Weird History: That Time Hitler Attempted to Train Nazi Dogs to Speak German

Rolf, Nazi dog and poet

From building UFOs to their occult beliefs, it’s well-known that Nazi scientists were involved in some bizarre things during WWII, but the latest find is one of the weirder ones.

In the new book Amazing Dogs: A Cabinet of Canine Curiosities by Dr Jan Bondeson, a senior lecturer at Cardiff University School of Medicine, Bondeson details Nazi attempts to train canines to talk and read minds, hoping they could eventually take over as concentration camp guards.

“It is absolutely extraordinary stuff. There were some very strange experiments going on in wartime Germany regarding dog-human communication,” Bondeson told The Sun.

Documents alleged that one dog, Rolf, learned to tap out letters of the alphabet with his paws, eventually learning poetry, and asking a visiting noblewoman to wag her tail. Another dog had learned to say “Mein Fuhrer” in German.

While Bondeson’s bizarre finds are an intriguing piece of Nazi history, she admits that “there is no evidence (the research) ever came to fruition.”

For more on the Nazi dogs of WWII, as well as a plethora of other weird stories about our canine companions, check out Dr. Bondeson’s latest book.

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