Horst: (Sinister) Okay, Mr. Burns, you win. But beware. We Germans aren't all smiles and sunshine.
Mr. Burns: (Sarcastic) Oooh, the Germans are mad at me. I'm so scared! Oooh, the Germans! (Hiding behind Smithers) Uh oh, the Germans are going to get me!
Horst: Stop it!
Man: Stop, sir.
Mr. Burns: Don't let the Germans come after me. Oh no, the Germans are coming after me.
Man: Please stop the "pretending you are scared" game, please.
Horst: Stop it! Stop it!
Mr. Burns: (Pause) No! They're so big and strong!
Man: Stop it.
Horst: Stop it, Mr. Burns.
Man: Please stop pretending you are scared of us, please, now.
Mr. Burns: Oh, protect me from the Germans! The Germans--
Horst: Burns, Stop it!
Germans must learn to laugh with us at the Nazis
by George Pitcher
George Pitcher is an Anglican priest who serves his ministry at St Bride's, Fleet Street, in London – the "journalists' church".
Recruitment firm Reed Online aired a radio ad recently that featured a mild-mannered employee greeting his boss, who shouts back at him in German in a Hitleresque way, before concluding with the tag: "Boss a bit of a tyrant? Find your perfect boss on the UK's biggest job site." The Advertising Standards Authority has banned the ad, because it was "derived from a stereotype at the expense of German people".
Right. First thing to say is that sending up and, if you can, laughing at Nazis is wholly healthy. They were and are stupid, banal and ugly, with their ridiculous jodphurs and strutting, obese, leather-slapping posturing, their pathetic marching songs and beer-swilling, bottom-slapping, puce-faced ejaculations about uber and untermenschen. Master race? Oh, please.
Their industrially murderous regime has left millions unable ever to laugh at them, but those who can should take every opportunity to do so, preferably while pointing at their hideous, fat faces and fatuous beliefs.
It's a form of vigilance and wholly wonderful that 65 years after their "glorious fuhrer" blew his tiny brains out in a Berlin bunker they should feature in a silly ad for office recruitment. Welcome to your legacy in Europe in 2010, Adolf.
Second thing to say is that they were, predominantly, German. They emerged from Germany (yes, I know Hitler was Austrian by birth). They spoke German. So if anyone is going to take the mickey out of them in a radio ad, they're going to sound German, get it?
Third thing to say is that if, as the ASA claims, that means that "the ad had the potential to cause serious offence" to Germans, then I say that the ASA is re-inforcing its own stereotype of a German people who have no sense of humour. Germans should laugh and point at Nazis too.
Otherwise we're pretending that today's Germans have something in common with Nazi Germany, just because they speak the same language.
And fourth and lastly, if Germans really are offended by being reminded that Nazis were German in a lightweight radio commercial, then I think their rather self-indulgent, psychological denial should be challenged.
And one way of doing so is to point out that the best way for Nazis not to have been associated with Germany would have been for their grandparents not to have voted them into power in the first place.
The Nazis were a bunch of goose-stepping, vain and obnoxious prats. They also mesmerised the Germans a couple of generations ago. Today's Germans, who were not in any way involved and are untainted by the sins of their mothers and fathers, still have to live with that.
But, if we're suggesting that Germans have a special right to be offended, then we're suggesting that today's Germans actually do have some association with their country's Nazi past.
And, if that's the case, then we might like to add that the Nazis didn't offend them half as much as they offended the rest of Europe, which as a consequence has won the right at incalculable human cost to laugh and point at them as much as we please, thankyou very much.
The ASA shouldn't have been so wimpishly pathetic, any more than we should ban repeats of John Cleese ripping it out of Nazi Germany in Fawlty Towers. Actually, the ASA seems to have fallen for Basil Fawlty's "Don't mention the war" maxim, which should be deeply patronising to contemporary Germans.
The gauleiters of the ASA should get a life. And that goes for offended Germans too.
Baron von Wortzenberger, on behalf of the American people, I apologize for…” – US State Department Agent
“Ja ja ja, macht schnell mit der art things, huh? I must get back to Dancezentrum in Stuttgart in time to see Kraftwerk. Hey, und dummkopf! Watch out for the CD changer in my trunk, eh? Idiot.” – Baron von Wortzenberger
Back to the closing days of the war, as the Hellfish had just flushed some Germans out of an abandoned castle, Burns holds a painting, and carts it away. Sgt. Simpson threatens to report Burns to Commander Flanders.
Sgt.: Just leave [the paintings], Burnsie.
Burns: Leave them for whom, the Germans, the folks who shoot at us all day? Let's just take them. We'll all be rich, rich as Nazis.
-- Wow, Nazis, "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish"
German SEOs als Simpsons
South Park Angela Merkel
South Park takes aim at 'humourless' Germans
Germans should brace themselves for some crass jokes at their expense this weekend, when an episode of the US cartoon 'South Park' mocking their sense of humour is broadcast for the first time in Germany.
In portions of “Funnybot,” an episode that premiered in the United States last May, German President Christian Wulff and Chancellor Angela Merkel invade a school and point guns at kids after Germans become angry over being called the world’s most unfunny people.
Though the German media seem to get the joke, some observers have fretted that the country is being portrayed as soulless and evil, especially at a time when Germans feel they are being unfairly demonized as Europe’s economic hegemon during the eurzone debt crisis.
While Die Welt newspaper gave the episode plaudits, it also wrote that it also portrayed German politicians as “barbaric” and furthered the Anglo-Saxon fascination with Germans’ supposed “evil genius.”
But Stern magazine said that while Germans are widely seen internationally as being humourless, that perception could be changed with an investment in public relations over coming years.
“In principle, you can get rid of every learned cliché,” PR expert Ernst Primosch told the magazine.
The episode seems to take particular aim at Germany’s 20th century history and current leadership.
It portrays politicians, including Merkel and Wulff, as bitterly angry that Germans have been called unfunny. They unveil a robot that tells jokes and eventually goes on a genocidal rampage.
The episode comes at a time where Merkel is being written about in increasingly dour terms by the international media.
A recent article in the US Newsweek magazine that portrayed Merkel as emotionless and insensitive during the euro crisis has raised particular discomfort in Germany, with some prominent figures worrying that the country is being maligned internationally.
The South Park episode “Funnybot” can be seen at 10:30 pm on Sunday on Comedy Central in Germany.
See President Christian Wulff tell a few “jokes” during the episode:
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Stereotypes on German People
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