So there are actually some German wartime jokes that are actually quite funny. Here’s some that I heard:
- " Where I live there’s now a lot of warehouses, there were houses and there were houses, and there were houses!"
- “How can you tell an optimist from a pessimist? The optimist is learning English and the pessimist is learning Russian.”
- One day at the barracks there was a soldier on his knees looking around the ground, picking up random papers he found and going “no, no that’s not it”. His officer asked what he was doing, “I’m looking for my special paper”. He sent him to the doctor and he was declared insane, when the doctor gave him his discharge papers he explained “ah, there’s my special paper!”
How would a German joke work based on english homonyms?
It’s just a coincidence that the same words are homonyms in English and German in this case: “Warehouses” = “Warenhäuser”, “There were houses” = “Dort waren Häuser”. You don’t even have to translate to colloquial German as the other comment suggests, a word-by-word translation works here.
You might like this (to be read aloud in French):
Un petit d’un petit
S’étonne aux Halles
Un petit d’un petit
Ah! degrés te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse
Indolent qui ne se mène
Qu’importe un petit d’un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes.
Wow ok that’s clever
This. I asked myself this and that and was amazed the joke worked in both languages.
I mean to be fair, English and German are in the same language family.
So are English and French. And English and Frysian. English is a moshpit of languages.
More a happy coincidence that it lines up.
Dutch is wild to hear or see because it feels like alternate universe English.
So I went and googled it out of curiosity, after remembering that German for was/were (in some form anyway) is ‘war’.
I found this in a thread about Downfall and a translated joke where someone was wondering what the original was:
The German pun uses ‘Warenhaus’ department store and “Da war 'n Haus” - “there was/used to be a house”.
hm thanks
English and German derive from a common root language, so I’d honestly be surprised if there weren’t some that do.
Germans hate humor so much that hey renamed “The Simpsons” to “Die Simpsons!”. “Die Simpsons!”!!
Die Bart, Die!
Noone who speaks German can be an evil man. Parole granted!
these are wunderbar
These are gold, thank you for posting
German jokes are the wurst
That joke only works in German because “treffen” has two meanings: meet and hit.
Ah so kind of like “a man walks into a bar and says ouch”
Or like, “a man walks into a bar. It was a closed casket funeral.”
Yea same as “c’est l’histoire d’un gars qui rentre dans un café… et plouf”
German humor is no laughing matter.
Gottseidank heißt unser Führer nicht Kräuter. Sonst hieße es den ganzen Tag Heilkräuter! Heilkräuter!
Karl Valentin
The funniest german joke is Deutsche Bahn…
My suggestion is to watch the documentary laughing with Hitler to see that not only do Germans have a scathing sense of humor, but also were willing to die for their jokes.
The forklift training video was amazing.
Klaus!
Uwe Boll movies left a lasting scar on the image of Germans…
Dude the meme game they have is on point you’d be surprised…
I think Germans are pretty Damm funny tbh. They’re silly
Women are always the recipients of all humor, as were their mothers, and their grandmothers before them, and as will be their daughters, and their granddaughters after them, for it is the will of the Elders
May I present in counter-argument Henning Wehn
Well, we did have to send him to Britain for training … seriously though, probably my favourite German comedian.
I’m always especially impressed by comedians that can work successfully in a second language.
Germans are funnier than the average American. American humour seems to amount to claiming you own random countries and then threatening military action.
Careful throwing stones. That was German humor 80 years ago or so.
Yeah, and we all agreed about what was necessary to stop them- but Americans chose cowardice.
No, they were stopped by outside force. I wish that could happen this time.
Very cute to imply that “outside” is meaningful here, allowing you to pretend you’ve dodged responsibility
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Unfortunately, the people who say that kind of shit are not joking.
Honestly american humor has been on massive decline in the last 20 years despite increase of the overall comedy market. Particularly american standup is so bad these days despite bringing in stadiums of people. It’s so cringe: “they’re trying to cancel me yap yap yap”
German people tell each other what they mean. We do not make a difference between man and woman in that. Perhaps that is why your woman do not trust you.
I’m glad they laugh at you though.
They laugh with us. That means we laugh too. Should give it a try.
I’m “taking the piss” (I think that is the phrase?)
Because this person in the screenshot clearly has no respect for women.
Agreed.
Thanks for explaining joke.
We find it makes jokes 108.6% more funnier.
Efficiency!
Another German banger I heard awhile ago:
“Ask me if I’m a schoolbus.”
“Are you a schoolbus?”
“No.”
I’m sitting on the train by myself and cackling. I don’t know why I find it so funny.
Found the German.
So German humor is anti-meme?
it is post modern
german humor is no laughing matter
But is also the wurst.
It’s so derived
Modern.
