Well, the second one is very mean and racist. Basically people start feeling sorry for you, because they think your grandfather was killed by the Nazis. Then you tell them he fell off the watch tower, and they realize that he was one of the Nazi guards. Like I said, very mean and racist.
But the first one is great, neh?
Also hilarious, (and I think most Germans would appreciate it also) is Sid Ceasar doing his “pseudo german”, and of course Benny Hill: “Das Grossbaton up der Kleinjumper?”. Then again I tought Jon Lovitz doing his, albeit involuntary, Hitler imitation in “Rat Race” was great also. I guess the Nazis make very humorous subjects. Wait a minute, Nazis…Moderators…, Hey, there should be a bunch of really good moderator jokes. I think I just came up with a new thread subject.
Not sure this is too relevant to the OP, but I had a German pen friend come over and we went out to dinner.
We all had some champagne and raised our glasses, saying “Bottoms Up!”, as is traditional.
She replied with, “Up your bottom!”
We immediately sprayed so much champagne out of our noses, she didn’t understand what was funny, even after long drawn out explanations.
DMark: I wanted you respond to your assesment of my request as “borderline offensive”. I should have been more explicit in my OP that my paper actually is an attempt to knock down bigoted stereotypes of Germans. The use of jokes about Germans will only be used to illustrate how pervasive these stereotypes are in our culture. I agree that a simple request for jokes mocking Germans would be tantamount to racism. I’ve spent many years in the company of compassionate, warm, and humorous German friends - and I hope to highlight this aspect in my work. Indeed, I am very sensitive to all jokes made based on racial or ethnic grounds.
Incidentally, the previous post you cite about German Film Comedies was also posted by me for the same project.
Boy, are you right about most German jokes being scatological. Also, most of them are regional. Since there are so many dialects in Germany, there are jokes covering evry one of them. Some of my favorites disparage the “Gogen”, who are the vintners of Tuebingen (a small town near Stuttgart). These “Gogen” still live a very rural life up to today, and spend most of their lives minding the vineyards. Here are two famous “Gogenwitzen” (which are a lot funnier if told in the local dialect):
Two “gogen” ladies meet on the street and begin arguing. The argument becomes so heated that one of them picks up some horse poop (which litters the streets of Tuebingen) and throws it at the other. Whereupon the one with the poop in her mouth answers as best she can with a mouth full of, well you know…: “This one’s staying here till the police arrive!”
A “gog” is riding up the steep winding paths to his vineyard with a cart attached that is full of manure (taken from his own outhouse). While taking one of the curves a little to quickly the cart tips over and spills all it’s contents on to the street and not the vineyard where it was supposed to go as fertilizer. His wife begins berating him: “Damn you, this means we’ve crapped and peed all year, for nothing!”
Scatological indeed as you can see.
I tried some observations of a German/Canadian/American cow-orker and all I was able to glean was that “it sucks to be you.” is supposed to be funny in some way. I also concluded that Romanian women are gullible but in both cases sample size may be too small.
This supposed to be a true story and took place either before or during WW2 :- A famous German comedian walks on stage in front of a large audience and raises his arm in a " Heil Hitler " salute. After the audiance has responded and settled down , the comedian ( still with his arm outstreached ) says " the snow was this deep in Munich last winter ".
A German tourist walks into a McDonald’s in New York City and orders a beer. The local guy in the line behind him immediately gives him a verbal jab, “They don’t serve beer here, you moron!”
The German fellow felt embarrassed, however he turned to the New Yorker with a surprised look on his face and begins to laugh.
“And what’s so funny?” the New Yorker demands.
Oh, nothing really, I just realized how stupid you are. You came here for the food!"