Sunday, February 04, 2007

Nazi Raccoons on the March in Europe

Who says the Germans don't have a sense of humor?



Nazi Raccoons on the March in Europe

They're actually American but feel right at home in Kassel, Germany, which has become the European raccoon capital since the animals were introduced here under the Third Reich.

The story begins in 1934, when a breeder asked the Reich
Forestry Office, then led by future top Hitler aide Hermann Göring, for permission to release the masked-faced mammals to "enrich the local fauna" outside Kassel, a small city north of Frankfurt."




(check this little furry critter -- all those years in the woods, and they've been trained pretty well.)


However, for the sake of political balance, I should also alert the readers to the threat still posed by Stalin's army of killer crabs:



Stalin's last army - hordes of gigantic crabs on their way to invade Europe

By Julius Strauss in Kirkenes, northern Norway