NAZI Dogs

Hitler
Photo Source: Public Domain

What I am about to tell you is a strange story indeed. A little while ago I wrote an article about how smart animals are. There is no doubt about it, they are far more intelligent than we give them credit for. So how smart is your average dog? I didn't ask that question to supply an answer, but rather to highlight what I am about to tell you. While the NAZIs were ruthless and murdered millions of people, no one ever said that they were stupid. As a matter of fact NAZI scientists had invented technology that was decades ahead of the allies in some instances. What would you say if I told you that the NAZIs thought that dogs were so smart that they could make soldiers out of them? No I am not drinking while I am writing this and I am not smoking any funny little cigarettes. The NAZIs actually thought that dogs were far more intelligent than we think. It is said that they even had several dogs that could talk and one that would reply when asked who Adolph Hitler was with “Mein Fuhrer”. I hate a suck up dog.

I like dogs as much as the next person and maybe even more, but while I think that a dog might make a good assistant in some cases, I just can't picture a dog going out on its own or commanding a platoon of other dogs. The NAZIs believed that they could actually teach all the dogs to talk. The idea was that Hitler wanted the dogs to be able to talk to their masters and eventually talk to each other. I wonder if this is where the term “barking orders” came from? How Hitler got this idea into his head is anyone's guess. It is so strange as to seem like the idea of a madman and perhaps it was. It does show that no one wanted to tell Hitler that his idea made no sense. So to avoid Hitler's wrath a school was set up to teach dogs to speak. The dogs were not only trained to speak, but to also tap out messages with their paws. I guess this was for the slow learners.

German Shepherd
Photo SourceL Stock.xching

What do educated dogs do in their spare time? One dog was said to have learned poetry. True that with so much lousy poetry around it would be hard to know if a human or dog wrote it. One dog was said to have become so educated that it could discuss religious principles. I know this sounds nuts, but I am not making it up. If you give a dog a treat, they will do almost anything. Hitler loved dogs and he had a couple of German Shepherds, I am talking about the canine kind. They were Blondi and Bella. He felt the need to destroy Blondi just before he killed himself in the bunker. No one can figure out why he did it, but I figured it out. He was afraid that Blondi would talk. It is said that the dogs who tapped could tap out each letter of the alphabet and compose communications this way. That must have been ruff for the dogs. I wonder if the dogs ever got into any arguments? I did see a dog on a video once who could say hello, so I guess some dogs might be able to say a word or two.

There was a claim made by the NAZIs that they had a dog that learned to talk through tapping and had requested that he be allowed to join the German Army, because he hated the French. He must have been betrayed by a poodle. Not all the dogs tapped or talked. Some dogs, it was said, would use a different type of bark to represent a letter and one barking dog was said to have expressed his desire to vote for Hindenburg. Hey that sounds like he was going against Hitler. When Hitler heard about that, he replied that it must have been one of those low down frankfurter dogs. Just kidding, Hitler made no remark about the dog that wanted to vote for Hindenburg at all. He probably just had it killed. One thing that we have to remember is that these dogs spoke in German. I am just mentioning this, why? No reason really. Anyway it is said that one of the dogs would use a voice that sounded very human to say, “Hungry! Give me cakes” Wow this would strike fear into the enemy, especially if they didn't have any cake.

Irma Grese. She Loved To Sic Dogs On Concentration Camp Prisoners
Photo Source: Public Domain

Why was it that the NAZIs believed that dogs were capable of speech. This theory sort of developed over many years. It started when animal psychologists in the 1920s began to believe that dogs were far more capable of things than they were given credit for. By the time this theory reached people like Himmler, the head of the SS and a person who cut the heads off of SS soldiers to use them in secret ceremonies, he believed it was true. Since Hitler also believed it, it had to be implemented. Some have wondered how the NAZIs were going to use these dogs. We have found out one use that the SS was hoping to have for them was patrolling concentration camps so that some of the human guards could be released to fight on the front.

This is going to sound very strange because I am talking about NAZIs and NAZIs were people that would kill someone with out blinking an eye, but NAZIs were very big animal rights advocates. Herman Goering started an agency for animal protection. Well I guess it was easy for one animal to understand another. It seems that we just keep finding out more strange things about the NAZIs every day. They sent people all over the world to try and verify their Aryan roots. The SS also conducted secret ceremonies and believed in the paranormal. It is not clear whether Hitler himself did or not. It seems that their country was led by a madman who later became a junkie, that is someone addicted to drugs. They didn't seem to show a lot of common sense in certain instances and yet, if they had been more sensible, we might have lost the war.

There is no evidence that the dog education experiments ever produced anything worthwhile. The dogs were very loyal to Germany and no captured dog ever talked. Trying to make these dogs talk was just barking up the wrong tree.