Nicht Spreche der Deutsche

Remember those days before you possess a few working German words how difficult it was trying to communicate.
I was on my first exercise somewhere in Germany, developed a headache , went to the local chemist, point to my head and made a swirling movement. The smile on his face told me he understood. He brought back a comb.
But many of the REME mechs working on 432's out in the field had to resort to purchasing condoms from the chemist in the village to improvise when the governor actuator seal had gone and no replacement was available. Try explaining to the Chemist that it was really "fur der panzer".

While I've Keine Deutsch gesprochen for over 30 years, I have amazingly (at least to me) managed to retain quite a bit...or think I have.

I've always been fascinated by words and their origins and what certain words mean. Language -- how it's used, why it's used, etc. -- is part of that for me. So, learning German vocabulary, and being struck by the logic of the words and the similarities to English (at least Old English) held my interest. German grammar? Hmmm, yeah, not so much LOL I never quite mastered the grammar but soon discovered when you are 20 years old, mixing one's tenses and screwing up the pronouns (Der, Die, Das) was seen as "cute"...so of course I totally went with it! LOL

When I returned to Germany to work my German was passable enough to get by. Sometimes when my Polier (foreman or the guy in charge of the whole work site) needed to give me specific instructions we had to use one of the crew who spoke English (he had rented to Canadians) to come and translate but usually if the Polier didn't get too complex I was able to perfectly get what he was saying. Being an 'educated man' his German was a bit "higher" than I was used to.

Interestingly, when I returned to Canada and attended college, I opted for German as one of my electives, figuring it'd be an easy course for me. It wasn't!

The instructor was from Stuttgart and was aghast at my "low German" and the accent...I mean separate from my Canadian accent in pronouncing German words -- that was understandable and allowable. No, she found my 'low Westphalian farmer" accent atrocious. Snobby bitch LOL I got a "D" in the course. Pissed me off, I can tell you!

I got my approach to learning German from my mom. She made a point of learning it, unlike a lot of Canadian wives who figured if a shopkeeper or whoever didn't understand what was being said in English, then speaking louder and more....sloooowlllly....would change that. The arrogance of that still floors me.

My mom asked a German neighbour, who spoke excellent English, how to ask for gloves for me. "handschuhe fur meine kinder". Mom repeated it over and over in her head all the way down to the store in Iserlohn only to have the clerk break into a broad grin and say "Ahhhh...you want gloves for the little boy!"

What a brilliant stroke of improvisation...buying condoms to serve as a seal on the governor (how the governor felt about being....oh never mind....LOL). Now, see, I'd think struggling along in rudimentary German while trying to purchase condoms from a small town chemist would be far more difficult than trying to locate an actual seal for whatever a governor actuator is (can you tell I am not mechanically-inclined??), but bravo to those brave lads who did and succeeded. So, who cares if the chemist didn't believe they actually were 'fur der panzer"....I am sure he must of thought "Ach, diesem Englanderin....alles ferucht!" (oh these English...they're all crazy!"). Gives a whole new slant to the lyric "Madmen and Englishmen..." doesn't it? LOL

And, 30 plus years on, I still occasionally dream auf Deutsch....

Stephen Lock wrote:

I got my approach to learning German from my mom. She made a point of learning it, unlike a lot of Canadian wives who figured if a shopkeeper or whoever didn't understand what was being said in English, then speaking louder and more....sloooowlllly....would change that. The arrogance of that still floors me.

Stephen I've just shown my wife that little bit quoted above.
Like your Mum my wife spoke no German what so ever. She learned phrases and if she wasn't sure about something she would ask the shopkeeper ." wie heist das auf deutch?....She found that if you made an attempt to ask in German ( even if you got it badly wrong) they would be more than willing to help. When in Rome etc etc.

Bob,
We all went about communicating with the Germans in the wrong way, you know.
A National Service lad I knew way back, used to go into a shop and ask for what he wanted, in English, BUT HE SPOKE WITH A GERMAN ACCENT !
Simple eh?
He really believed it worked too. (God knows what the German thought!).

brum

Ah,reminds me of a young Troop Leader we had.Out on exercise the Sqn Leader called up this Troop Leader and asked him for his position.After a long pause,and 3 further requests,the Sqn Leader asked the Troop Leader to say which village(Dorf)he was nearest to.The Troop Leader came back and said,I'm right by a yellow sign and it says "Umleitung"2KMs!
------
Don

PS - should there be any really bad at German then "Umleitung" means diversion!

[quote="bob"]

Stephen Lock wrote:

....She found that if you made an attempt to ask in German ( even if you got it badly wrong) they would be more than willing to help. When in Rome etc etc.

And that is so true Bob,One night while on exercise in Sennelager we found ourselves at a way out pub near Paderborn.We pooled and put forward our best German to make our order. Succeeding after a bit a struggle, the bar tender said to us , he liked it when people come in an attempt to communicate in German. He was a Jock and ex army.

Just on the outskirts of Detmold , there are the villages of BRAKE (Brawk-ker)and HORN. These were both located within our vehicle test routes.
We loved it when a young REME chap was posted in, as the first oppurtunity arises we would let him drive along the test route. As he got a few feet from the BRAKE village sign,he would be instructed to do as the sign indicated, and would slam on his brakes. Similarly when he got to Horn , he was made to toot the horn.

After the overnight invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 , we took part in an exercise to see how fast BAOR was able to move across Germany in a single night. There were quite a few unreported vehicle accidents involving German civilians. New morning the early the German police was in our location looking for evidence. A guardsman came up to our wagon and said ," Q, the German police is down here investigating accident and wants someone who speaks German." Our Q spoke fluent German, and he replied, "Go back and tell the German cops to &*%3 off,and bring someone who speaks english."

bob wrote:

Stephen Lock wrote:

I got my approach to learning German from my mom. She made a point of learning it, unlike a lot of Canadian wives who figured if a shopkeeper or whoever didn't understand what was being said in English, then speaking louder and more....sloooowlllly....would change that. The arrogance of that still floors me.

Stephen I've just shown my wife that little bit quoted above.
Like your Mum my wife spoke no German what so ever. She learned phrases and if she wasn't sure about something she would ask the shopkeeper ." wie heist das auf deutch?....She found that if you made an attempt to ask in German ( even if you got it badly wrong) they would be more than willing to help. When in Rome etc etc.

Well, it seems so obvious. Perhaps it's a product of age and/or experience on my part, but I find I get quite annoyed when someone who is clearly "not Canadian" comes into the store and can't speak English (let alone attempt to get a job with us!! And, believe it or not, we have a couple of those on staff...their English is rudimentary and it can be quite frustrating trying to relay information when one is met with either a blank stare or a broad smile, a nod of the head, and off they tottle to do exactly what they just been told NOT to do!).

to me, if you're living in a country you adapt to it, not the other way around. It shouldn't matter if one is there by choice or by posting. It's their country and we are the foreigners (auslander...out landers).

Nobody expects a new arrival to be totally fluent in a given language. It's well-known English, for instance, is one of the more difficult languages to master and German is pretty challenging too! Those compound words...yikes! But at least try!

We had wives and kids who spent the full 3 years in Germany and never spoke a word of German ever! They never ventured out to German shops, German gasthofs, or German anything. It was all married quarters, Mess, CANEX, Globe cinema and the rink. what a waste of an experience of a lifetime!!

Most of us took full advantage of the experience, of course, but there always a few who were so provincial, so narrow, so just plain ignorant they probably should have never left the small town in New Brunswick or Ontario they came from!

I remember one woman my mom was chatting with during our first tour (1959-62) who hated being in Germany and "couldn't wait" to get back to Canada. Mom said something to the effect 'but there is so much history and things to see here! Heavens, there are buildings that are hundreds of years old..." To which the silly woman replied "Well, if they're that old they should be torn down!" and was quite serious....

On a similar note to the language thing....and again more during our 1st tour than the 2nd (69-72)....mom soon noted that any 'decent' German woman did not smoke on the street and certainly would not venture out in public in hair-curlers! She was a smoker, my mom, and a fairly heavy smoker at that back then. But she made a point of not lighting up when she was out and about and she always ensured she was "dressed" when going to the store, even if it was just down to the corner kiosk. I believe it was duly noted by our neighbours and appreciated.

Likewise, mom was quickly informed -- nicely -- one laundry day not to hang the laundry outside that day as it was some Saint's Day and such things were simply not done! That's when we found out why so many German houses had those funny little skylight things on the roof....one hung the laundry up in the attic, opened the roof windows, and let the laundry air dry (back in the days when a dryer was little more than a contraption to get excess moisture out of clothes but not actually 'dry' them!). Apparently, it was acceptable to do laundry on a Saint's Day just not to have the neighbours know you were doing your laundry (like they were!).

We lived in a Catholic area of the Sauerland so there were lots of Saint's Days...mom invested in a German calendar to keep track LOL and never hung her laundry outside on a Saint's Day again!

It's called respect.....

donald wrote:

Ah,reminds me of a young Troop Leader we had.Out on exercise the Sqn Leader called up this Troop Leader and asked him for his position.After a long pause,and 3 further requests,the Sqn Leader asked the Troop Leader to say which village(Dorf)he was nearest to.The Troop Leader came back and said,I'm right by a yellow sign and it says "Umleitung"2KMs!
------
Don

PS - should there be any really bad at German then "Umleitung" means diversion!

Ehehehehehe....then, of course, there is the now almost Urban Legend status of the Canadian housewife who, when asked what her address was by some German bureaucrat and, being quite proud of her growing command of the language, confidently stated "Es ist Foomph-und-Zwanzig Einbahnstrasse!"

Well....that is what the street sign on the corner of her block of flats said!!!

I remember being out with the kids and buying lolly ices (ice lollies to the posh people). I had a go only to be asked "do you want strawberry or Raspberry" in a thick Birmingham accent by a squaddies wife who worked in the place.

In 1994 I went over for a holiday with a German friend and we visited what was East Germany. In Saxony after a few, I found them much easier to understand than the ones I was used to. Was it the beer or was it my ancestoral language coming back, if you know what I mean?

Someone mentioned talking English in a German accent. I remember that awful Elvis Presley film GI Blues. In that one guy says to a taxi driver "keepen sie die change". Tickled me then.

Had just arrived in Herford, March 1952 .. decided that if I was there instead of Korea where I had requested to be posted, I should at least try to converse with the locals .. so armed with my yellow and blue English/German phrase book I headed for the local cinema.
Got some strange looks, don't forget it was 1952 and we were not that welcome .. so I settle down in my seat, phrase book in hand to watch Broken Arrow with Jeff Chandler and Stewart Grainger in the lead .. imagine my disgust .. it was all in English with German sub titles ... there were a whole bunch of Deutsche Volk grinning at the dumb squaddie with his phrase book.
After that I didn't bother except for ein bier bitte and aben Sie eine ältere Schwester.

Len (Ciphers)

I know you got the beer but did you ever get the older sister? Thought it was Haben but what do I know?

WOW... This is a subject that set a few memories afire. My Aunt told me prior to going to Germany in 64 that to say," Liebchen Schatz", meaning sweet heart to any pretty girl I saw. So 2 days in Germany we're driving in a jeep down to Hemer from Deilinghofen and I saw two young ladies in front of the Ranch House (Canadian bar/hang out) so I proceed to shout our, " Hey!! Liebchen Schatz ". Got a lovely reply of , " Hey Schiesser Kopf Kanadisher". Feeling quite proud of my German, I was instantly deflated when the fellow I was with explained just what she called me. That's when I decided that maybe I should learn German as a language to speak in and not make a fool of my self shouting out bits and pieces. May not have my spelling correct. My wife is German but maybe she doesn't need to be part of this conversation.

Interesting topic this.
I was in Germany for 13 years all in and looking back there is a lot that I missed. Sure we mixed with the locals at discos etc. The one I used to go to when I first arrived there was in Horn Bad Meinberg. The night Elvis died there nearly was a riot,they shut the disco down. What was it with Germans & Elvis??We shopped a lot on the German net . C&A , Woolies , Karstadt, Blau Gelb , Famillas, Aldi etc ( forgive my spelling).Many of the supermarkets have gone , they seem to have been replaced by the German version of Tescos'/ASDA.
Saints days and public holidays , there seemed to be at least one a week. One thing I/we did notice was that you hardly ever saw a heavily pregnant German woman, was it just us not noticing or did they become recluses.While pregnant with our third daughter we took our two little ones swimming at an open air pool near Soest ( I forget where it is) as i said she was pregnant but not heavily, the looks and expressions of tut tut and much shaking of heads as she was in a swimsuit.
I remember my wife being given a book " First Aid in German" by my brother. It was full of handy phrases , how can I put it ......a bit like the reply that Hardrations got.My wife had never been further than Glasgow/Edinburgh so Germany was a whole new world for her.She loved her time there and will admit that she would have stayed there.We returned 3 years ago and what a difference. So sad the state that some of the Barracks are now in.Some of the MQ Estates would make you cry.That said a lot of the old Barracks have been renovated and turned into flats etc. I was really impressed with what they've done with the blocks in Lothian Barracks in Detmold.Seeing the state of Hobart nearly broke my heart as that was my first posting and holds many memories for me. The pubs that we used are gone too.So sad but thats progress I suppose.Won't put us off going back.
Nearly forgot..in all my time there I never saw a roundabout, in 2007 I nearly crashed the car when I came upon one unexpectedly on the road to Peinne.

my first time in germany my oc [ex ranker] told me always wave at the kids when you drive around on exercise,remember you might come back to germany when they have grown up,dave.

At the restaurant in RATIO (Ratz-see-oh)in Muenster one Saturday morning we ordered Tee mit milch. The waitress brought the cups of tea accompanied with a carton of milk each. We could not find the appropriate German to explain that the milk should have been placed in the tea. Eventually we kept one carton of milk,that's when we learn Germans were not in the habit of drinking tea with milk,as those around us pushed up their faces in disgust.
Bob, during my time in Germany from '68, I came across about 2/3 roundabouts in Germany. The thing that confused most , even the Germans was that there were two types ,an International one,indicated by a blue roundabout arrow sign, which, like most roundabouts ,gave priority to traffic already on the roundabout. Then there was the local roundabout, denoted by a red roundabout arrow sign. On this roundabout, vehicles already on the roundabout had to give way to traffic on the right entering the roundabout.

In the early hours one Saturday morning in a village outside Munich on our way to Exercise Snow Queen after repairing the RL that had broken down earlier,we were flagged down by a young lady in lederne hosen,who seemed to have had her quota. As we lowered Bedford windows, she asked " Wunshen sie ein junge bayerisches madchen. " She was soon whisked away by a male friend. Thats when the ACC cook who was driving did the translation.

bob wrote:

Interesting topic this.
I was in Germany for 13 years all in and looking back there is a lot that I missed. Sure we mixed with the locals at discos etc. The one I used to go to when I first arrived there was in Horn Bad Meinberg. The night Elvis died there nearly was a riot,they shut the disco down. What was it with Germans & Elvis??

I think part of it is Germans are, or were, mad keen on anything to do with American Rock'n'Roll which, in those pre-British Invasion (Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Cream, etc), was 'where it was at'. And most of the world was crazy about Elvis and he did spend time posted to Germany. Personally, I never 'got' Elvis, but he was slightly before my time anyway (I grew up on Beatles and Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin) and had basically "sold out" by the time I was really aware of him.

bob wrote:

We shopped a lot on the German net . C&A , Woolies , Karstadt, Blau Gelb , Famillas, Aldi etc ( forgive my spelling).Many of the supermarkets have gone , they seem to have been replaced by the German version of Tescos'/ASDA.

I'd forgot about Familias!! There was one on the south west corner of Soest...one of the first 'big' shopping stores. As I recall it was on Jakobi Strasse. Karstadt I knew from my time in Iserlohn; mom and dad bought by bright red 49cc moped there when we lived out along the Hoennetal. Don't recall Woolies, Blau Gelb but do vaguely recall Aldi.

bob wrote:

Saints days and public holidays , there seemed to be at least one a week. One thing I/we did notice was that you hardly ever saw a heavily pregnant German woman, was it just us not noticing or did they become recluses.While pregnant with our third daughter we took our two little ones swimming at an open air pool near Soest ( I forget where it is) as i said she was pregnant but not heavily, the looks and expressions of tut tut and much shaking of heads as she was in a swimsuit.

You're right...one didn't see largely pregnant women out and about, at least not in the 60s and 70s. Certainly, for the local populace to see on at a public pool in a swimsuit....oy! I am sure it was seen as very unseemly. Funny how ideas change.

When I was an 18 year old -to- 21 year old in Germany I very quickly became aware just how easy it was to be a "non-conformist" as your average middle-class German was such a conformist...one might even say bourgeois, if that doesn't sound to elitist! LOL

For instance, I remember almost every German home we were privileged to be invited to had those gold brocade and velvet coffee table runners, "undersitzens", and as what my grandma used to put on the back and arms of her easy chairs (anti-macasters?? They were meant to keep hair oil off the back of the chairs and keep the arms from getting grubby). They all had large mantle radios (very few had TVs), they all had large living room schranks, they all had heavy furniture etc etc. All very comfortable and I rather liked the style myself, but not particularly innovative or 'different.'

When I returned to work in Soest in 73 I rented a bedsitter not far from the old Married Quarters, over past what we called the Belgique Wood. I would often be up half the night, listening to my radio or music and puttering around. My landlady mentioned one time she could hear me walking around up there and what was I doing awake at 3am??? "Oh," I said, "I write a bit and draw". "Ohhhhh...." she responded, nodding her head sympathetically "artiste!!" yeah, whatever.... LOL Well, if I was an "artiste" then little wonder I was a bit strange and not retiring for the night at 9:30pm!!

bob wrote:

...We returned 3 years ago and what a difference. So sad the state that some of the Barracks are now in.Some of the MQ Estates would make you cry.That said a lot of the old Barracks have been renovated and turned into flats etc. I was really impressed with what they've done with the blocks in Lothian Barracks in Detmold.Seeing the state of Hobart nearly broke my heart as that was my first posting and holds many memories for me. The pubs that we used are gone too.So sad but thats progress I suppose.Won't put us off going back.

I've not been back since I left the last time in 74...not from not wanting to, I can assure you! It just never sort of happened; life and all that.... But I am not sure I would want to see all the changes now. To me, of course, the gradual changes over the last 30 years would appear 'sudden' and, I fear, would totally disrupt my memories and I really don't want to risk that. yet part of me desperately would love to return, to run my hands over the cool green limestone of the old city walls, to smell the cherry blossoms, to feel the soft air on my face, to smell a bakery in the morning, the mixture of beer, cigars and wood wax in the gasthofs...all that!

I never "got" Elvis but heyho.I remember on German TV their Rock'n'Roll Jive Championships. The bloke would be about 6'6'' and the lass about 5' and as skinny as a rake. Nothing like jiving that I'd ever seen!

The Famillas Store in Soest has gone as have a lot of the shops that were along the Senator-Schwartz Weg , replaced by others.We ran out of time on our last visit . We were staying up Hannover way and took an unfamiliar road to get there, didn't get to visit the town centre. We actually took quite some time to find the MQ Estate, couldn't remember the way. The wife got a bit upset so we didn't stop.The Allotments that were at the junction of the B1 and Riga-Ring are gone as is the Bowling Alley that stood across the road on Riga-Ring from the Esso Garage.
We did stop for a while in Osnabruck and enjoyed a Jim Blakes special burger at the Schnell Imbiss in Dodesheide.Brought the memories flooding back!!

Funny you should mention Schranks. We still have the one we bought in 1984. My Mother-in-law tried everything to get my wife to give it to her but she refuses to part with it.We were lucky enough to get a house that it fits into as its over 6' high and takes up almost a whole wall.Its her pride and joy and woe betide anyone who touches it!!

Change happens Stephen , its unstopable, we knew that , it was on the whole a great experience and old memories came flooding back. We drove instead of flying just for that reason...........nostalgia.Harwich - Hook of Holland up the E1. Just like we did all those years ago.We only had a week so visits were short, next year we're going for 2 weeks and will stay in different places instead of being based in one place and driving long distances.

I entered Germany via Dunkirk and Roermond for the first time in Sep 61. By Day 2 we were around Gutersloh. The chap I was with in the RL said late on the second day "Cor, this place Ausfahrt must be some size!"

I left BAOR in 1970. In the last few years I have returned a few times. As within UK, there is litle point in looking for old barracks and MQ sites, they have either been demolished or changed roles dramatically. I have stayed in these more recent years as a welcome guest within German families and learned a lot of things I should have learned in the the sixties. But I had little sense in those days.

All that said, it is very easy to recapture those times. Much has changed, as it has everywhere, but much of the ambience is just as it was.

I'll take you now to the Lahr area where the Canadian moved to in the 70's in the Blackforest. As up north in the Soest area the Canadians fit in very well. Many merchants followed the Canadians down to. I even ran into a former girl friend. What I didn't like about being in the Lahr area was that we lost our selection of hockey rinks, fewer Canex and live more cheek to jowl to fellow Canadians.Also we lost the 6 weeks annual leave we got up north. Seems some one noticed that the RCAF got by on 4 weeks. I was fortunate in having a 3 bedroom house with garage, workshop and garden in the village of Kippenheim on the economy. A really wonderful land lady and land lord. Who having only two boys loved to baby sit my daughter. The common language was German and we had wonderful memories from that time. I have been back a few times to see them and the village. And as is mentioned things change. The village is no longer a true farm village and there are less bakeries and pubs. The city of Lahrs seems to have lost much of it's former ambiance. Many, many ex Russians who have claimed back their German ancestory. Still though there are the friends we made who still welcome us back warmly.

I am familiar, somewhat, with Kippenheim and Kippenheim-Weiler and one of the things I disliked about Lahr during my visits down there (never actually lived there) was the mass concentration of Canadians in HUGE married quarter areas all over hell's half acre, it seemed to me and everything (CANEX, schools, youth centre, etc.) on the Kaserne, like the Americans did. However, even given all that I was pleased to see that many Canadians -- at least the teens I knew! -- still mingled with Germans and made a point of socializing out in Lahr (and its gasthofs...a tradition amongst Canadian teens!!! Technically, we were not supposed to be in these establishments as we were under Canadian law where drinking age, at the time, was 21 and we had 17, 18, 19 and 20 year olds out in the gasthofs...German youth could drink beer, but not liquor, at 16 so we did too!)

Yes, I've heard from a variety of sources now that ethnically-German Russians have "moved in" to many of the Canadian/British MQs (certainly in Hemer and apparently in Lahr as well...not sure about the Soest PMQs, but it's likely).

Sorry to hear Lahr as "lost much of its former ambience"....I liked downtown Lahr, actually, finding it similar to downtown Soest in some ways, although a bit more "open".

Of course things change...I do understand that...but being a classic Libran (and having low level OCD!) I don't LIKE change.

Odd, as my life as an Army Brat was constantly about "change" (18 months here, a year there, 24+ different schools, two countries, etc.) which is maybe why I yearn for stability and non-change at this stage of my life...and even there, the last 4 years have absolutely created massive changes in my life....oy! My life now is NOT the life I once had, even 4 years ago and I liked the life I had; I am still trying to adjust to the life I now have and it's not been easy....very very difficult, often despairingly so, but one soldiers on....!

When I first got to Muenster I wasn't too keen to go down town shopping at Karstadt,as I did not own a car. I honestly thought that Karstadt was a place selling car parts and accessories.

Ehehehe....quite logical, given the name. I thought it was an auto emporium or something myself, originally. I mean, as I recall, one could buy car parts and accessories but Karstadt was much more than that! Housewares, clothes, furniture (I think), groceries....one stop shopping, a radical concept in the 70's.