, only 96 survived.
He was rediscovered in 1946, when British soldiers found him and gave him to the Soviet Union, the zoo said.
When the alligator arrived at the Moscow Zoo, he was instantly a popular attraction, as there were only two crocodiles at the zoo and no other alligators. His German origins earned him the nickname "Hitler", but he was later given the name "Saturn".
In the 1950s, the United States gave the Soviet Union a younger, female alligator as a gift. She was named Shipka, and she and Saturn began mating, but they did not produce any offspring as all Shipka’s eggs were infertile. Shipka, who was thirty years younger than Saturn, later died, and Saturn was so distressed by her death that he refused food for a time. By 2005, Saturn had a new mate, who was then thirty years old.
Saturn was described as having been 2 to 3.5 meters long and weighed 200 kilograms (441 pounds). Like the majority of alligators, he had green scales, a broad mouth, and yellow eyes.
"Almost immediately, the myth was born that he was allegedly in the collection of Hitler and not in the Berlin Zoo," the zoo said in a statement.
But, it noted, "animals are not involved in war and politics and it is absurd to blame them for human sins."