>At the end of World War II, the Allied forces wanted to make sure that Nazism didn't rise again in Germany. So they implemented a program of denazification, making it a criminal act, punishable by up to three years in prison, to display Nazi symbols such as the swastika or to give the Nazi salute.
>However, they encountered resistance from an unusual quarter: a 15-year-old white, female, South-American parrot named Laura who lived in a cage at Munich's Hellabrunn Zoo. This bird had the disturbing habit of greeting visitors by loudly squawking the phrase 'Heil Hitler' as she bobbed her head up and down.
>The zoo had acquired Laura at the beginning of 1949, buying her from a dealer in Hamburg for DM 120 – Laura said nothing intelligible during her first week, leading the staff to fear that she wouldn't be a talker. But during the second week she revealed her vocal abilities, though in an entirely unfortunate way. As her caretaker, Joachim Herzner, entered her cage for her morning feeding, she greeted him with a cheerful "Heil Hitler!" Herzner initially wasn't sure if he had heard her correctly, but then she repeated the phrase, leaving absolutely no doubt.
>It soon became clear that Laura's "Heil Hitler" wasn't a one-off performance. It was her favorite phrase, which she repeated over and over. She regaled everyone who approached her cage with it, including the children and American soldiers who were frequent visitors at the zoo.
>People came to see Laura, thronging around her cage, trying to encourage her to say her signature line. The zoo staff appreciated the crowds, although they realized, to their dismay, that they had inadvertently become hosts for a "cheerleader for the führer." Zoo officials also worried that Laura's Heil Hitlers weren't just an embarrassment. Because of the anti-Nazi laws, they might actually be illegal as well.
>And then zoo officials discovered, to their horror, that they possessed another Nazi-saluting animal: an elephant named Stefi.