Crumples

Sculpture crumple by Manfred Grafe

Knautschke (born May 29, 1943 in Berlin ? † June 20, 1988 there ) was a hippopotamus from the Berlin Zoo . As one of 91 animals that survived the Second World War , it was a public favorite with visitors to the Berlin Zoo for decades.

Knautschke was born in the Berlin Zoo during the war. In the last days of the war, bombs destroyed the outdoor pool of the hippopotamus house so that the water ran out. Knautschke's mother was fatally injured, but her one and a half year old son survived. Through the use of the keepers who doused the animal several times a day with water, and with the support of many citizens of Berlin, who brought to the zoo despite scarce own food rations food, could, among other animals also Knautschke survive the severe postwar period. In 1947 he suffered minor injuries when the nearby flak tower in the zoo was blown up and a stable ceiling collapsed.

Despite the difficult political conditions, the Berlin zoo director Katharina Heinroth managed to establish a breeding association for hippos with the Leipzig zoo . The Leipzig hippopotamus cows Olga and Grete were repeatedly brought to Berlin. While Olga had no offspring with Knautschke , Grete gave birth to Schwabbel on May 20, 1950 and Bulette on April 3, 1952 . The bull Schwabbel stayed at the Leipzig Zoo to set up a breeding group there, but Bulette came to Berlin in 1953 as a companion of Knautschke . On April 4, 1958, Jette was born as the first hippo after the war in the Berlin Zoo. Knautschke became the father of a total of 35 hippo calves. The discipline was incestuous . Knautschke was the father and grandfather of Jette .

In 1988, Knautschke suffered such serious injuries in a rival fight with his adult son Nante , whose mother was also a meatball , that he had to be put to sleep on June 20, 1988 at the age of 46. After Knautschke's death, a sculpture based on the original dimensions of the animal was created in the natural science collection of the Berlin City Museum Foundation , which is occasionally shown in special exhibitions. A slightly modified copy of this bronze sculpture is in the Berlin Zoological Garden at the entrance of the Hippopotamus House.

According to research by the historian Clemens Maier-Wolthausen , however, Knautschke was not a native of Berlin. In the very detailed card index of the Berlin zoo animals, he found no evidence of the birth of a male hippo at the time in question. For October 1942, however, the transport of a young hippopotamus named Max from the Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich was recorded. According to Maier-Wolthausen, it was obvious that these were crumples.

literature

• Dietmar Jarofke: A memorial for the most prominent zoo animal of the post-war period: the hippopotamus Knautschke (May 29, 1943– June 20, 1988). In: Bongo. Contributions to the zoo and annual reports from the Berlin Zoo. Volume 29. Berlin Zoological Garden, Berlin 1999, ISSN  0174-4038

Web links

Commons : Crumple  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

• Tierpark Berlin Knautschke's portrait on the pages of the Berlin Zoo
• "About hippos and other people" In: Die Welt on September 26, 2011 (with photo of Knautschke and Bulette from 1955)
• The end of a master tale from Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ulli Kulke: Knautschke, superstar in West Berlin. In: Welt am Sonntag . Edition of May 12, 2013, p. 18.
2. ^ Zoo favorites: Knautschke und Knorke. In: The world . Edition of September 11, 2003
3. ↑ Honor the pure genes. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Edition of August 10, 2012
4. ↑ Historians: Hippopotamus Knautschke was probably not a Berliner. www.welt.de, June 12, 2019