# Well now, that's a weird coincidence. Or maybe just a strange juxtaposition **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 13, 2021, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926 "2021-04-13T20:51:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**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:** [April 13, 2021, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926/1 "2021-04-13T20:51:41Z")
So I was doing a little gardening work, and listening to _Hitler: The First 100 Days_ by the historian Peter Fritsche. It’s a decent listen if you can overlook the narrator’s laughably bad pronunciation of German names and quotations. Anyway, the author tells us of a 1933 Nazi propaganda film. _Hitlerjunge Quex_, and it’s the sort of self-congratulatory material you’d expect in the spring of that year. Shown at one point is a campaign poster which translates into English as: _Go and drain the scandal-sump, Hitler is our Trump_. The key words rhyme in both languages. Obviously, the intended meaning was as a trump in a card game. But I have to admit I nearly did a flip-take on hearing that one. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926/2 "2021-04-13T20:58:04Z")
Nice one! Sounds like something right from Joseph Goebbels’ playbook. … What? ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926/3 "2021-04-13T21:54:31Z")
Sure to drain the shit-ler/trump is our Hitler Yoiu know, I can see this at the next RNC. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2021, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926/4 "2021-04-14T02:58:13Z")
> **[Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for April 11, 2021 | GoComics.com](https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2021/04/11)** > > April 11, 2021 ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2021, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926/5 "2021-04-14T12:27:31Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Shown at one point is a campaign poster which translates into English as: > > _Go and drain the scandal-sump, Hitler is our Trump_ . > > The key words rhyme in both languages. Obviously, the intended meaning was as a trump in a card game. The combo of “drain the scandal-sump” and “Hitler is our trump” seems a little _ **too** _ spot-on. It looks like the book was written in 2020-- could it have been a little bit of a revisionist translation? Maybe the German was more like “hitler is our winning hand” or “Hitler is our checkmate move” and the translator, cleverly I admit since he also had to come up with a rhyme, decided to translate it to ‘trump’. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2021, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926/6 "2021-04-14T17:59:19Z")
Among the questions asked at the education session in _Catch-22_: “How was trump at Munich?” (It’s a few lines after “Why is Hitler?” and a few more before “Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?”) ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926/7 "2021-04-23T00:41:24Z")
The OP mentioned that the key words rhyme in both languages. Since English is, after all, a Germanic language, I think it’s safe to say that there was little, if any, “revisionist translation” happening. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926/8 "2021-04-23T12:07:34Z")
> [@solost](#): > > The combo of “drain the scandal-sump” and “Hitler is our trump” seems a little _ **too** _ spot-on. It looks like the book was written in 2020-- could it have been a little bit of a revisionist translation? Maybe the German was more like “hitler is our winning hand” or “Hitler is our checkmate move” and the translator, cleverly I admit since he also had to come up with a rhyme, decided to translate it to ‘trump’. > [@Monty](#): > > The OP mentioned that the key words rhyme in both languages. Since English is, after all, a Germanic language, I think it’s safe to say that there was little, if any, “revisionist translation” happening Why not? Things that rhyme are translated from one language into another while still rhyming fairly often. It just takes a couple creative word choices to keep it rhyming while not changing the meaning too much. And ‘scandal-sump’ sounds like a bit of s stretch to rhyme with ‘trump’. To take my partial example above, here’s a translation into English that rhymes, means about the same thing, and does not have the word trump in it: Go and drain the swampy land, Hitler is our winning hand. ---
**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:** [April 23, 2021, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926/9 "2021-04-23T14:03:18Z")
In German, the key words would be ‘Sumpf’ und ‘Trumpf’; I don’t know the original slogan, but if it featured any other words, it would at least be a tendentious translation. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926/10 "2021-04-23T14:12:52Z")
OK then, that does seem to point toward it being not a revisionist translation, but an eerily prescient coincidence per the OP. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2021, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-now-thats-a-weird-coincidence-or-maybe-just-a-strange-juxtaposition/939926/11 "2021-05-15T01:30:40Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > The OP mentioned that the key words rhyme in both languages. Since English is, after all, a Germanic language, I think it’s safe to say that there was little, if any, “revisionist translation” happening. Exactly. The narrator of the book didn’t tell me that the words rhyme, I knew that anyway since I’m near-fluent in German.