German nicknames

[StuH42]

Does anyone know what nicknames were used by the German army or soldiers for their armor? We're use to the names used for their arty, i.e. Wespe, Brumbaer, Hummel, etc..
I would like to be able to think of PzKw III & IVs and SPs like my namesake StuH 42 by a nickname while playing the game. Maybe one of our Deutsche Freundin would be able to help. I don't know if the Heer used nicknames as commonly as the allies did/do. Thanks

[evan]

StuH42
tried a google search on military nicknames, german and found
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_WWII_German_military_
terms

not exactly what you where after but worth a look anway.

[Shan]

Certain weapons did have official names, such as Tiger and Panther, others such as PzIII and IV didn't - probably they didn't have any bicknames as well, at least I never found names for those tanks, for example.

Nicknames are called 'Landser-Ausdruck' (soldiers' slang: Landser= something like a grunt= ordinary foot soldier in the egrman army): Certain infamous, badly-working or dangerous weapons, but also generals, standard army procedures, etc, received appropriate nicknames from the common soldiers - the best example I can think of would be the the 3,7cm Pak being called 'Panceranklopfgeraet' (tank-knocking device... free translation ;-)) as it proved to be ineffective against medium-armored tanks. Another one: 'Rommel-Spargel' (Rommel's asparagus) for the wooden poles erected by the thousands throughout the west to deny open spaces to glider landings; the Wehrmacht used captured russian 7.62cm universal field gun/AT gun in considerable numbers, called 'Ratsch-Bumm' by the soldiers (something like Whamm!-Bang! ;-)), and the Katyushas were, as you might know anyway, called Stalinorgel; the russian submachine guns such as the PPsH-41 were called Molotov-Guitar; a shot wound serious enough to guarantee you a ticket back home is called 'Heimatschuss' etc...

There are many more... I even got a WW2 encyclopedia where a lot of this soldiers' slang is mentioned, if you want more on that!

[chuckfourth]

Sorry cant resist posting this,
The Russians called the M3 lee "coffin for 5 comrades".
Chuck.

[Shan]

chuckfourth said:
Sorry cant resist posting this,
The Russians called the M3 lee "coffin for 5 comrades".
Chuck.



LOL - we should collect more of this. Again, I couldn't find many nicknames for weapons - most of them are for other things. Some more examples: 'Eisbeinorden' - a medal for taking part in the disastrous fighting in russia in winter 41/42 - an Eisbein is a typical german dish, a pig's leg bone, and word-by-word this would be translated as 'icy leg' , hehe...

'Bildungskanone' ('educational gun') - field library

'Betonorden' ('concrete decoration') - medal for taking part in building the 'Westwall'

[evan]

point to ponder though; how many of the American/British tank 'nicknames' were those of the soldiers and how many the work of the properganda departments. Most of the allied armour is named after generals; the british SP artillery after clergymen (why was that does anybody know?) and before the outbreak of the war both the British and Americans simply made do with an alpha numeric designation.

evan

[chuckfourth]

Hi Even
I think I read somewhere that people thought the priests platform where the 50 cal firer stands resembles a priests pulpit, hence the name. The convention of naming by catagories comes from the british navy
Best Regards Chuck.

[Marek_Tucan]

US meat tin-cans were sometimes called "Second front" among Russian soldiers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[MajorDisaster]

I dunno if it was a name the Germans or hapless American tankers gave the Sherman but I read somewhere it got the nickname of "Ronson" cos of the way it lit up after being hit. And somewhere else I saw the Germans calling the Tiger "Furniture Van" (Soz, dont know the German for that), due to it's err... manouverability. (That might have just been a one off and not generally used cos I only read it in one source).

[Shan]

'furniture van' = Moebelwagen - that was the widespread nickname for the Flakpanzer IV because thats what it looked like with its high all-round skirts- maybe also a less-common name for the Tiger I, never heard of it though.

[blitzkreig]

Hello all

The Sherman nickname "Ronson" came from the British. Ronson being a form of burner or cooking device.

[wulfir]

The Small Partizans = Lice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

UvD (Unteroffizer von Dienst something like Duty NCO) = Soviet U2 'nightattack' aircraft, because they had a habit of showing up at "unwanted hours."

Horst Wessel Suppe - all the good parts of the soup "marched along in spirit", compare this to the Horst Wessel song where the comrades killed by the communists "marched along in spirit).

web page (http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Soldat/Landserausdruecke-R.htm)

[PanzerBob]

wulfir said:
The Small Partizans = Lice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

UvD (Unteroffizer von Dienst something like Duty NCO) = Soviet U2 'nightattack' aircraft, because they had a habit of showing up at "unwanted hours."

Horst Wessel Suppe - all the good parts of the soup "marched along in spirit", compare this to the Horst Wessel song where the comrades killed by the communists "marched along in spirit).

web page (http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Soldat/Landserausdruecke-R.htm)



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gifThanks for link, now to see what Babel will do to translate.

Cheers, Bob

[chuckfourth]

Found this today
Gruesome hey
Germans refered to shermans as "tommycookers"
Ronsons lighters slogan was "Lights up the first time, every time!".
the rest is also interesting
http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/mediawiki-1.5.5/index.php?title=Sherman_Tank

[PanzerBob]

chuckfourth said:
Sorry cant resist posting this,
The Russians called the M3 lee "coffin for 5 comrades".
Chuck.



Actually it was "A coffin for 7 Brothers"

Cheers, Bob

[TreadHead]

Here's some more links. These two are specific to vehicles:

http://www.totalmodel.com/workshop/pages/workshop_284.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_military_vehicles_of_Germany

This one is a laundry list of terms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_WWII_German_military_terms
(repeated from above, but with complete link)

This one has some interesting statements on common "facts":

http://www.panzerworld.net/facts


Ross

[StuH42]

Thanks to all for all the info and the numerous web sites. I'm going to be very busy reading all of them. At least they didn't call the Shermans the "Zippos", like we did the USS Forrestall [the USS Zippo (Lighter)] after her disasterous fire in Vietnam . She always had bad luck with fires onboard after that incidence.
Well thanks again. Sorry it took so long to respond but the mundane world shoves its ugly head in sometimes and doesn't like to be kicked out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif