So there was genuine concern when he escaped his cell in 1943 and went on the run around Berlin for three years.
No-one really knows how many people he killed or what other high-jinks he got up to during that time.
So University of Otago 2025 Robert Burns Fellow and Creative New Zealand 2026 Berlin Writer’s Residency winner Dr Octavia Cade is about to head to Germany to write a book about it.
What was known to be true was that the 3.5m-long alligator was locked up at Berlin Zoo, and was able to make his escape only when the facility was bombed during a World War 2 air raid.
Saturn was recaptured by British soldiers in 1946, and sent to live in Moscow Zoo for the remainder of his life.
Dr Cade said she stumbled upon the factual parts of the story when Saturn died in 2020, at the ripe old age of 84.
"I think I must have read one of the obituaries about him — you know, a sort of science news story — and I saved it to a folder of interesting things to maybe write stories about it in the future.
"At the time, I thought this would be a fantastic thing to do if I won the Berlin Writer’s Residency in a few years’ time."
"There’s something very surreal about the thought of this alligator roaming through the ruins of a war-torn city.
"It’s both horrific and darkly comic."
She said it would be told from Saturn’s point of view.
"I think we can assume that he probably ate some people while he was on the run.
"I mean, alligators are scavengers, and obviously he’d probably be going after things like fish in the river, and pets and stray birds.
"But, you know, it probably takes a bit of meat to keep an alligator going, and it’s not as if there weren’t some available corpses lying around at the time after three years of war, or people just standing a little too close to the banks.
"No-one really knows what he got up to during that time, so I’ve got to fill in the blanks, pretty much.
"I’m going to have a great deal of fun with it."
Dr Cade said the residency would begin in January next year.
She hoped her year in Berlin would help her "cement" a sense of the city and the geographical locations where Saturn may have lurked, looking for food and shelter amidst the riverbanks and bomb craters.
Creative New Zealand literature lead practice adviser Malcolm Burgess said the residency selection panel was excited by Dr Cade’s idea, describing it as "original and amazing".
"The facts have been there for over 80 years, but no-one has thought of turning it into a book before now."
The Berlin Writer’s Residency is for an established New Zealand writer to work on an approved project that must directly benefit the New Zealand writers and the literature sector.
It comes with an apartment in Friedrichshain, in former East Berlin, and a stipend of $NZ45,000 towards travel and living costs.
