Talk:East German jokes

List of jokes

Please note that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and as such is not to be used as a repository of jokes. Isopropyl 17:51, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

These jokes are supposed to illustrate political and "ethnical" relations between Germans. Some cleanup by an english native speaker who understands the German issues would be helpful. --Matthead 19:17, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

For native English speakers who are not familiar with these German issues, can you suggest some relevant parts of the Wikipedia for reading to gain some familiarity with the subject matter? It may be easier to train an English speaker into becoming an expert on the issues at hand rather than finding an expert on the issues who has excellent English language skills. Alternatively, it may be worthwhile to change the cleanup tag to an expert tag, or one of the translation tags. BigNate37 11:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Isopropyl, check out Talk:Russian jokes and how the Russian jokes article was cleaned up for another possible alternative to the general cleanup tag. BigNate37 11:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Banana jokes

I have a strong suspicion that banana jokes were blossoming after the fall of Berlin Wall. I've been in GDR for numerous occasions and I can vouch that there was more banana in late GDR than in USSR. Of course they were infrequent. But the first time I've heard a banana joke (which was actually kind of serious witticism) after the unuting: "For the first time in their life East Germans have eaten bananas it will".

So, here is a question: are there native East Germans old enough to confirm the time frame of banana jokes? `'mikkanarxi 22:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Saxons

qoute: These jokes lose most of their humor when translated into English, much as jokes about the speech of US southerners or Australians would when translated into Germany, since they both rely on quirks of pronunciation or grammar that would be unknown to non-native speakers of the respective languages. Jokes playing off of the Saxon accent are as old as German itself, but they acquired new meaning after the Occupation Zones cut Saxony in half, with Lower Saxony in the West and Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony in the East, and many of the important border crossings occurring within the Saxon-dialect region.

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This section is nonsense. So called "Sachsen" have nothing in common with Lower Saxons, that's why the exact term (not in use) is "Obersachsen".
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obersachsen
So : Saxony and Lower Saxony are not a divided area, they are completly different areas. Saxony-Anhalt is an artifical, not a historical area, only the very south of Saxony-Anhalt is somehow related to Saxony.
Lower Saxons are speaking not only a different dialect to saxons, it's even a different language :
Low German
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_German —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.113.141.20 (talk) 12:15, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Dreadful

This article is a mess. I will be removing anything that does not conform to WP:V in one week (7 days) form now. If that makes it a stub, so be it. --John (talk) 18:47, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Done. Sorry I was a day late. --John (talk) 19:46, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm awfully sorry but pending some refs I am going to keep trimming out the dross from this. See WP:V. --John (talk) 19:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Who? Who? Who? Are you why everything in the article is now tagged with "[Who?]" Because most of those tags don't make any sense. TiC (talk) 18:59, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Request for linguist expert with focus on humour

See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Linguistics#Open_tasks, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sociology#Article_news and here:

East Germany jokes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Mootros (talk) 16:39, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Under socialism, it is the other way around.

This was a generic Soviet / East Bloc joke which was not specific to East Germany... AnonMoos (talk) 02:56, 1 August 2012 (UTC) No need for commentary here dude--Bubblesorg (talk) 23:17, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

This really needs the original German jokes alongside the translations

I get the impression that a lot of these jokes rely on puns which aren't obvious from the translations alone. Really, this article needs the original German jokes alongside the translations, which I've seen in a WP article about foreign-language tongue twisters which I now can't find. :/ But yeah, context appears to be a lot in these jokes, and most of them are unapproachable without it, even with the (very sparse) notes in parenthesis.

--TwoWholeWorms (talk) 14:58, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Why is there no german pendant of this article?

Nevermind - it should be obvious. Here are my two cents before this will be deleted:

A stupid saxon, a smart saxon, the devil and God are sitting in a cellar around a wooden table. Amidst them lures the promising delight of an already opened bottle of Schnaps. Suddenly the light went out! The light comes back again in all its brightness and the bottle has been emptied. Who drank it?

Come on! That's easy: there's no devil, no God and NO smart saxon!!!--77.187.255.255 (talk) 01:27, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Some actual GDR jokes with source

Here are some jokes from the book “Knallerbsen – Ein Witzbuch für junge Leute” (“Toy Torpedos – A Joke Book for Young People”), Kinderbuchverlag Berlin, 1982:

Geography lesson. The teacher points to the physical map of the GDR. “What do you notice when you look at this map?” Long pause, everyone is starring on the map. Finally Silke raises her hand: “Between Stralsund and Greifswald, a fly is resting.” (p. 18)

The group council visits the sick teacher. The chairman is allowed into the hospital room, the others have to wait outside. Soon after, she returns with a sad face. “There is no hope anymore.”, she says, “She’ll be back in school tomorrow.” (p. 22)

Cornelia comes home from the pioneer disco, laughing. “Are Frank’s jokes so good that you’re still laughing?” her brother asks. “They are great. But I saved my laughs till home because I can’t stand him.” (p. 25)

Two kids are collecting scrap. They ring a bell, and a very old and elegant lady opens. “Do you have some empty wine or schnapps bottles?” – “Do I look as if I drink alcohol?” – “Vinegar bottles?” (p. 25)

The Roderich family take a glimpse at their new LPS building appartment. She cheers enthusiastically: “Heinzelmann, look at these beautiful walk-in wardrobes.” The TMO man shakes his head: “No, these are actually the children’s bedrooms.” (p. 55)

“Have you taken a bath?” – “Why? Is one missing?” (p. 88)

“Mom, please give me 40 Pfennig for an old man.” – “It’s so nice of you that you care about other people. Where is this man?” – “He is standing outside selling icecream.” (p.176)

Bettina: “Luna 24 has landed softly, yesterday.” – Udo: “How many cosmonauts are in there?” – Bettina: “Luna 24 is unmanned.” – Udo: “What? Only women?” (p. 180)

These jokes are typical for how I remember GDR jokes. -- Sloyment (talk) 00:29, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Why this article should be deleted

The “jokes” in this article are made to throw dirt on our nation and our culture. They are insulting and not funny. They are more like jokes about the GDR than jokes from the GDR. They are not typical GDR jokes, i.e. they did not circulate widely within the GDR, and probably some of them have been created after the “reunification” of Germany. The article is unsourced, original research and also very biased. -- Sloyment (talk) 00:29, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 24 July 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved (non-admin closure) ~SS49~ {talk} 21:17, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

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East Germany jokes → East German jokes – More grammatically correct title. The opening sentence of this article even uses this. 2601:CE:C180:6B45:9576:9B4A:7759:C100 (talk) 18:56, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support alternate move to List of East German jokes. This is clearly a list article._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 20:15, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support move. Either move target would be appropriate to me. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 20:27, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support or delete :) Kaldari (talk) 20:49, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support Better grammar. Dimadick (talk) 12:51, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Tal der Ahnungslosen

Tal der Ahnungslosen should be mentioned.Xx236 (talk) 13:27, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Which jokes do you have in mind? Sources? Lembit Staan (talk) 18:06, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

The name 'Tal der Ahnungslosen' is a joke itself, part of the GDR self-ironic culture."Sprachgebrauch in der DDR" in German WIkipedia. Selecting jokes from it is a kind of cherrypicking.Xx236 (talk) 07:46, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Examples:

• VEB Gleichschritt. VEB Landesverteidigung GDR Army

I have started East German language attacked by an expert in Emirates. I know that my Englsih is bad, so the lead may be rewritten, but my sources and examples are serious.Xx236 (talk) 10:57, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Der Spiegel, 30 jokes https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/witz-1-honecker-im-kochtopf-a-456472.html Xx236 (talk) 07:48, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

This is just a collection of jokes, without any encyclopedic discussion. Lembit Staan (talk) 07:11, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

is a joke itself - I wikilinked "joke" for a reason. It this article a joke is a short story with a punchline: de:Witz. There are many things that may be called "joke" . Honnecker him=self became a joke. Now, do you have any Witze involving TdA? Lembit Staan (talk) 06:31, 1 June 2021 (UTC)