Historians recently discovered a strange footnote in the history
of World War II. It seems that a few months before Adolf Hitler
ordered 4.5 million troops to invade the Soviet Union, the
Foreign Office in Berlin ordered its diplomats in Finland to
gather evidence against Finnish businessman Tor Borg for
possible insults against the German Reich. Borg had a dog named
Jackie with an unusual way of raising its paw in the air,
similar to the German greeting that accompanies the cry of “Heil
Hitler!” Borg’s wife Josefine, a German citizen with anti-Nazi
sentiments, nicknamed the dog “Hitler.” After an investigation
by the German vice consul in Helsinki, Borg was ordered to the
German embassy and questioned about the dog’s unusual paw-
raising reaction to the command “Hitler.” Borg claimed that the
salute only happened a few times shortly after Hitler came to
power, but more ministries became involved in the investigation,
including the Foreign Office, the Economy Ministry and Hitler’s
Chancellory. They began a cam