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silversurfer63 t1_j1sjhmg wrote

But also quickly forgotten after WWII by all but British.

This is the only part I learned 55 years ago:

Hitler has only got one ball,

the other is in the Albert Hall,

his mother, the dirty bugger,

Took the other when he was just small.

There are other verses as well as other versions of the part I know.

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Hellright t1_j1sq5yr wrote

Hey I remember this song too 🌝 (80s kid used to live in England, my grandad was a tank commander in WW2 served from 1939-1946). I actually know the rest of the lyrics too (as far as I remember them lol), I’ll paste them below with yours (albeit a little modified).

🎶 Hitler has only got one ball,

the other is in the Albert Hall,

his mother, the silly bugger,

cut it off when he was small,

she threw it, in the deep blue sea,

the fishes,

looked suspicious,

And had scallops and bollocks, for teaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! 🎶

I know another one too.

🎶 in the German nick,

where they hang you by the dick,

and the rats play snooker with your balls,

and you’re dying for a wank,

but your minds gone blank,

but they hang dirty pictures on the wall 🎶

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silversurfer63 t1_j1stozc wrote

Not sure if odd or not but I learned this in scouts. whilst camping in Welsh countryside, we learned it from a scout of another troop. When one boy learned it, we all eventually learned it. I heard all the verses, however, only learned the first. The 'German nick' verse doesn't fit with Hitler Goebbels Goering Himmler verses, it may have a very well crafted improvisation suited for teenage boys.

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Hellright t1_j1svqxr wrote

You know I was in the scouts too, could have easily heard it there.

Oh yeah sorry, should have specified that it was just another wartime song I’d heard.

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Hookton t1_j1uj4bp wrote

I know the second one as:

>In the Turkish jails

>Where they hang you by the nails

>And they paint dirty pictures on the walls

>Where your hair grown thick

>From your belly to your dick

>And the mice play billiards with your balls

Wonder where that one came from.

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Hellright t1_j1umqm1 wrote

Wow very interesting! Thanks for posting that. I’m really not sure, would love to know lol.

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PM_Me_British_Stuff t1_j1u8we4 wrote

That's basically the same as what I learnt (dirty bugger vs filthy bugger, and chopped it off vs took the other)

Although there was another version I heard:

Hitler, he's only got one ball

Gorring's got two but rather small

Himmler, is very similar

And Goeball's got no balls at all!

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silversurfer63 t1_j1ub5e1 wrote

I heard this version as well but my memory could only retain one

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dokuromark t1_j1upz5x wrote

This is the one I heard on the playground growing up in the American South in the 1970s.

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raptorrat t1_j1uvfuv wrote

It's the version presented by George Carlin. There might be an overlap there.

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dokuromark t1_j1v4ma4 wrote

Ah! Good call. I didn’t know Carlin had done that bit.

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Hurin88 t1_j1w87f3 wrote

This is the version I heard from my parents, both born in Glasgow during the war.

1

rants_unnecessarily t1_j1tboal wrote

>chopped it off when he was small.

Chucked it over the chestnut tree,

It landed into the deep blue sea,

And then the fishes,

got out their dishes,

and had molluscs and bullocks for tea!

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sleepytoday t1_j1tsp3q wrote

Close to the version I know! We had:

Chopped it off when he was small
She threw it into a conker tree
It ended up in the deep blue sea
And then the fishes
Got out their dishes
And had scallops and bollocks for tea.

Though, I was never quite sure how it was in the Albert Hall if the fish had eaten it!

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silversurfer63 t1_j24p53c wrote

i hadn't heard the one version with conker tree but makes sense being a British tune.

1

atomfullerene t1_j1t6vdh wrote

>But also quickly forgotten after WWII by all but British.

Not quite, I learned the stanza from wikipedia as a 90's kid in the USA. I have absolutely no idea where.

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Nukemind t1_j1tf73c wrote

I learned it as an American kid in the 2000’s in the Boy Scouts. We sang it all the time to the point even the Scoutmaster yelled at us to “Leave poor Hitler alone!”

To his credit he realized what he said afterwards and we all laughed.

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MetalSpider t1_j1txwyt wrote

That's close to the one I always heard. Didn't know the original dated all the way back to WWII though.

We sang a slightly different version:

Hitler has only got one ball,

The other is in the Albert hall.

His mother, the dirty bugger

Cut it off when he was small.

She threw it

Into the deep blue sea

Where the fishies

Had scallops and bollocks for tea.

8

Verodimus t1_j1v00tp wrote

The version I learned was:

Hitler has only got one ball

Goering has two, but very small

Himmler's are very similar,

And Goebbels has no balls at all.

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LentilDrink t1_j1u83ck wrote

I learned it on the schoolbus in the US, didn't know any British kids

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DeepReally t1_j1smbp3 wrote

Hitler has only got one...

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takatori t1_j1szn7h wrote

This classic documentary by Armstrong and Miller is like extremely well-researched and historically accurate and whatever.

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cheez_au t1_j1t3i7z wrote

Isn't it.

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MzyraJ t1_j1tyxd8 wrote

Standard.

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takatori t1_j1u3jsa wrote

We shall give 'em licks on the beaches, and on like, the London Grounds and that, for real.

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Thegrumbliestpuppy t1_j1wxeb0 wrote

The funny part is that it was almost true. A doctor’s report says he had one undescended testicle, and most of his doctors wrote that he commonly refused to take his pants for medical exams.

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passingthrough618 t1_j1sjbbr wrote

Didn't they sing this in The Man In The High Castle?

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EnvironmentalValue18 t1_j1srz8x wrote

Exactly what I was thinking. And the tune is very familiar even if the words aren’t as widely known.

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rants_unnecessarily t1_j1tchg2 wrote

The tune has been used over and over in military comedies around Britain and I'm sure I'm some other countries to depict the British military.
It's whimsical, yet marchy enough.

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jrhooo t1_j1x1chj wrote

FWIW, it IS actually a legit march, since at least the 1800s.

The pop culture associations happened later. The Brits and Ameticans still use it.

FFWD to 17:00 in this clip for example,

That Marines at the Marine Honor Guard barracks (8th&I) still use it to march the troops onto the parade deck for the evening parade. (And have for decades now at least)

https://youtu.be/_MaOtE4ZxCY

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somdude04 t1_j1tltvs wrote

Colonel Bogey March, other best known parody lyrics are 'Comet, makes your mouth turn green...'

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11Kram t1_j1utrva wrote

Dudley Moore did a wonderful version of Colonel Bogey in the style of a Beethoven piano concerto. See YouTube.

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dressageishard t1_j1w3zvg wrote

That's from The Bridge on the River Kwai. Also, hummed by a time traveler on Outlander

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MM556 t1_j1tyc8t wrote

It's still sung in every school playground to this day

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Dead_Starks t1_j1tpgic wrote

There's a quick joke about it from Stephen Merchant in Jojo Rabbit as well.

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PipeOrganEnthusiast t1_j1siayi wrote

The article's medical formality has me cracking up more than the lyrics themselves.

"...the most common version refers to rumours that Adolf Hitler had monorchism ("one ball"), and accuses Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler of microorchidism ("two but very small") and Joseph Goebbels of anorchia ("no balls at all")."

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Volcan_R t1_j1sjupf wrote

And the pictures with the captions!

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revfds t1_j1sqgxw wrote

Those were absolutely choice

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TheDefected t1_j1sinlc wrote

Everyone still knows this from school.
The second verse is new to me though!

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voodoohotdog t1_j1svzk3 wrote

Hitler. Has one left ball.

Goering has two, but small.

Himmler has something similar,

While poor old Goebles has no balls at all...

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gravehenry t1_j1tyr3r wrote

This is the one i learnt, Midlands 70's

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voodoohotdog t1_j1u6w5b wrote

70s probably for me as well. Grandfather came from UK after the war. So that would fit.

1

bleezye t1_j1u6aji wrote

My mother taught me something similar to this!

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mk09 t1_j1t4kkm wrote

This is in Spaceballs! The Dinks sing the tune as they walk through the desert.

Mel Brooks has never missed an opportunity to mock Nazis.

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jam3s2001 t1_j1tcft6 wrote

I had to look it up, because I wasn't 100% sure, but apparently the Dink Dinks are parodying A Bridge on the River Kwai. I'm not super familiar with the history, just a bit of a Spaceballs fan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceballs#Music

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el_grort t1_j1tzb3s wrote

Colonel Bogey March is quite common tbf, but it is widely associated and recognised with Bridge over the River Kwai.

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theduncan t1_j1u25rn wrote

In fact they wanted to use the song in the film, but they knew they wouldn't get it past the ratings/censorship board, so they didn't have the words.

1

ash_274 t1_j1wg7b2 wrote

He was an army engineer at the Battle of the Bulge. 78 years ago this week Nazis were shooting at him. I'd hold a grudge for that, alone; let alone the racial issue on top of that

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drmarting25102 t1_j1si4de wrote

We still sang it as kids in the 70s/80s lol

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ligmaballzbiatch t1_j1sy4ni wrote

My dad used to always sing:

Whistle while you work. Hitler was a jerk. Moussolini bit his Weiney, now it doesn’t squirt.

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TomppaTom t1_j1tgpno wrote

Whistle while you work,

Hitler is a twerp.

He’s half barmy,

So’s his army,

Whistle while you work.

——

That’s the one I was taught.

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ligmaballzbiatch t1_j1ti25t wrote

But in my version you get to say weiney or weiny, idk I’ve never tried to spell it before today. I supposed there’s wheeny, but it’s not the same

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TheScrobber t1_j1v5hq9 wrote

You dad too will go on ze list

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ligmaballzbiatch t1_j1v7pkn wrote

Damn, I thought my blonde hair and blue eyes would save me, but my father seems to have fucked our image up in the eyes of the Führer

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Thecna2 t1_j1t1xc7 wrote

This is referenced in Jojo Rabbit where the Gestapo Office assures Jojo that Hitler doesnt have one ball, but in fact he has 4 balls.

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Lumpyproletarian t1_j1tqgoq wrote

Years ago I, possibly more than 50, I saw a programme on the BBC about folk music and there was one song mocking the insufficiency of Napoleon’s “codlings”. Codlings are an old word for apples and also where the word codpiece comes from.

So the British have been mocking their enemies’ testicular troubles for at least two hundred years.

Also on Test Match Special (Cricket commentary radio show famous for digressions and ability to keep talking when rain stopped play) they once produced a version that went

Willis has bowled the odd no-ball

Henricks bowls hardly any at all

Willey is just as silly

But Old bowls no no-balls at all.

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suterb42 t1_j1tctia wrote

🎶Lisa

Her teeth are big and green

Lisa

She smells like gasoline

Lisa

Da da da disa

She's my sister

Her birthday

I missed her🎶

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albertsy2 t1_j1sqd71 wrote

We sang something like this in ROTC, but we were dissing the other platoons.

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Kaffeinemachine t1_j1slihl wrote

I sung this when I used to walk to school.

3

Brad_Brace t1_j1spg7m wrote

I learned about this from The Yogpod, many years ago.

3

weedpornography t1_j1t2w3g wrote

We need a modern rendition for Putin asap.

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jimicus t1_j1tvhl6 wrote

Fortunately, it still works as “Putin has only got one ball” - as long as you use the “Albert Hall” lyrics.

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TheIncredibleBert t1_j1uqi54 wrote

Putin has only got one ball,

Solovyov has two but very small,

Lavrov, has had his dick off,

And Poor old Peskov had his off as well!

All together now!

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Bob_Juan_Santos t1_j1vbqnq wrote

it'd be nice if people with one testicle not be grouped with hitler.

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TheLimeyCanuck t1_j1smk1j wrote

Wow... I feel old, and I wasn't even around for the war. Lot's of the kids I knew growing up sang this song.

2

CrestedBonedog t1_j1ssqnm wrote

Charlie and His Orchestra was an interesting counterpart to this...a Nazi German swing band who made some very hate-filled parodies of contemporary songs.

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Campmoore t1_j1t6ode wrote

It's the song the dink-dinks 'sing' in Spaceballs when they lead Lonestar et.al. to the Almighty Yogurt.

2

OkRace3579 t1_j1teb54 wrote

I was born in 96 and in highschool in the early 2000s, I remember hearing the "Hitler only got one ball, the other is in the Albert hall" bit.

2

ZanyDelaney t1_j1tee5k wrote

As a kid in Australia I knew this - probably from watching war movies on TV...

Hitler, has only got one ball

Goering, has two but very small

Himmler, is rather sim'lar

But poor old Goebbels, has no balls, at all

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Ken-Wing-Jitsu t1_j1toev2 wrote

I learned that song as a secondary school kid in England 🤣

2

Fluffy-Ferret-2725 t1_j1tyz4h wrote

We used to sing a version about Margaret Thatcher too (cant remember it all):

Thatcher has only got one tit, The other is down a miners pit

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Farnsworthson t1_j1v09m1 wrote

According to Danny La Rue's character in the (budget but surprisingly good) film "Our Miss Fred" (US "Operation Fred") - explaining to a straight-laced, rather naive school headmistress, it's about tennis. Enabling the cast to get away with a car full of teenage girls singing the chorus: Balls, balls, balls, balls, balls, balls, balls; balls, balls, balls, balls balls"...

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NotPortlyPenguin t1_j1v9xwq wrote

Sung to the tune of Colonel Bogey, the tune whistled in Bridge over the River Kwai.

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margayvr t1_j1vzjmp wrote

Ha ha, I was twelve or so when my mom finally told me the lyrics. Courtesy of a drop too much New Year's eggnog. Sister and I went back to school and promptly taught it to the other kids. About 1968, East Vancouver

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lugialugia1 t1_j1sth14 wrote

I learned this song at summer camp as a kid.

1

2ndtheburrALT t1_j1t7b6r wrote

They may have complimented Rommel in the less known other part where it said "had four or five, I guess."

1

metikoi t1_j1t8mip wrote

I've been working on a modern take featuring Putin etc for a while now but I can't settle on a fourth douche to add to him, xi and trump.

Clears throat

Putin has only one big ball, Someone has two but they are small, Trump just has an orange lump, But poor old Jinping has no-thing at all.

1

Vonkampf t1_j1t9tiu wrote

It’s a tune you can really dribble a soccer ball to.

1

candlesandfish t1_j1tbckf wrote

I was watching the Military Tattoo last night with my parents (traditionally on tv at the end of the year here) and they played the Colonel Bogie March so my mum told us about how they would sing this at school in the 60s.

1

MansfromDaVinci t1_j1tgjse wrote

Someone once called me a filthy jew or some such, so I whistled it at him.

Hilter has only got one ball

Goering has two but very small

Himmler has something sim-lar

But poor old goebbels

Has no balls

At all.

1

epiquinnz t1_j1tkgvm wrote

>Analysis
>
>The lyrics attack Nazi leaders' masculinity by mocking and belittling their alleged testicular deformities.

Thank you, Wikipedia, very cool.

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jthanson t1_j1tkix5 wrote

Parody songs about the enemy used to be more common. WWI had tunes like “We’re Going To Hang Out The Washing On The Siegfried Line.”

1

fishfingerchipbean t1_j1tr4cu wrote

Our local ice cream van plays the tune so we have it stuck in our brains most of the summer.

1

cediwen t1_j1u2ub5 wrote

Born in 75 in Australia. I still sing this occasionally.

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Duckballisrolling t1_j1u3hs6 wrote

My Australian WW2 vet grandpa would sing this randomly while making toast or sweeping. He was at Kokoda.

1

Tapps74 t1_j1u5od7 wrote

Himmler was very similar & Gobbels had no balls at all.

1

FirstAidKilt t1_j1u6bf6 wrote

My dad taught us this when we were young! But it was a little different, I'm guessing because he or whoever taught him forgot some words. Ours was 'Hitler had only one left ball' and 'Himmler had something similar' but everything else was the same

1

DrunkenOnzo t1_j1ug1cf wrote

You should hear the songs everyone else writes about the British lol

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unaspirateur t1_j1ukyq9 wrote

This makes that scene in A Separate Piece make so much more sense

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Flamekebab t1_j1w7psf wrote

>It was quickly picked up and sang by Allied troops

...sung.

1

ash_274 t1_j1wh4wt wrote

The finale (or penultimate episode) of Man in the High Castle some American rebels sang it together before attacking.

1

Loganscomputer t1_j1wjovc wrote

That is what I remember from a separate peace.

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smilingasIsay t1_j1xx2o9 wrote

Ah, take a post from history memes, wait a week, post on TIL

1

ChompyChomp t1_j1sq8qw wrote

I think this was sung in the Red Badge Of Courage (or maybe I learned about it at the same time I was reading that book? Memory is weird like that and mine tends to bleed when I prod it…)

0

ksdkjlf t1_j1sz15a wrote

Don't reckon they were singing about Adi having one ball during the American Civil War...

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ChompyChomp t1_j1u91vq wrote

Oh, you are right. Maybe I was thinking of “The Scarlet Letter”

0

thehoagieboy t1_j1t2dca wrote

I ALSO remember seeing it in class in a movie that was for a book we had to read. It wasn't that book though, that's about the civil war. I think it was A Separate Peace.

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kvmw t1_j1t5je0 wrote

Yep, I remember the song in the movie.

1

ChompyChomp t1_j1u8x0q wrote

Yes! Thanks - I totally had re-titled it in my mind. I must have read them birth the same year…

1