Survival German

It was 60 years ago that the Soviet Union finally halted the German offensive outside Moscow, turning the tide in the war and overturning Hitler’s plan for a блицкриг (Blitzkrieg). Yet even for Russians of my generation and younger, the war is still in our hearts and minds, largely because of the heavy toll (27 million lives) of victory.

In 1941, when Hitler was implementing his план Барбаросса (Barbarossa Plan), Moscow was strewn with противотанковые ежи (anti-tank “hedgehogs”) and the situation was more than grave.

From those days one famous phrase–the slogan of the day–is still well known: “Велика Россия, а отступать некуда – позади Москва!” (“Russia is huge, but there is nowhere to retreat, for Moscow is behind us.”) In the same vein, at that time the whole country sang a song we still all know by heart:

Вставай на смертный бой
С фашистской силой тёмною
С проклятою ордой
Вставай, страна огромная

Get up, huge country
To a deadly battle
With the dark fascist force
With the damned Horde

Пусть ярость благородная
Вскипает как волна
Идёт война народная,
Священная война!

Let the noble fury
Mount like a wave
A People’s War is raging
A Holy War!

The lyrics of this song should give pause to those who mistranslate Великая Отечественная Война (“Great Patriotic War”; there is even a set acronym for it – ВОВ) as World War II (which is actually вторая мировая война).

Luckily, Moscow’s defenders re-pulsed the enemy. But the true turning of the war’s tide would not come until Stalingrad in 1943. And victory was still four years off. Plenty of new phrases and idioms would take root in the Russian language during those difficult years.

While most borrowings from those times were German (e.g., Germans were commonly referred to as фрицы – Fritzes, from the common German name), some English words did break through our linguistic lines, e.g. лэнд-лиз (Lend-Lease). Many Russians survived on тушёнка (canned meat) which came to the USSR по ленд-лизу. Of course, the USSR most wanted the открытие второго фронта (opening of a second front), which finally happened with the allied landing at Normandy (высадка союзников в Нормандии). But second front or no, the Soviets were determined to take Berlin by storm, to “kill the fascist beast in its den” (добить фашистскую гадину в её логове).

Besides блицкриг, many more German words invaded our language, most simple transliterations, as they needed no translation. From books and movies, every Russian learned “Шнеллер!” (Faster”) and “Хенде Хох” (“Hands up!”) – ey words for taking German prisoners, as was the expected German supplication of the Soviet soldier: “Нихт Шиссен!” (“Don’t shoot!”)

As a child, I loved war novels and movies, and learned just enough German, as they say, to make me dangerous. In 1995 – he 50th anniversary of our victory over Germany –  was in Frankfurt for that city’s annual book fair. Riding home one night by taxi after an evening sampling the city’s fine apple wine and шнапс (Schnapps), the linguist in me couldn’t help asking for translations of what the driver was saying as he explained where we were driving. He kept saying “haupt,” as in “hauptbahnhof” (“main,” as in “main railway station”). “Oh, yes, yes, I know that word,” I shouted, feeling I had made a great discovery, “it’s like гаупт-штурм­банфюрер,” (Hauptsturmbanführer – Head Stormtrooper). Needless to say, this “illumination” did not seem as exciting to our driver, who simply shrugged his shoulders as if a chill were traveling down his spine.

I was smart enough not to continue with the most popular German phrase from my childhood: “Hitler Kaput!” To cheer him up, I was about to cite a more positive German song I knew from films, “Deutsche Soldaten nicht kapituliren” (German soldiers don’t capitulate), but I was also advised against this.

That night we drank with our hosts to freundshaft (but not the more intimate “Russian” toast на брудершафт) and I assured our German friends that Russia no longer saw Germany as a threat, that we are trying to put the bitter memories of the Third Reich (Третий Рейх) behind us (though some German words are still hard to erase from our minds).

I can only hope that my grandchildren will be lucky enough never to have to learn any language the way our generation learned German.