An alligator who survived a bombing raid on the Berlin zoo in 1943 and found himself east of the iron curtain after World War II has died of old age at 84, the Moscow Zoo said. The alligator was called Saturn.
When Saturn was brought to Moscow in July 1946, rumors began circulating that he had been part of Adolf Hitler’s collection, the zoo said. But later it was confirmed that Saturn was a gift to the Berlin Zoo in 1936 after he was born in the US and live through the whole of World War II.
Saturn’s demise marked the “end of an era”, the zoo said in a statement Saturday, and 84 was “a respectable age” for a Mississippi alligator, a species that rarely makes it past 50 in the wild.
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The alligator was born in the United States in 1936, he was moved to the Berlin zoo where he escaped on November 23, 1943, after a bombing raid that killed several of his fellow reptiles.
The so-called Battle of Berlin began in November 1943 and the night of 22-23 November saw extensive damage to areas west of the centre, including the Tiergarten district where the city’s zoo is located. Thousands of people were killed or injured and many of the zoo’s animals perished too.The zoo’s aquarium building took a direct hit.
In 1946, he was found by British soldiers who handed him over to the Soviet authorities.
Keeping Saturn, who was a picky eater and liked being massaged with a brush, had been an “honor”, the zoo said.
“He came to us after the victory” over Nazi Germany, it said, “and celebrated the 75th anniversary of that victory with us.”
It had been “a great joy” to spend all these years with Saturn, the statement said, adding: “We hope we didn’t disappoint him.”
