A
TRIBUTE TO A MAN AND HIS BEARS
IN LOVING MEMORY OF ALBERT RIX 1920 - 2001
My
father was a graduate of Europe’s foremost Animal Training School
Hagenbeck in Hamburg, Germany. He was born into a family that loved
adventure, had courage and lived life to its fullest. They instilled
in him a lifelong love of learning and of animals. 
Albert Rix at the Hagenbeck training school which no longer exists in Hamburg, Germany but the Hagenbeck Zoo is still present. By the time my father was twelve years old, he was already working at the zoo. As soon as school was over, he went directly there. He was one of four boys known as the pony boys that were in charge of our over one hundred ponies. They gave pony rides on the weekends, trained ponies to harness, and drove them through the zoo. It was from the pony boys that zoo officials hoped to find the candidates that would move up through the ranks and enter the training school. 
My father entered the training school in 1934. He would be working
under such veteran trainers as Alfred Kadin and Willy Konselman.
These men were respected and very dignified men, who expected to
be address as sir. The pupils could not question them; they were
there to learn by observation and listening and they were expected
to readily reply with no more than a yes sir. Despite the strict
regimen, my father loved what he was doing and eagerly reported
of work at six in the morning. He found that if you paid attention
and were interested, you could learn a great deal from these men.
And if they liked a promising student, they would teach him everything
they knew. |
 Called, "One of the most respected animal trainers of all times" by Eastern States Exposition President Wayne McCary. |
|
Because of the intensely humane training methods, which Hagenbeck developed, his trained animals had become famous worldwide and were in big demand. Each Christmas season an enormous holiday event was held at the Olympia Hall in London, England and Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, Scotland featuring the Hagenbeck animals. From there they moved to Berlin to play a six-week engagement to jammed houses in Germany’s largest indoor event – Menschen, Tiere, and Sensation. My father had gained great self- confidence because not all the apprentices were selected by the Hagenbecks to go to Berlin. He had demonstrated his ability to make sure the shows flowed smoothly and did an excellent job taking care of the animals. He had also earned enough money by this time to purchase a small apple orchard in Stellingen. 
In 1951, my father and the bears furnished some of the exotic background to the Cecil B. DeMille film The Greatest Show on Earth stating Charleston Heston. In 1958, he bought the bears and went out on his own. My sister Susan and I eventually joined our father and we toured all fifty states, Mexico, Canada, Japan and South America. We appeared as part of the Canadian National Exhibition, The New York World’s Fair and the Eastern States Exposition just to name a few. In 1962, we made Middletown, New York our base of operations and constructed a training and breeding facility for bears and here today we are now continuing the work, which he started. |
