Blondi
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Blondi (1934 - 29 April 1945) was Adolf Hitler's female German Shepherd dog, given to him as a gift in 1941 by Martin Bormann. Blondi stayed with Hitler even after his move to the underground bunker in January 1945. During the Battle of Berlin in April 1945, she had a litter of five puppies with Gerdy Troost's German Shepherd, Harras. Hitler named one of the puppies "Wolf", his favorite nickname and the meaning of his own first name, Adolf (Noble wolf).[1]
By all accounts, Hitler was very fond of Blondi, keeping her by his side and allowing her to sleep in his bedroom in the bunker, an affection not shared by Eva Braun, Hitler's girlfriend, who hated Blondi and was known to kick her under the dining table, according to Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge.[2]
As a soldier in World War I Hitler had great affection for a stray white terrier named "Fuchsl" and was distraught when he lost it.[3] He had been given a German Shepherd before named "Prinz" in 1921, during his years of poverty, but he had been forced to lodge the dog elsewhere. However, it managed to escape and return to him. Hitler, who adored the loyalty and obedience of the dog, thereafter developed a great liking for the breed.[4]
[edit] Role in Nazi propaganda
The National Socialists embraced animal welfare as a central theme. Presenting Hitler as an animal lover was an important aspect of Nazi propaganda. In 19th century Germany, various Tierschutz (animal protection) organizations had won high level celebrity support, from Richard Wagner for example, who famously remarked that he would not want to live in a world in which "no dog would wish to live any longer."[5][6]
German shepherds like Blondi[7] were coveted as "germanischer Urhund", being close to the wolf, and grew very fashionable during the Third Reich.
[edit] Death
Before Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, he ordered physician Werner Haase to test a cyanide capsule on Blondi. The capsule killed her. According to a report commissioned by Stalin and based on eye witness accounts, Hitler's dog-handler, a Sergeant Fritz Tornow, took Blondi's pups from the arms of the Goebbels children, who had been playing with them, and shot them in the garden of the bunker. He then killed Eva Braun's two dogs and his own dachshund by lethal injection. Tornow was later captured by the Allies.[8] Hitler's nurse, Erna Flegel, said in 2005 that Blondi's death had affected the people in the bunker more than Eva Braun's suicide had.[9] When the battle of Berlin fizzled out, the dog was exhumed and photographed by the Soviets.[10]
In In Hitler's Bunker: A Boy Soldier's Eyewitness Account of the Führer's Last Days, Armin D. Lehmann elaborated on Blondi's death:[page needed]
That afternoon Hitler summoned Professor Werner Haase from the emergency hospital to the bunker to stage a dress rehearsal of his own suicide. Hitler no longer trusted the SS and he wanted an assurance that the poison capsules he had been provided with by the SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger actually worked. The guinea pig chosen for this experiment was his beloved Alsatian Blondi. The dog was led into the toilets off the waiting-room at the foot of the steps to the upper bunker by Hitler's dog attendant Sergeant Fritz Tornow. Inside, Tornow forced Blondi's jaws open and crushed the capsule with pliers as Haase watched. The dog collapsed on the ground instantly and didn't move. Tornow was visibly upset. Hitler couldn't bear to watch the scene himself. However, he entered the room shortly afterwards and, seeing the results for himself, departed without saying a word. Tornow was further mortified to be given the task of shooting Blondi's four young puppies. The Goebbels children were understandably upset when their sprightly little playthings were wrenched from them. Tornow took them up to the Chancellery Garden where they were put to death along with several other pets of the bunker inmates. Later, Hitler met the medical staff to thank them in the lower bunker. As Professor Schenck records in his memoirs, one of the nurses became hysterical.
[edit] References
- ^ Bullock, A. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (Penguin Books 1962), 785.
- ^ Traudl Junge: Bis zur letzten Stunde. Hitlers Sekretärin erzählt ihr Leben. Claassen, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-546-00311 (Biography of Hitkers secretary Traudl Junge)
- ^ Ian Kershaw (1998). Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris. Penguin Press. ISBN 0-393-320359.
- ^ Beevor, Anthony (2004). Berlin: The Downfall 1945. Viking Books. p. 357. ISBN 978-0670886951.
- ^ Tröhler, Ulrich and Maehle, 1987 in Andreas-Holger in Rothfel, Nigel. Representing Animals. University of Indiana Press, p. 29.
- ^ Compare Heinrich Himmler in the 1943 Posen Speech (Translation of the German Original): Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interests me only in so far as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished. (...) We Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards animals, will also assume a decent attitude towards these human animals. But it is a crime against our own blood to worry about them and give them ideals
- ^ Boria Sax. Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust. Foreword by Klaus P. Fischer. New York and London: Continuum, 2000. ISBN 978-0-8264-1289-8.
- ^ The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared For Stalin From The Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides, Edited by Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl and translated by Giles MacDonogh, Public Affairs, 2005, ISBN 1586483668.
- ^ Harding, Luke. "Hitler's nurse breaks 60 years of silence", The Guardian, May 2, 2005.
- ^ Tony le Tissier. Berlin Then and Now. After the Battle, 1992.
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