# Please help me identify this passage from a book

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-identify-this-passage-from-a-book/774632>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [December 13, 2016, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-identify-this-passage-from-a-book/774632 "2016-12-13T18:49:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-identify-this-passage-from-a-book/774632/1 "2016-12-13T18:49:46Z")

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I read this once in an oral history of WWII, but don’t remember which one. Candidates for authorship include, I should think, Bill Mauldin, Stephen Ambrose, and maybe Kurt Vonnegut. I believe it’s a true story, and it went … _something like this_…

A second lieutenant fresh from the States is interrogating German POWs for the first time. While he may have gotten good marks in language school, it’s clear he’s never had any contact with native speakers.

The German decides to have a little fun and drops the word “Kanone,” in this case slang for an “ace” or just “a great guy.”

The lieutenant immediately picks up on the one word he can identify, thinking the POW means “artillery piece.”

“Kanone! Wo ist Kanone?”

The German points at a buddy and says “Er ist Kanone.”

The lieutenant is dumbfounded. “Er ist Kanone?!?”

“Ja,” says the German. “Und \*er \*ist Kanone, und \*er \*ist Kanone,” pointing to other guys in the room.

The lieutenant is completely lost, and the other GIs in the room are trying hard to keep from laughing.

Anybody recognize this?

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**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-identify-this-passage-from-a-book/774632/2 "2016-12-14T12:39:32Z")

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Germans: The Biography of an Obsession  
George Bailey  
Free Press, 1991

> **[Germans](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vz0iAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22ist%2Beine%2BKanone%2B%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Kanone%2B%22)**
>
> First published 20 years ago, this book has been revised and reissued to reflect the changes that have taken place in Germany since then and more particularly since reunification in 1990. The book examines the vexed question of German nationhood, and...

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**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-identify-this-passage-from-a-book/774632/3 "2016-12-14T15:39:41Z")

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> [@Peter\_Morris](#):
>
> Germans: The Biography of an Obsession  
> George Bailey  
> Free Press, 1991
> 
> [Germans: The Biography of an Obsession - George Bailey - Google Books](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vz0iAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22ist+eine+Kanone+%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Kanone+%22)

Thank you. If that’s the book I’m thinking of, my brother had an earlier copy, which means I read it a lot longer ago than I believed.

In the beginning, the author remembers how, as a kid, he got a job cleaning up at a synagogue, and the Rabbi heard him whistling the “Horst Wessel Lied” one day? (He didn’t realize the significance of the tune.)