Whisper joke
In the history of German humour, whisper jokes (German: Flüsterwitze) were jokes that could not be told in public, because they addressed taboo subjects, for instance criticizing authorities.
Nazi Germany
Whisper jokes spread in
The following is an example of a whisper joke in Nazi Germany, parodied from the children's prayer: "Dear God, make me good / so I can go to heaven" (Lieber Gott, mach mich fromm / Daß ich in den Himmel komm), rephrased as "Dear God, make me dumb[3] / so I don't come to Dachau" (Lieber Gott, mach mich stumm / Daß ich nicht nach Dachau kumm).[4]
There have been quite a few whisper jokes about
Joseph Goebbels' Sportpalast speech led to the spread of a late-war whisper joke, popular in the western part of Germany, especially the Ruhr:
Lieber Tommy fliege weiter, |
Dear Tommy, keep on flying, |
During the war, there were a number of jokes related to the war, eg.:
- Someone from Essen and someone from Berlin talk about the damage done by allied bombing campaigns. Says the guy from Berlin: The last bombing run on the capital was so serious, the window panes kept falling out until five hours after the raid. The guy from Essen replies: That's nothing! After the last bombing run, pictures of the Führer kept flying out of the windows for fourteen days![citation needed]
- German Christmas 1943: The English throw Christmas trees (German expression for target marker flares), the flak (anti-aircraft gun) contributes "Christmas tree balls" (in German: "Kugel" can be both, also a bullet), Göring donates tinsel (chaff), Goebbels tells Christmas stories ("Märchen" = fairy tales), and the German people light candles in the basement and await the gift giving ("Bescherung" = gift giving, but also "mess") descending from above.[citation needed]
Late in the war the following whisper jokes circulated: [8]
- Time is flying. A thousand years are already over ... (mocking the term "thousand-year Reich")
- Which city has the most warehouses? Berlin: Wherever you look, there were houses ... (In the center of Berlin, more than 50% of the apartments had been destroyed or severely damaged by the end of the war.[9]) - This is a pun with the two German words "Waren" (goods, wares) and "waren" (there/they were).
- Soldiers of the Volkssturm are now being sent to the front in pairs. One throws a stone, and the other one shouts "boom!".
References
- Citations
- ISBN 0-299-15444-0.
- ISBN 0-8223-2737-6.
- ^ Note: "dumb" (for stumm) here means "speechless", "mute", rather than "stupid". In the cited translation the word was chosen for a rhyme.
- ISBN 0199923884.
- ^ Hans-Jochen Gamm, Der Flüsterwitz im Dritten Reich. 2nd edition. List Verlag, München 1964, pp.. 104–116.
- ^ Crossland, David. “New Book on Nazi-Era Humor: Did You Hear the One About Hitler?, Der Spiegel International, August 30, 2006
- ^ Gamm 1993.
- ^ Chapter Das Inferno. Ausgang des Dritten Reiches, in: Hans-Jochen Gamm: Der Flüsterwitz im Dritten Reich. 2. edition List Verlag, München 1964, S. 154–166.
- ^ Kriegsschäden in Berlin - Zerstörung in Zahlen
- Sources
- Rudi Hartmann (1983), Flüsterwitze aus dem Tausendjährigen Reich (Whispered Jokes from the Thousand Year Reich), Knaur, ISBN 3426021153, Google Books, snippet.
- "DDR-Witze, oder Der Sozialismus siecht!" in German. (GDR Jokes, or Socialism is sickening!), Klartextsatire.de
- "DDR-Humor Darüber lachte der Osten" in German. Mz-web.de, 2017.
- Gramm, H.-J. (1964), Der Flüsterwitz im Dritten Reich, München (List).
- Bos, D. & Hart, M. (2008), Humour and Social Protest, Cambridge (CUP).
External links
- "Flustervitze" (PDF), G-Geschichte.de