Ideas - How Hitler's 'favourite' reptile became a geopolitical symbol

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Saturn, an alligator that was supposedly Hitler’s favourite animal was 'liberated' from the Berlin zoo when the Red Army invaded Germany at the end of the Second World War. The reptile was relocated to Moscow where it died in 2020. But with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Saturn’s story has become once again a symbol in wartime geopolitics. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 10, 2023.

1942, Europe. Soldiers find a boy surviving alone in the woods. They make him a member of Hitler's army. But what no one would know for decades, he was Jewish. Could a story so unbelievable be true? I'm Dan Goldberg. I'm from CBC's personally, Toy Soldier. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Welcome to Ideas, I'm Nala Ayed. Moscow 2020. A team of artists and taxidermists is reconstructing a dead body in the State Darwin Museum.

Oxana, the taxidermist, says that when she stuffs an animal, it becomes like her own baby. But who's she stuffing here? The Moscow Zoo is accusing the loss of alligator Saturn by all the media, it's the death of an animal. But not just any, it would be the alligator Hitler. ...who was born in the USA in 1936, died on Friday in the Moscow Zoo. of an animal. But not just any one, it would be Hitler's alligator. Maugajata Gervais and David Zane Myrowitz bring us this documentary about an alligator with geopolitical significance. It's called Alligator Odyssey. In the thick of COVID's direst days, the death of a certain reptile from a stomach

ailment at the Moscow Zoo catches our attention. We're already staunch alligator fans. Kiss 104.1 and they're stopping to steal the same truck. I gotta get them out. And we gotta get them gone. Oh, good morning. Y'all with me? Y'all made it back, huh? Bro Bridge, Louisiana. Yeah, we had a great time.

Yeah? So what y'all? Y'all set up for the one o'clock? No, no, we just got back. Oh yeah, y'all was riding with that crazy man? Yeah, that crazy man. Yeah, man, that dude's crazy right there. Why?

Because he's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. for the one o'clock? Well, y'all just got off. Oh yeah, y'all was riding with that crazy man? Yeah, that crazy man. That dude's crazy right there.

Why? He's the fastest load driver we got out here. He goes this way wrong, and then that way wrong. How fast do we go? 2 miles an hour, maybe? Maybe 20. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That sounds more logical. See, John, you're always stirring the pot. Oh, yeah.

Leave the pot alone. It don't need to be stirred. Yeah. Oh, you know me, I like to stir it every now and then with my wooden spoon. It should be a good morning for them. On Lake Martin, Mr. Brian Champagne. I tell you what, their favorite meal is that they can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food.

They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food.

They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a whole lot of food. They can get a good morning for them. On Lake Martin, Mr. Brian Champagne. I tell you what their favorite meal is, if they can get a hold of it, is a dog. They love dogs, y'all. So if you have a dog you want to get rid of, this is the place to bring it.

This is one of the safest places you can be. I live in the swamp, I wouldn't move from the swamp. You couldn't show me a safer place to live. Laplace, Louisiana. Captain Allen. This water's clean. There's no chlorine in this water. It's clean water. Why would you want to get chlorine? It's chemical. I wouldn't let my alligator swim in a pool. Might kill him. MUSIC So, once we pick up Saturn's story on the BBC,

the Discovery Channel, as well as dozens of other highly serious international media outlets, we stay on his tail to the bitter end. Dun dun dun dun dun dun. But this is also where the gator's gonna nest. And what she's gonna do, she's gonna get up on this levy, pile up plants, lay her eggs inside of it, and cover it back up. And as those plants decompose, it's gonna form heat, tacked like an incubator.

Now, the heat of that nest will also determine the sex of the baby gator. And usually 76, 78 degrees will be a female, above that are males. And it takes 56 days, from the time they lay to the time they hatch out. And she could have 25, 50, 100 plus babies in a nest once a year. Only 3% of baby gators survive. BABY GROWLS

1936, Mississippi. It's a sure bet that a baby alligator, much later to be called Saturn, swims past strange fruit. from the poplar tree. Linched black bodies swaying in the southern breeze. Or black victims with burning tires around their necks. Not the last of the man-made horrors this famous reptile will witness in his long lifetime. Come here, boy. Come here. Come here, girl. Come on. Yeah, yeah. Hey, Peanut. What you doing, buddy?

Hey. Hey, my boy. I looked for you in the bag, buddy. Peanut. What am I feeding him? Marshmallow. We don't know why they eat marshmallows either. Yeah.

Come on. Come on. For now, he's basking in the sun. He's not even looking at the sun. He's just looking at the sun. He's looking at the sun. He's looking at the sun. He's looking at the sun.

He's looking at the sun. He's looking at the sun. He's looking at the sun. He's looking at the sun. He's looking at the sun. What am I feeding him? Marshmallows. I don't know why they eat marshmallows either. For now, he's basking in his swamp freedom. Until he gets caught. We know what this could mean. We've also been to see alligator farms, where the animals are cramped in narrow boxes, slithering on top of each other for breathing space, soon to be turned into handbags or belts or holsters,

or alligator jerky. Somehow, Saturn escapes this fate. Saturn was given to the Berlin Zoo as a gift in 1936, soon after he was born in the United States. Okay, Berlin. But there don't seem to be any existing documents concerning Saturn's transport from the US. So at the Płock Zoo in Poland, we meet up with Marta, a female alligator from Mississippi, even older than Saturn.

And we find out precisely the horrific conditions under which these animals were shipped. From the zoo director, Mr. Lewandowski. They cross the ocean on a merchant ship, Mr. Lewandowski. They crossed the ocean on a merchant ship in a specially built crate with holes. They were watered from the top with an additional hole in the front and a tray with water. To get the animal into the crate, you build a kind of funnel and drive it inside.

In order for the animal to enter the crate willingly, it should be open on both sides, entry and exit. As the alligator enters, it sees that there is a light at the end and that it will be able to get out. Well, unfortunately, both entrances need to be closed so that such an alligator can be safely transported. Large reptiles are not fed during transport. And if they did eat something, it could end tragically, because they would not be able to warm up to the right temperature. Instead of the digestion process, there would be fermentation, and it could even end in death. One month in a tight crate with its jaws snapped shut and roped.

Berlin Zoo was seeking new alligators for public exhibit. It was the year of the Berlin Olympics, when the eyes of the world were upon Hitler and the National Socialist regime that had come to power three years earlier. Already in 1936, Saturn gets linked to political events. The time is now 16 o'clock. This is the broadcast of Free Berlin. Under the guidance of Professor Heck, the zoo has grown into one of the largest and most important animal parks in our continent. Hecke, a huge Berlin success story. I'm Clemens Meyer-Wolthausen, a contemporary historian by training. And since eight years I'm working for the Berlin Zoo. Since the 1880s, its director was Ludwig Hecke, a, let's say, who handed over the zoo to his son Lutz in 1933.

Heck's dream is to create a Germanic zoo, which would reflect nationalistic nostalgia for a romantic Wagnerian wilderness, including a failed utopian project for re-breeding a long extinct animal, the auroch, which is supposed to serve as a symbol of Aryan power. Near the Germanic zoo, a Dutch farmhouse was built, obviously an example of Nazi blood and soil ideology. A logo on the gable of this house attested to Hitler's concern for the German peasantry. A zoo full of poetry, as Heck later tells a Berlin radio audience.

Now coming from that family, it's not a surprise that Lutz Heck welcomed the regime change in Germany and the new government under Adolf Hitler. Later Lutz Heck joined the Nazi party proper, but its strongest connection to the Nazi regime was his personal friendship with Hermann Göring, the second in command of the Nazi regime. Hermann Göring supported the Berlin Zoo financially and politically. Immediately after the Nazi takeover, the Board of Governors is rendered Judenrein, free of Jews, under Hex's watch.

The Jewish members were put under pressure to resign and the last of the Jewish members resigned in 1936. By forcing these Jewish board members out, the board created a very clear message to its Jewish shareholders and visitors that they were no longer wanted. After the pogrom of November 1938, known as Kristallnacht, visitor policy follows the trend. From 1939 onwards they would not sell season tickets to Jews anymore and that they would put up a sign that Jews would not be wanted near the Christmas decorations and that they would actually put up a second playground for Jewish kids only.

Two, three days later, most public institutions would have put up signs saying, Juden unerwünscht, Jews prohibited, and so did the zoo. A politically driven nationalist zoo. With Saturn, so the story goes, smack in the middle. A rumor, possibly begun by a Soviet journalist, was that Saturn was Hitler's personal alligator, and it soon became widely accepted, though it was of course untrue. However, it is almost certain that Saturn clapped eyes on Hitler as the Fuhrer visited Berlin Zoo several times in the mid to late 1930s. Berlin West 62, 28 December 1939. To our Führer and Chancellor Adolf Hitler, we send our heartfelt and most faithful wishes for a happy 1940 to our dear Führer,

and most faithful wishes for a happy 1940 to our dear Fuhrer, in the hope that German weapons will be victorious. At the same time, we enclose an honorary lifetime pass, giving you free entry to our zoo. With sincere admiration from the Board of Governors of the Berlin Zoological Gardens, Lutz Heck. He wasn't keen on zoos. He never showed interest in zoos. The reports of the Berlin Zoo Board show every single visit of a prominent political figure.

There's no trace that Adolf Hitler ever visited a zoo in Berlin or anywhere else. Yet Saturn is stubbornly referred to as Hitler's alligator in most contemporary media reporting about his presumed time in Berlin. Berlin Zoo was heavily damaged on the 22nd and 23rd of November 1943. On the 23rd, 764 RAF bombers levelled huge parts of West Berlin, including around the zoo. During a 15-minute stretch that night, numerous high-explosive bombs and more than 1,000 incendiaries rained on the Berlin Zoo, blasting and setting alight many animal enclosures, including those housing

the elephants, monkeys, and predators. including those housing the elephants, monkeys and predators. Lutz Heck, who himself had looted the Warsaw Zoo of its animals after the Nazis bombed it in 1939, and who will later be pursued as a war criminal, now complains bitterly, My father's life work, introducing many new open air enclosures and landscape improvements, was destroyed. It was our baptism of fire. Fate had dealt us zookeepers a nasty blow. It seemed incredible to me that a zoological garden full of innocent animals could become

a target for aerial bombing. In the Second World War, a bomb was hit right here in the middle, in the disc, and into the crocodile hall. And everything here was destroyed. Svenja Eisenbart, the current Berlin Zoo Press spokesperson, shows us the exact spot where a bomb directly hit the reptile aquarium. Only 91 of the approximately 3,715 animals in the zoo survive. 20 to 30 crocodiles and alligators are killed in the process. The next morning, pedestrians on the nearby Budapest Strass report seeing reptilian corpses

lying in the street, thrown over the zoo walls by the explosion. All the same, Saturn and a handful of other crocodilians survived and were found wandering around these city ruins, searching for food. Rumors have it that dangerous animals are roaming the streets of Berlin in a crazed state and vice versa. Many edible dead animals are being devoured by the starving population. Crocodile and alligator tails are particularly prized, tasting like fatty chicken. Only several smaller crocodiles survived the bomb, which hit

the crocodile hall in the center of the aquarium directly. You have to imagine when the bomb hit huge amount of water that now float down the stairs of the aquarium into the basement probably taking with it all crocodiles, all fishes, everything. When the German capital city was subjected to intense bombing during the World War two the alligators somehow managed to escape as other animals in the zoo died. It was a cold November night and these animals immediately probably froze to death or at least were paralyzed.

The zoo had already prepared for a possible escape of animals during bomb attacks and had posts with rifles all over the zoo and also in the vicinity of the aquarium. So from that I actually gathered that no animal escaped that night. On the other hand... The alligator was able to escape from the zoo on the night of the bombing on the 23rd of November 1943. It was only discovered by chance three years later. How it spent this time is a mystery. So, having survived the bombing and escaped from the zoo, where can Saturn be hanging out?

There are enough crazy people in Berlin who keep such animals for pets, perhaps in someone's bathtub. A Mississippi alligator is no longer than 1 meter 20 when it is 7 years old. It's not illegal. Or maybe... What did he do during that time? Well, we don't know at all. Maybe he took a vacation by the beach to regain his strength and be ready to face

again this world that would collapse around him. What's he been up to face this world around him again. He could dig a tunnel to protect himself from the cold, as alligators are able to do. Anyway, if he survives three years in the waterways of Berlin, as reported by numerous informed sources, he will surely witness enormous historical events. 1945 The Red Army marches into Berlin. And so do the Allies. AFN World News in the Hour compiled from the wires of AP and UPI.

The four ministers of Britain, France and West Germany are gathering in Paris for consultations on the latest Soviet note concerning Berlin. AFN News from major American networks and wire services is next. Master control, start rolling please. Tape rolling? Rolling. Okay. Cue announcer. This is invitation to music. It's a good Cold War story as well. It plays out in the divided and occupied city of Berlin

with Russians, Americans, French and British forces holding each other off a city which became famous with the construction of the British authorities. With Berlin Zoo still very badly damaged, the British decided to give the alligator to the Soviets and transported Saturn to Leipzig Zoo in the Soviet zone of eastern Germany. Also, it's a story of survival. I have consulted with our curators. They are convinced it is impossible for a reptile to survive a normal boll in winter in the wild and the winter of 43 44 and 45 46 was very hard. You have to imagine the Landwehrkanal, which divides on the northern end,

the zoo from the Tiergarten parks, frozen over with ice. It is impossible to survive for a reptile that needs external heat to survive. But somehow the fairy tale just won't go away. After 75 years as a POW in Moscow, Saturn passed away back in May. While I know he was an animal, I still think he should be honored. He endured almost 400 attacks by air, a major land attack, only to be ridiculed by his captors. It's a strange but true story, and a very American one. True?

Or just a bunch of crocodile tears? You're listening to a documentary called Alligator Odyssey by Maugjata Gervais and David Zane Myrowitz. Ideas is heard on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, across North America, on Sirius XM, in Australia, on ABC Radio National and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. I'm Nala Ayad. Have you ever finished a book and just needed to talk about it immediately? Or wanted to know the wildest research an author has Done for a book or even what book talk books are actually worth your time. Hi, I'm Morgan book

Yes, that is actually my last name and this is off the shelf my new podcast that covers everything related to books each Thursday I chat with other bookworms and authors or sometimes It's just me rambling about my latest book obsession from book to screen updates to hot takes on new releases And of course our monthly book club discussions, I've got you covered. So get your TBR list ready and listen to Off the Shelf wherever you get your podcasts. Saturn the Alligator escaped from the bombing of the Berlin Zoo, hid in the canals of the city for three years and was finally handed over to the Red Army at the close of World War II, the reptilian embodiment of the Soviet Union's resilience and righteousness.

It's an extraordinary story. It's a myth. Dr. Meier-Wolthausen, our Berlin Zoo expert, bursts our bubble. And I do not believe anything of the myth that Zarton was Hitler's favorite alligator, that he survived the war in the wild of the Berlin urban landscape and that he later ended up in Moscow. There is absolutely no evidence that Saturn was ever in the city of Berlin at all, much less in its zoo, where there is zero record of his presence. What has been affirmed by highly serious international media turns out to be just... Fake news. From a scientific, academic point of view, it's nonsense.

And the British Army connection? If a British soldier in the British occupation zone of Berlin, in which the Berlin Zoo was located, found an alligator, which is a precious animal, why give it to the Russians? OK. Let's ask the Russians. Irina, the archivist of the Moscow Zoo, I don't know if they lost something. But we definitely don't have any Saturn cards. Some animals had been evacuated during the war from Berlin to the Leipzig Zoo, which was later part of the Soviet zone.

The question whether Saturn came via Leipzig is an interesting path to follow. So we question Leipzig. Dear Sir or Madam, thank you for your inquiry. Unfortunately, I cannot confirm that the alligator Saturn made a stopover here at Leipzig Zoo after the war. There is no evidence of this in our records. Back to Moscow. Here's a new tract. Dmitri, a curator from the Darwin Museum,

claims Saturn was first sent from Leipzig to England, and from there on to Moscow. Although he hasn't a clue why the British gave him to the Soviets in the first place. Dear Sirs, I have checked our animal record cards for the alligator Saturn, but unfortunately there was no record of an alligator being sent from the Zoological Society of London, either to Moscow or to Leipzig. Kind regards. Well, no surviving documents for Saturn's journey from Mississippi to Europe, and no

existing evidence of his transfer from Germany, if he was ever there, to Russia. One fact is sure, however. Saturn spends the remaining 74 years of his life in Moscow. The zoo and historians deny the rumours, which were spread, claiming that the alligator belonged to Hitler. However, Moscow's who dismissed the reports and said that animals do not belong to politics and must not be held responsible for human sins. But Moscow wants to keep the alligator non-political. Saturn is the last non-political.

Saturn is the last German in Russian captivity. If people knew what a sensation he is, there would probably be a queue like at Lenin's mausoleum, says Vladimir Kudryatsev, head of the Moscow Zoo Reptile Department. Comrades, the Nazi Germany, which was set up on the red army, has declared itself victorious and declared a free-for-all capitulation. Glory to our great people, to the people of the conqueror! Eternal glory to the heroes, to the great warriors! It is known that at first it was called not Saturn. Saturn will only later get his name while in the Moscow zoo.

Right after the war, however, angry Muscovites call him Hitler. People react very negatively to what is presented as a war prize. And it obviously means that the Saturn Hitler myth is carried with him from where Berlin Leipzig England somewhere else. You have to imagine Moscow the Soviet Union in the first years after the end of the Second World War. Biggest sacrifice of all allies was on the Russian side. So the spoils of war they took from their occupation zone in eastern Germany were proof of their victory. So an easy way for a Moscow zoo to attract visitors was to tell that story and show one of those spoils of war and give it even this

iconic name. An alligator as a post-war propaganda tool. I don't even dare to say that it was done on purpose. Maybe just developed. Maybe the keeper just started spreading that rumor. But it was, as we would say today, a unique selling point for Zeus struggling to survive in a war-torn country. The point of all this? I'm Zygmunt Dzieciowowski, a Polish journalist who has covered Russia since late 80s.

You would use this poor creature. With the Russians, we would tell them, listen, we won the war, we rescued him, we saved him. This was cruel German crocodile. We brought him here and we re-educated him. He is now a tender, nice animal living in our zoo. This is a success story of Russian soldiers only here in Soviet Union and then in Russia. This crocodile prospered. This is like a test for young students who are undergoing training to become Russian propaganda specialists. Listen, our

alligator did well but look at your own alligators. They're hungry, they live in the swamps of Louisiana and they're bitten by mosquitoes. If they're on the verge of extinction, that's your fault. This is the same story like with the anti-COVID vaccine. This is the same story with homosexuals attempting to destroy our fundamental values such as family and traditional roles of men and women. This would be the same with crocodiles. Crocodiles will not survive your stupid society, which is destroying everything traditional. The alligator has been popular with visitors in Moscow. According to the zoo, Saturn knew his keepers and loved it when they massaged his back and

tail with a brush. Oleg, Saturn's keeper at the zoo for 13 years, tells us that visitors threw beer bottles and garbage at this reptilian Hitler. Also because they were angry to find out that alligators in captivity mostly don't move. The luck that had saved Saturn from Allied bombs in the war also saved the alligator from several near-death experiences post-war. In the 1980s, a lump of concrete fell off the aquarium's roof, narrowly missing Saturn. Contemporary reporting about Saturn continues to mix elements of the debunked Berlin legend

with well-documented Moscow facts. That Saturn is often badly treated in Russian captivity is attested to by guards allowing schoolchildren to poke him with broomsticks. On one occasion, a drunken zoo visitor throws a boulder on his head to wake him up, after which zoo veterinarians fight for months to keep him alive. Saturn's continuing fairy tale grows even more branches in his Moscow captivity. Here we're told he could sing, inducing all other male alligators and crocodiles to form a chorus around him. For the Mississipian alligators, this question is better than for real crocodiles is to attract females. Mississippi alligators sing louder than others.

Their infrasonic vibes can be heard by others up to 10 kilometers away. Their songs are also for calling to females. And right now it's mating season for them, March, April and May. So we might see some gators fight. Then they get very, very aggressive, the males to other males. Sometimes they'll rip body parts off each other, you know, or take another male's life for the female. Sometimes they kill each other, but if they don't kill each other, you know, or take another male's life for the female. Sometimes they kill each other, but if they don't kill each other, after the maintenance is all said and done, you'll see these males come back together and they'll talk about it to see if it was all worth it.

And inevitably, true romance comes burrowing into the legend. In the 1950s, Saturn was given a mate, Shipka, a gift from the United States. But though the pair mated many times, all of Shipka's eggs turned out to be infertile. Oleg now gets involved in the love story. Whereas in the wilds, the female makes her nest and then protects the eggs from riverbirds, it is far more complicated in the zoo. So he makes a nest for them and claims the reptile couple was OK with this. But there are no embryos in the eggs. And soon after, Shipka dies and Saturn becomes, we are told, inconsolable. And the saga of Saturn continues to be politicized. I offer all political forces cooperation.

I am sure that together we will bring order. Order in Russia, for Russia, in the name of Russia. Thank you. the Russian Parliament. Military forces move past Moscow Zoo, including tanks. One of Saturn's keepers reports that he could feel the vibrations of the tanks outside and trembled in his aquarium. A German men's magazine then takes up the story from there. A German men's magazine then takes up the story from there. Turning his scaly back on fascism, Saturn became an old Stalinist school socialist. At the fall of the bombing of Berlin. And on top of everything else, there's his phenomenal longevity. Mississippi alligators usually live to 30 to 50 years. At 84 years of age, Saturn was

one of the world's oldest alligators. Maybe it's possible for an alligator to survive under very good conditions that long, though even in zoos where animals tend to become older than in the wild, that would be a very exceptional age for an alligator. So we ask Marta, the Mississippi lady gator living in Kłock Zoo in Poland, who's reported to be 92. In artificial conditions, alligators live much longer than in the wild, of which Marta is the best example. Because an animal 60 to 70 years old, even in captivity, is rare. You can already see her age, because when she gets a cut or abrasion, the wound takes

a long time to heal. She has cavities in her teeth. Marta is even a movie star. In the Polish comedy film Hydro Puzzle, she plays Hermann, the German cyber crocodile. They use her as a torpedo to blow up the enemy. Attention, attention, German! Three, two, one, zero, fire! Let's go! You know, here in Louisiana, all we have is alligators, no crocodiles. What we actually have, thank you, is called the North American Alligator. They originated in Alberta, Canada. They came here after the ice age. They've been around for millions of years and they pretty much never changed. But we noticed

that one time they claimed they could live over 300 years. Today because of man environment, we hunt them. They normally live to be about 150. In his Moscow captivity, Saturn grows old and frail. Saturn will want for nothing until the end of his days, guaranteed by the company that took over his sponsorship two years ago, the French fashion manufacturer with the crocodile logo. He finally croaks and is then skinned, emptied of his insides, and stuffed at Moscow's State Darwin Museum, where he can live happily ever after. If you go to the third floor of our main building, straight into the zoo geography hall, and look for

the North American fauna display, you will have a chance to meet a true legend, Saturn the Alligator. He was very old, he had been ill for the last two years. He lost a lot of weight. He was a kind of live mummy. He was a tough polyurethane. He was exactly this size. About an animal or something. And how else? Exactly this size.

At the beginning of September 2020, the dummy was ready, and a previously treated skin was fitted onto it. On the Darwin Museum's 113th anniversary, Saturn appeared before the public for the first time. The taxidermy mount was ready with a few final touches to be made. A museum curator, Dmitry, chooses new eyes for the alligator, When they discussed which eyes to pick up, and so on,

made from the finest Russian glass. The eyes are naturally glass. Crocodile polygators have an interesting feature. made from the finest Russian glass. Saturn's old eyes were yellow, but now a light will be directed at his spanking new ones for night visitors to the exhibit, gleaming bright red. Dmitri boasts now that Saturn looks quite pleased about it all. They even sculpt a smile on his snout and paint over it, in order to restore him to the sunset of his youth. So this beautified, skinned and polyurethane stuffed version of Alligator Saturn, standing proud and rigid in its glory, can fit perfectly into the Moscow scene of 2022.

It's a very long way from the Mississippi Delta. And these gators know we are coming before we even see them or they see us because they pick up all vibrations in the water. Is he now picking up these current vibrations? I have decided to carry out a special military operation. February 2022. Its goal is to protect people who have been subjected to genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years. A special operation declared in Ukraine. A democratically elected Jewish president accused of leading a Nazi state by his autocratic adversary.

Almost 80 years after the fall of the Third Reich, Russian President Vladimir Putin still claims to be at war with National Socialism. His stated goals of denationalizing and denazifying Ukraine were, at least publicly, his motivation for a brutal invasion that has already claimed thousands of lives. What's all this got to do with Saturn? I think it's convenient to have a story ready which could attract potentially more interest in the institution, in the museum, of propaganda in times like these with the war on the Ukraine.

I actually think that animal is too insignificant to warrant a political propaganda effort. Stalin's defeat of Hitler is the centerpiece of modern Russian history, and Saturn, however insignificant, is somehow part of the spoils of that stellar victory. So despite all the contrary evidence, the Darwin Museum website today still vaunts all the old fake details of his legend, including his supposed connection to Hitler. This museum attendant is explaining to a visiting family that Saturn survived the Berlin Zoo bombing, although nobody knows how. She even adds a new twist of her own invention, that the alligator was found by the Soviets and brought directly to Moscow. No Brits or Germans involved in this version. We have to remember our historical past and historical heritage, because this is the source of our national pride.

Our fathers won the Second World War, and nobody has the right to question our historical achievement. This is the main line of the present Russian propaganda, and this is effective. And will the alligator, in his Darwin Museum mummification, once again, as he reportedly did in 1993, tremble from the dangerous rumbling all around him? Brutal attack. Ukraine National Guard blast Russian Ka-52 alligator helicopter by use manpads. The moment in which a Russian Ka-52 alligator helicopter was shot down by Ukraine was captured on video, providing a look into one of Russia's most recent losses in the

ongoing war. And is he aware that in November 2022, while abandoning the city of Kherson, Russian soldiers run off with a raccoon as spoils of this new war? A Ukrainian website is quick to react. Never surrender, disgrace till the end. Russian joke is not a joke anymore. Running away, leaving weapons and machinery, and stealing toilets and washing machines

is sort of corporate identity for Russian army. But in Kherson, they just broke through the new bottom. They stole raccoon. Why Russians stole raccoon, nobody knows. They indeed have weird relations with nature. Russian state television immediately announces that the raccoon from Herson is becoming the symbol of our paratroopers and their victories. As the Russians tell it, the animal was evacuated from Herson Zoo. A soldier announces,

We feed him every day with fresh fish, nuts, sweets, grapes. He lives with us in a trench. We protect him. Yenot became a trench. We protect him. He goes on scouting missions with the Russian paratroopers, carried in a pouch meant for rifle clips. Very quickly, the raccoon gets his own Telegram channel and racks up 42,000 subscribers within a week. He motivates us, stimulates us for further victories. Of course, victory will be ours. He's become a symbol of our division.

He's our family member. A contest is held to give the animal a name. A contest is held to give the animal a name. The option, HRSON, wins. HRSON is ours, as the Russians still declare after beating a retreat from the city. We airborne troops don't leave our own behind. So the raccoon will stay with us and will defend the Russian Federation. The Russian weird relations with nature carry on apace. Not so far off, a certain polyurethane alligator may just be remembering all this. The animals in the zoo in Mariupol. So restless you have never seen them before.

The animals in Mariupol Zoo have never been so restless because of heavy bombardment very close by. Around 20 animals have died in the attack so far. been so restless because of heavy bombardment very close by. Around 20 animals have died in the attacks so far. Their carcasses had to be fed to hungry predators. At the Mikolaiiv Zoo, emptied of patrons for months now by a conflict that has the animals here caged in more ways than one. The zoo, Ukraine's second-oldest, has been hit by missiles eight times since Russia's

invasion began. And we continue to look at Kharkiv. Under constant Russian missile fire. With probably the saddest zoo in the world, now almost completely destroyed. You were listening to a documentary called Alligator Odyssey by Maugajata Gervais and David Zane Myrowitz. The speakers were Leslie Mal-Fulthausen. Musical passages composed by Dominic Moldauni. Moscow Recordings by Dmitry Nikolaev The sound engineer was Ivo Olchevsky

Technical Production for Ideas, Danielle Duval Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso The senior producer is Nikola Lukcic. The executive producer of Ideas is Greg Kelly. And I'm Nala Aya. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.