During the second world war, the Nazis viewed canines as being almost as intelligent as humans and they attempted to build an army of "speaking" dogs. In fact, Hitler hoped the animals would learn to communicate with their Nazi masters and even had a special dog school set up to teach them to talk, according to a research team, led by Dr Jan Bondeson of Cardiff University. The school, called the Tier Sprechschule ASRA, which means "animal language school", near Hannover and led by Margarethe Schmitt, was set up in the 1930s and continued throughout the war years. Schmitt is shown above with seven of her 'pupils'
One dog was said to have uttered the words "Mein Fuhrer" when asked who Adolf Hitler was. Another "spoke" by tapping letters of the alphabet with his paws and was said to have speculated about religion and learnt poetry. Some of the dogs were able to imitate the human voice and one, when asked who Adolf Hitler was, is said to have replied 'Mein Fuhrer'.
The alpha dog in the class was Rolf, an Airedale terrier who 'spoke' by tapping his paw against a board, each letter of the alphabet being represented by a certain number of taps. He was said to have speculated about religion, learnt foreign languages, and wrote poetry. The dog even expressed a wish to join the army, because he disliked the French.
A Dachschund named Kurwenal, even received a visit from a troop of 28 uniformed Hitler youths from the Nazi animal protection organisation on his birthday. He was said to speak using a different number of barks for each letter, and told his biographer he would be voting for Hindenburg. And yet a
nother dog, a German pointer named Don, went one step further - imitating a human voice to bark "Hungry! Give me cakes"
The animal language school foundered when it became clear that any communication between the species was wishful thinking. That exclamation of ‘Mein Fuhrer’ was never repeated and the idea of canine storm-troopers was abandoned.The incredible story of Germany's educated dogs has now been revealed in full by Dr Bondeson, a senior lecturer at Cardiff University read about it in the book "Amazing Dogs: A Cabinet of Canine Curiosities."
