# Is this German? Polish? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 6, 2011, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684 "2011-01-06T23:57:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fish\_Cheer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fish_cheer/32/17179_2.png) [@Fish\_Cheer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish_Cheer)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684/21 "2011-01-09T23:41:14Z")
> [@badgerbrown](#): > > Okay, here are the pictures: > > [Photo Storage](http://s1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc437/Wil_Rhodes/) Picture 003 clearly shows “Hptfw.” for [_Hauptfeldwebel_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauptfeldwebel). And it is indeed “Amon” rather than “Umon”, see [here](http://www.identifont.com/show?LH) for an example. ---
**Author:** ![Fish\_Cheer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fish_cheer/32/17179_2.png) [@Fish\_Cheer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish_Cheer)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684/22 "2011-01-09T23:48:32Z")
What’s funny is that [this](http://s1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc437/Wil_Rhodes/?action=view¤t=002.jpg) is “unßerm” (meaning “our”) with an [_Eszett_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F), but that’s not how it should be spelt. It’s “unserm” with a plain “s” in modern German, and I don’t think it was anything else in 1941. Either way, strictly speaking it should be “unserem”, but the second “e” often gets dropped in spoken German. ETA: or what Mops said ---
**Author:** ![Fish\_Cheer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fish_cheer/32/17179_2.png) [@Fish\_Cheer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish_Cheer)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2011, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684/23 "2011-01-09T23:53:36Z")
Oh, and one last thing: Google tells me that “Stawiko” means “Stabs- und Wirtschaftskompanie”. I don’t know much about the German military past or present, though, so I can’t quite translate that. ETA: to sum up: “To our senior NCO Amon by his _Stabs- und Wirtschaftskompanie_, December 1941” ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684/24 "2011-01-10T01:48:38Z")
> [@Fish\_Cheer](#): > > Oh, and one last thing: Google tells me that “Stawiko” means “Stabs- und Wirtschaftskompanie”. I don’t know much about the German military past or present, though, so I can’t quite translate that. > > ETA: to sum up: “To our senior NCO Amon by his _Stabs- und Wirtschaftskompanie_, December 1941” I think Wirtschafskompanie would translate to economics or management in practice, so it would be the Staff- and Management Company. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684/25 "2011-01-10T06:20:28Z")
Just chipping in that the “von Feiner” thing really is “von seiner”. The Fraktur lowercase f would have a small horizontal stroke which the s lacks, and that stroke is absent here. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684/26 "2011-01-10T15:26:19Z")
To summarize: It seems that a company tasked with staff and auxiliary work presented its senior NCO, one _Hauptfeldwebe_l Amon, with this cup in December 1941, probably on the occasion of his retirement or transfer. The engraver seems not to have been up to date with the orthography standardization of 1901. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684/27 "2011-01-10T16:18:05Z")
This thread is kind of awesome. “Straight Dope: The History Detectives.” ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684/28 "2011-01-10T16:33:37Z")
> [@Fish\_Cheer](#): > > Picture 003 clearly shows “Hptfw.” for [_Hauptfeldwebel_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauptfeldwebel). And it is indeed “Amon” rather than “Umon”, see [here](http://www.identifont.com/show?LH) for an example. Looking at the pics, I’m not so sure about the ‘Amon’ anymore – the first letter and the U in ‘Unßerm’ seem completely alike. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684/29 "2011-01-10T18:46:55Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Yes, when you write the “von” bit as a part of a surname (which, incidentally, does not necessarily indicate an aristocratic background - most aristocratic families used to have a “von” somwhere in their name, but some bourgeois families did too) you would put it in lowercase. However, People might have capitalised it because (1) it’s the first word in a line, or (2) because in that inscription, to make it appear more solemn or whatever, they capitalised every word. Or maybe (3) a lower-case v was simply misread for an upper-case V. But see my next comment. I did think that “von” was _usually_ an indication of nobility, although the aristocracy in the German _Sprachraum_ also included numerous–perhaps mostly–_untitled_ gentry roughly analogous to squires in the UK–for a fictional example, the Bennett family in _Pride And Prejudice_. From what I’ve read, however, it is somewhat more common that you find non-noble “vons” in the areas adjacent to the Low Countries, in which cases it seems to be analogous to “van” across the border. American fiction and film seems to have had a slight obsession with “von” and German nobility. The literary Dr. Frankenstein was a French-speaking Swiss bourgeois, but Hollywood converted him into the German Baron von Frankenstein, holed up in his mountain fortress. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684/30 "2011-01-10T21:27:35Z")
Definitely looks like Umon. Is there a possibility it was a visiting Japanese official? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684/31 "2011-01-10T22:10:22Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Looking at the pics, I’m not so sure about the ‘Amon’ anymore – the first letter and the U in ‘Unßerm’ seem completely alike. No. They’re different letter shapes. At least they look very different to me. Look at the bottom strokes of both letters. The “A” in “Amon” has two strokes, while the “U” in “Unßerm” has one. The curve on the rounded bottom stroke in Amon is convex, while the other one is concave. Also the left-most stroke on the “A” has more of a curve to it than the one on the “U”, which is consistent with the look of Fraktur typefaces. [This is not exactly the same typeface](http://www.identifont.com/list?2+fraktur+3+LH+120+267G+71+309+57+8ZI+45+HCH+0+JZY+0+P0F+0+8WH+0+27ZG+0+27ZF+0+27ZH+0+61L+0+M94+0+ID4+0+24O+0+6DB+0+IKN+0+27U2+0+M6C+0+6F5+0+7TF+0+J5V+0+267W+0+30A+0+PLI+0+6HG+0+L0A+0+HDV+0+8WT+0+267Q+0+M8E+0+M5N+0+INN+0+267U+0+253E+0+677+0+6LE+0+L2R+0+L2P+0+XV+0+275I+0+275J+0), but it has both characteristics I mention above. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-german-polish/566684.md?page=1)