Saturn was born in the wild in Mississippi, United States, in 1936.[1][2] He was captured that year and was shipped to Berlin, where he was brought to the Berlin Zoological Garden.[3][4][5] It was from this period that the popular rumor emerged that Saturn was Adolf Hitler's "pet."[6][7] This may have originated with the author Boris Akunin, a Russian writer who hypothesized in an article that this may have been the case.[5][8][9] In actuality, he was not Hitler's personal pet, as he was on public display at the zoo.[5][8][10] However, some sources report his display at the zoo as being part of a personal menagerie of Hitler's,[4][5][11] while Dmitry Vasilyev, a veterinarian at the Moscow Zoo, contends that while Saturn was not Hitler's pet, the two certainly came into contact, as Hitler was known to have visited the Berlin Zoo on occasion.[10]