Tuffi (born in 1946 in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, died in 1989 in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

) was a female

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...

that became famous in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

during 1950 when she accidentally fell from the

Wuppertal Schwebebahn The Wuppertaler Schwebebahn ("Wuppertal Suspension Railway") is a suspension railway in Wuppertal, Germany. Its original name was ("Eugen Langen Monorail Overhead Conveyor System"). It is the oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars ...

into the River

Wupper The Wupper is a right tributary of the Rhine in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Rising near Marienheide in western Sauerland it runs through the mountainous region of the Bergisches Land in Berg County and enters the Rhine at Lever ...

underneath. On 21 July 1950 the circus director Franz Althoff ( de) had Tuffi, then four years old, travel on the suspended

monorail A monorail (from "mono", meaning "one", and "rail") is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or a beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurately, ...

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...

, as a publicity stunt. The elephant trumpeted wildly and ran through the wagon, broke through a window and fell down into the River Wupper, suffering only minor injuries. A panic had broken out in the wagon and some passengers were injured. Althoff helped the elephant out of the water. Both the circus director and the official who had allowed the ride were fined. Tuffi was sold to Cirque Alexis Gruss ( fr) in 1968; she died there in 1989. No photograph of the incident is known; a widely circulated postcard picture is a montage. A building near the location of the incident, between the stations and , features a painting of Tuffi. A local milk-factory has chosen the name as a brand. The Wuppertal tourist information keeps an assortment of Tuffi-related souvenirs, local websites show original pictures. In 1970 Marguerita Eckel and Ernst-Andreas Ziegler published a children's picture book about the incident titled .

References

* Stephan Oettermann: ''Die Schaulust am Elefanten. Eine Elephantographia curiosa''. Syndikat:Frankfurt am Main 1982. Chapter ''Elefantenkatastrophen und „Wunder der Tierdressur“'', S. 69-82; S. 73. . {{coord, 51, 16, 5.13, N, 7, 11, 33.13, E, type:event_region:DE-NW, display=title 1946 animal births 1989 animal deaths Circus animals Individual elephants Individual animals in Germany

See also

References