German Humour

Yeah. There's a certain efficiency about it. [German accent] "He does something and falls over! It is very amusing! Before, he was walking in a straight line, then he walked into the door! This is genius!"

—QI, on Germans' love of Mr. Bean

Okay, Joke #1...

Contrary to some opinion, Germans have a sense of humour. Well, considering that a person who lived in Chemnitz from 1900 to 2000 would have to go through the Kaiserreich, two World Wars, Nazi Germany, East Germany (during which time his city would have to endure being called "Karl-Marx-Stadt" even though poor old Karl was born and raised in Trier—about as far from Chemnitz as you can get in Germany) and The Berlin Republic, possession of one would become pretty much mandatory.

There also are strong cultural differences. Bavarian (and Austrian, if they can be counted here) humor is more down-to-earth and gritty, while the Western Germans seem to carry their Karneval/Fasching/Fastnacht (Mardi Gras/Carnival) lightheartedness in all their comedy. Since the major low-brow TV stations are based in that area, this translates into an almost unwatchable fare nationwide.

Britons may even be surprised to hear that German (especially Northern German) humour is actually very similar to their own - a bizarre combination of dry wit and slapstick. The "No Sense of Humour" stereotype appears to originate in a combination of the German Prussian reputation for efficiency and a perceived lack of the (uniquely British) habit of using humour as a "default mode" for dealing with the world in general.

Germany has a strong tradition of satirical cabaret shows dating back to the 19th century, with some cabaretists becoming nationally famous. This satirical fixation somewhat mirrors a perceived whinyness in the German nature generally. However, the nature of the medium means it doesn't travel well.

Some examples of German humour:

• The Bielefeld Conspiracy.

East-Germany jokes

• East Germany jokes, for example (From The Other Wiki):
  • How can you use a banana as a compass? Place a banana on The Berlin Wall. East is where a bite has been taken out of it.
    • Yeah, bananas were scarce. Another one: A young West German boy taunts an East German boy by shouting over the wall: "Hey! We have bananas!" East German boy: "So? We have socialism." West German boy: "So? We'll have that too, soon." East German boy, triumphant: "See, then you won't have any bananas anymore either!"
  • (To fully understand what's the deal about the Trabant, see The Alleged Car.)
    • How do you double the value of a Trabant? Fill up the tank! (The Czechoslovak Skoda cars were subject to similar jokes, but unlike Trabant, Skoda didn't fold and now makes decent cars—as a subsidiary of the formerly West German Volkswagen)
      • And how do you quintuple its value? Place a banana on the back seat.
    • What did East Germany do with all its surplus Trabants after the Wall fell? They became East German toilet paper! (Trabants had a lot of cheap material in their bodies, including, sometimes, a material known as duroplast made up of papers and plastics, usually incorrectly reported as cardboard.)
    • There was also an untranslatable one based on the German word for "dual-circuit brakes" containing the word for "county"/"circle"; "Have you heard that the new Trabants have dual-circuit brakes (Zweikreisbremse)?" "That's a big improvement! The old ones took three or four counties/circles (Kreise) to stop!"
    • "Trabant 601? What does 601 stand for?" "600 people ordered, one has gotten delivery". (Or for the 1990 model, "600 cars on the lot and one customer").
    • How many workers does it take to assemble a Trabant? Two. One folds, one glues.
    • Why is the Trabant the most silent car in the world? Because it's so small you have to squeeze your knees on your ears while driving.
    • An Arab Oil Sheikh hears that there's a German car you have to wait twelve years for. (Yes, it's the very Trabant, and yes, people really had to wait years to get one.) He thinks that it must be a very great car and orders one. The East Germans think that it can't hurt to be friendly to a rich sheikh and send him one Trabant immediately. Soon after, the sheikh tells a friend: "These Germans were very nice - they sent me a cardboard model of the car, and guess what? You can even drive it!"
    • Why were there no bank robberies in East Germany? Because the robbers would have had to wait for a getaway car for twelve years.
    • What's the difference between a Trabant and a coffin? You order the coffin after the death of a person and the Trabant after their birth.
    • In The Berlin Republic. A professor from western Germany is teaching at a university in eastern Germany. Outside, it starts raining, and some students want to go out. Professor: "You don't have to be afraid for your cars, they won't swim away - cardboard doesn't float!" (This actually happened.)
    • Also a Real Life example: The Trabi for once had the last laugh, when a couple of German motoring journalists took it through the notorious 'moose test' - where a car is swerved very sharply to avoid an obstacle - and passed with flying colours. Even funnier still? The 1997 Mercedes A-Class, with among the world's best engineering - didn't.
    • Policeman: "Aren't you the guy who stole a Trabbi this morning?" Guy: "Of course not! If you don't believe me, frisk me!"
  • On the subject of paper products an Incredibly Lame Pun that even works in English:

Q: Why do they make the toilet paper so hard in the GDR?
A: Because the Party wants to make every asshole Red.

• • The teacher asks: "Fritzchen, why are you always speaking of our Soviet brothers? It's 'Soviet friends'." Fritz responds: "Well, you can pick your friends."
    • After the Berlin Wall fell, many ex-Stasi agents became taxi drivers. Hence, "Just tell the cab driver your name, he already knows your address".
  • How do you know the Stasi has bugged you? You have a new closet and a generator is running on the street.
  • "Before the Berlin Wall, we were on the edge of disaster.^[1] Today, we have taken a huge step forward."

Other examples of German jokes

• While the Trabant joke wave was still rolling, a humorous semi-a cappella song single-handedly spawned its successor, a long series of jokes about the Opel Manta, making it awkward practically over night to drive a Manta. The jokes aren't so much about the car itself as it's a decent sports coupé with no serious shortcomings. They rather focus on the clichés it is surrounded with; many of these are true, but here they are cranked Up to Eleven. The Mantas themselves are lowered and fit with supersized bodykits, rear wings, wide tires, a Kenwood sticker on the rear window, and the inevitable "foxtail" on the radio antenna (among many other modifications). The drivers are utterly dumb proletarians wearing tracksuit pants, cowboy boots, and mullets, who always have Dumb Blonde hairdressers as girlfriends. Almost all Manta drivers are from certain places in North Rhine-Westphalia, some are from the Ruhr area, but most are from Bergheim (Cologne is a city near Bergheim - yep, not the other way round). Last but not least, a Manta is always driven with one elbow out of the window. Basically the same stereotype that attached to Chevy Camaros in America and Ford Capris in Britain at about the same time.
  • The shortest Manta joke of all: A Manta is parked in front of a university (shortest in german: "Steht 'nen Manta vor 'ner Uni").
  • Why do so many Mantas have triangular gas pedals? Because cowboy boots aren't rectangular.
  • What remains when a Manta burns down? A golden necklace and a crying hairdresser.
  • Why are Manta drivers buried on Mondays only? Because that's the hairdressers' day off.
  • Where do Mantas rust first? On the top edge of the driver's door due to armpit moisture.
  • Why do some Mantas have eight additional headlights? That way they can be driven at night with sunglasses on.
  • What's a Manta without a rear wing? Broken.
  • How does a Manta driver make a family portrait? He puts everyone in the Manta and races through a speed trap.
  • What does a Manta driver do at a gas station for four hours? He tries to quit smoking.
  • What's the last thing that goes through a Manta drivers head, when crashing into a wall? The rear wing.
  • What's a Manta Light? An Ascona B.
• Saxon / Bavarian / Austrian / East Frisian / whatever stereotypes.
• Puns, including humorous 'kennings' (e.g. 'Groschengrab', 'dime grave' for parking meters).
• Schadenfreude, which is taking pleasure from another's misfortune.
  • ...which goes so far that Germans have A-class jokes since it failed the moose test.
  • One good example: On a small Allgäu farm, a kid runs home during a terrible rainstorm. His mother opens the door and then asks him, where his dad has gone to. The son, who is totally soaked and cold, but tries to explain,

"D-D-Daddy... h-he... oh g-g-god... o-o-on t-the field... r-rain..."
"For god's sake, spit it out, son! If you can't say it, then sing it!"
"*to the tune of Mary Had A Little Lamb* ♪ Daddy got struck by a bolt, a lighting bolt, a lightning bolt... ♫"

• Black Comedy such as Nichtlustig. The english version can be found here.
• Jokes like this. It should be understandable even though it is not translated.
• Forklift Driver Klaus - The First Day on the Job, which is Bloody Hilarious.
• The German dub of Hogan's Heroes.
• Raumschiff Gamestar.
• Phenomenons like Sinnlos I'm Weltraum, Lord of the Weed or Coldmirror's Harry Potter-Gag Dub.

Famous humorist writers from Germany:

• Heinrich Heine, of Loreley fame (yes, he wasn't exclusively humorist / satirist)
• Wilhelm Busch (creator of Max and Moritz (spiritual predecessors of The Katzenjammer Kids) and many other famous characters)
• Christian Morgenstern
• Joachim Ringelnatz
• Walter Moers
• Janosch

Famous German comedians:

• Karl Valentin
• Loriot
• Heinz Erhardt
• Otto (Waalkes), from East Frisia
• Helge Schneider
• Willy Millowitsch (he appeared in National Lampoon's European Vacation, as the German relative) from Cologne (many German comedians speak some dialect and make very localized jokes - similar as in Britain).
• Badesalz, a comedy duo from Hesse
• While not (yet) as legendary as the above mentioned, Mario Barth is the current (as of 04/2009) holder of the world record of the largest Live Comedy Show, filling the Olympia Stadium in Berlin with 70,000 people.
• Michael Mittermeier, one of the first really famous comedians. Uses more sophisticated humour than the aforementioned Mario Barth who mainly aims for stereotypes.
• Michael 'Bully' Herbig. Comedian and director, probably the most successful director of recent times - Der Schuh des Manitu (parody of the Karl May movies such as Winnetou which were extremely popular in the 60s and 70s) and Traumschiff Surprise (a very gay Star Trek parody) are his fault.
• Thomas Hermanns. Founder of the first German stand up comedy club. Has clubs in Hamburg and Berlin. Gets televised on TV too.
• Volker Pispers, incredibly funny with serious themes, like this, with subtitles. If you don't mind he gets very political, and by that, I mean "left".
  • While he is more on the left side of the political spectrum, he certainly pokes fun at them too.
• Dieter "Didi" Hallervorden. Everyone knows some of his sketches and can cite lines, like "I want a big bottle of French fries!" Also did political cabaret and more serious stuff, but less people know this.
• Although hosts of their respective late night talk shows, rather than "pure" comedians, Harald Schmidt and Stefan Raab are also worth mentioning.
  • When Letterman mentions "That guy from germany, who does my show", he's referring to Schmidt, who created such an exact duplicate that not only the sets, but even the hosts look the same.
• Dieter Nuhr, who is said to prove that humor and intelligence are not mutually exclusive. His cabaret centers around human intelligence and brain (provided it exists and there is one to speak of), technical advancements, gender conflicts and perception of the world, religion, etc.
• Henning Wehn, a German comedian based in the UK (self-styled as the "German Comedy Ambassador in London"), most known for his appearances on shows such as The News Quiz, The Now Show and The Unbelievable Truth. His act is typically based upon English stereotypes of the Germans. Henning also has been known to turn the tables on England though, including referencing England's performance in the 2010 Soccer World Cup "Nobody mention the World Cup! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it!"

Henning Wehn: "As we say in Germany - Always end with a 'Heil!'"

• The Turkish-descended German comedian Kaya Yanar focuses on multicultural humour.
• Another Arabic-descendant Serdar Sumuncu, who pokes fun at the integration of migrants. He is so integrated that he has the "golden Edmund Stoiber with ribbon", is a self-proclaimed "Hate preacher" and runs out to the Autobahn at night with a ruler to find out if the stripes are all the same distance apart. His main acts include poking fun at Naziism, Nationalism, Germans, Migrants, and he famously read out of Mein Kampf and commented on what he read... humorously.
• It's safe to say that about 80% of the celebrities in Germany are comedians.
  • The majority of the rest are Politicians, which are considered Acceptable Targets of satire.
  • In the same vein, some politicians are considered to be comedians, at least in the eyes of the opposition.

The all-important smallish Austrian subsection

(they love being counted as Germans every bit as much as Canadians enjoy being lumped in with Americans.)

• Christoph Grisseman and Dirk Sterman, hosts of the Austrian late-night show 'Willkommen Österreich' (Welcome Austria). As mentioned above, the show's humour is typically Austrian, which is quite dark, often dealing with deportation of immigrants or the antics of the far-right parties in Austria.
• Also: Alfred Dorfer, host of 'Dorfers Donnerstalk'. Quite similiar to the above mentioned show, though the humour is more of the random and satirical variety. A popular segment on the show are the comedy group maschek (másik in Hungarian, meaning 'from the other side') who dub television reports or similiar passages, giving them entirely new meanings. They also made three puppet theater shows, each making fun of the current Austrian chancellor or president.
  • Not to mention that he created MA 2412, a hilarious show about Austrian bureaucracy.
• Michael Niavarani, who was voted "funniest Austrian of all times". Uses his partly Iranian ancestry and rich body hair, among other things.
  • He does a couple of shows with Viktor Gernot, another famous comedian and a good friend of his.

1. ↑ lit.: at the edge of a canyon.