Hitler’s Jurassic Monsters

Wednesday, June 16, at 10 PM

Repeats Thursday, June 17, at 3 AM and Sunday, June 20, at 1 PM

Also airs on Fusion on Saturday, June 19, at 8 PM
 

In addition to their monstrous ideas on the future of the human race, the German Nazi party also attempted to take control of the animal kingdom. HITLER’S JURASSIC MONSTERS brings to light the Third Reich’s confounding plan to re-create the primeval forests of Germanic folklore, complete with breeds of long-extinct beasts.

Started as a private project between two zoologist brothers, Lutz and Heinz Heck, the plot was embraced by the Nazi party after the two befriended Hitler’s second-in-command, Hermann Göring. The two creatures they focused upon were auroch (a super-sized, wild and violent breed of cattle) and tarpan (the wild and aggressive ancestor of the modern horse).

The area the Nazis earmarked for this project was the Bialowieza forest in Poland, which was home to packs of wolves, the elusive Eurasian lynx, the European moose and some of the last surviving European bison. How close they were to completing their plan still remains a bit of a mystery to this day.