German History Bloopers

Inadvertent Humor from Student Papers & Exams

page compiled by Harold Marcuse
(professor of German history at UC Santa Barbara)
Harold Marcuse homepage

begun January 5, 2007, updated 6/8/08

Introduction

I come across these every now and then, and feel it's a shame to let them disappear into nothingness.

As Richard Lederer, author of many books on the inadvertent butchering of the English language, put it: "One of the fringe benefits of being an English or History teacher is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. It is truly astounding what havoc students can wreak upon the chronicles of the human race."

19th Century Germany (back to top)

• "The Wars of Liberation freed Europe from the yolk of Napoleonic rule."
  [one of my all-time favorites--sticky yellow yolk running over a map of Europe]
• "The Wartburg Festival ... in 1817 ... also marked the 300th anniversary that Martin Luther nailed his theisis to the church wall." [good thing it wasn't his whatsis]
• "People were criticizing the rulers at this festival because they had failed to fulfill their promises that 'they had made under duress to estabish liberal constitutions and a untied Germany.'"
  [no wonder the Germans came unglued a century later]
• "Bismarck felt that his heart belonged in Pomerania, however, his mother deprived him of this and caused angst for the countryside. His later years in school showed that he was a big fish being held down by a small pond."
  [And people say Hitler had a screwed-up childhood! The student continued:]
  "It was not until 1847, after his marriage to Johanna von Puttmaker [Puttkammer], that we begin to see Bismarck's steps into his turbulent political life."
  [note to self: marrying a good golfer leads to political turmoil]
• "As tempting as becoming the king of a united Germany was, Frederick William ultimately decided to support the conservative cause and help the princelings in Germany deal with the revolutionaries. His action helped to doom the cause of the revolutionaries and delayed the creation of a unified Germany until Bismarck's genus brought Germany into being." [That new genus of germano sapiens might explain the next generation of Germans' fear of interbreeding.]

Nazism (back to top)

• "As a result of hyperinflation the Reichsmack crashed." (3/2000) [Thus: never overinflate your truck's tires. I wonder whether it hit any of those people pushing wheelbarrows of money?]
• On Holocaust historian Herbert Steinhouse's analysis of the veracity of the film Schindler's List: "Since Steinhouse's mother was a causality of the Nazi regime, he found little comfort or truth in a 'good German tale'." (3/2000) Maybe: casualty? (spell check gone wild?) Another:
• "In the Nuremberg Trials the top Nazi officials responsible for 6 million Jewish causalities are put to death or imprisoned." [Poor Nazis--the Jews still causing problems for them.]
• "During and after the war the Germans were considered a plight on humanity."
• "Hitler was a war-mongrel who was also a racist and known for starting World War II and the Holocaust." [Imagine if he had been a pure-bred pitbull.]
• "The Jews were Hitler's escapegoats." [from a German student whose English was pretty good, but obviously not perfect]
• "As the Nazis launched their champagne against the Jews, there were those who helped the Jews escape prosecution." (5/04) [Nothing like a little alcohol to distract a lawyer.]
• "Hans Frank ... created the ever-so-popular myth that Hitler was a descendant of a Jew, who had philanthropies with his grandmother in 1836." (2/08)[charitable chap, old granddad]
• "One story in Hans Frank's death row memoir is the popular myth that Hitler was a descendant of a Jew, who had sex escapades with his grandmother in 1836." (3/08)[as if there weren't enough Aryan Brunhildes around for Jews to seduce]

20th Century (back to top)

• "Morgenthau hated the Germans because he was Jewish and called for a plan to pasturize Germany." (3/04) [And you know how Jews hate having bacteria in their fields]
• "Now how would real guilt be determined and respirations made, and to whom? Were Ford, GM/Opel, Deutsche Bank, and Degesch to pay equally?" [I bet there was a lot of heavy breathing in some corporate boardrooms while that was discussed.]
• "Willy Brandt was important in German history for his Osteopolitik." (3/00) [It cured the Germans' chronic problem of brittle bones.]
• "The Red Army Faction terrorists that challenged Germany's stability in the '70s found rot in the Grand Coalition's neutered political environment." (3/04) [Well, when West Germany's two big parties got together, at least they couldn't beget any children!]

World History survey (back to top)

• "During the long rein of Saddam Hussein he kept the Baghdad Jews under tight control." (5/2003) [If he had a long rein, did he also use a short leash?]
• "Gandhi feasted until the killing stopped." (After the partition of India/Pakistan.)(6/08) [What a bloodthirsty guy!]

Links to Blooper Pages (back to top)

• Albert S. Lindemann, my emeritus colleague in history at UCSB, has a wonderful collection he calls Lindemann's Laffs. (2005 version courtesy of web archive)
• Lessons from World History, compiled by Courtney Powell Thomas, a social studies teacher at Blacksburg High School in Virginia (also pt. II)
• "World History according to Students," at InnocentEnglish.com (scroll down slightly)
• Not to be missed: compiliation of Bush bloopers on YouTube
• Richard Lederer, the consummate "verbivore," has published numerous books on the butchering of the English language.
  • Wikipedia Lederer page
  • Lederer's books on amazon
• Anders Henriksson, Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students (2001)($4 and searchable at amazon) (Shepard College profile of Henriksson)