The language of resistance? Czech jokes and joke-telling under nazi Occupation, 1943-45

Journal of Contemporary History

Volumn 41, Issue 1, 2006, Pages

  Bryant, Chad ^a  

^a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 36549050028     PISSN: 00220094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0022009406058687     Document Type: Review

References (121)

1. German Regular Police shot 173 men while 198 women were shipped to Kladno. Most of the women were then transported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The children were tested for German racial suitability; the majority were deemed racially inferior and killed. Vojtech Mastny, Czechs under Nazi Rule. The Failure of National Resistance, 1939-1942 (New York and London 1971), 216.
2. Detlef Brandes, Die Tschechen unter deutschem Protektorat, vol. II (Munich and Vienna 1975), 101-6;
3. Petr Nëmec, 'Český národ a nacistické teorie germanizace prostoru', Český časopis historický, 88, 4 (1990), 538.
4. Detlef Brandes, 'Kolaborace v protektorátu Cechy a Morava', Dějiny a současnost, 1 (1994), 28.
5. Alice Teichová, 'The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1945). The Economic Dimension', in Mikuláš Teich (ed. ), Bohemia in History (Cambridge 1998), 287, 283.
6. Toman Brod, Československo a sovětský svaz 1939-1945 (Prague 1992), 241;
7. cited in Zdeněk Sládek, 'Vliv nacistické nadvlády na politický vývoj v Čechách a na Moravě', Soudobé dějiny, 1, 4-5 (1994), 535.
8. Josef and Jindřich, 'Zprávy z domova', 11 April 1945, Vojenský historický archiv (hereafter VHA), fond 37, sig. 91/8, 1.
9. Czech sources cite both 'vtipy' and 'anekdoty'. The former refers to a crisp, short form of humour often involving word play that ends with a distinct punchline. The latter usually comes in the form of a very short story, although it, too, usually ends with a punchline. In the interest of word economy I refer to both as 'jokes' in this article.
10. Inž. Šrajbera, 'Zpráva z domova', 2 September 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 2.
11. [Anonymous informant], 'Vnitropolitické situace', 14-15 March 1939, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/1, 1 díl, 1, 6.
12. Oskar Krejčí, Země úsměvů, 1939-1945 (Prague 1945).
13. Tony Judt, 'The Past is Another Country. Myth and Memory in Postwar Europe', The Politics of Retribution in Europe. World War II and Its Aftermath, in István Deǎk, Jan T. Gross and Tony Judt (eds) (Princeton, NJ 2000), 298-9.
14. Josef Gruss, Jedna paní povídala (Prague 1945), 10.
15. Aleš Dubovský, Kroměříž ve štínu hákového kříže (Kroměříž 1995), 127.
16. Of course this is not true everywhere. In the past 40 years, historians of nazi Germany have engaged in complex, thoughtful debates about the extent, lack of, and meaning of 'resistance'. Among the most important contributions was the 'Bavaria Project' launched by the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich in 1973.
17. Focusing on all spheres of 'everyday life', the Project's authors sought out actions that blocked the nazi state's total control and penetration of society. Martin Broszat, Elke Fröhlich and Falk Wieseman (eds), Bayern in der NS-Zeit, 6 vols. (Munich and Vienna 1973-83).
18. For overviews of recent scholarship on resistance in Germany, see Ian Kershaw, '"Resistance without the People"?', in I. Kershaw (ed. ) The Nazi Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (London and New York 2000), 183-217;
19. Jo Fox, 'Resistance and the Third Reich', Journal of Contemporary History, 39, 2 (April 2004), 271-83.
20. In Poland, Jan Gross's book about the massacre of Jews at Jedwabne has recently prompted Polish historians and public figures to question the simple betrayal of Poles as either victims or active opponents of nazi rule. Jan Gross, Neighbors. The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton, NJ 2001);
21. John Connelly, 'Poles and Jews in the Second World War. The Revisions of Jan T. Gross', Contemporary European History, 2, 4 (2002), 641-58;
22. Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic (eds), The Neighbors Respond. The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland (Princeton, NJ 2004).
23. See, for example, Jiří Doležal, Česká kultura za Protektorátu. Školství, pí semnictví, kinematografie (Prague 1996);
24. Pavel Maršálak, Protektorát Čechy a Morava (Prague 2002);
25. Hana Barvíková (ed. ), Věda v českých zemích za druhé světové války (Prague 1998);
26. Alena Mišková, Německá (Karlova) univerzita od Mnichova k 9. květnu 1945 (Prague 2002);
27. Helena Krejčová, Jana Svoboda and Anna Hyndrá ková (eds), Židé v Protektorátu. Hlášení Židovské naboženské obce v roce 1942 (Prague 1997);
28. C. Necas, Holocaust českých Romů (Prague 1999).
29. For an excellent overview of Czech-language literature on the Protectorate, see Jan Gebhart, 'Historiography on the Period 1938-1945', Historica, 7, 7 (2001), 145-63. The only English-language and German-language studies of the Protectorate, both written in the 1970s, are comprehensive and detailed, yet their focus is on high politics, resistance movements and collaborationist officials: Mastny, op. cit. ;
30. Brandes, op cit.
31. One important German-language work examines nazi rule and Sudeten German attitudes toward that rule in the occupied Sudetengau: Volker Zimmermann, Die Sudetendeutschen im NS-Staat. Politik und Stimmung der Bevölkerung im Reichsgau Sudetenland (1938-1945) (Essen 1999).
32. Jan Gebhart and Jan Kuklík, Dramatické i všední dny protektorátu (Prague 1996);
33. the title seems to be a reference to Albert Pražak, Národ se bránil. Obrany národa a jazyka českého od nejstarších dob po přítomnost (Prague 1946).
34. 'Patriots', borrowing from Miroslav Hroch, will be defined here as 'those individuals who consciously, of their own volition, and over a long period of time, devoted their activities to the support of the national movement, endeavoring in particular to diffuse patriotic attitudes. ' Miroslav Hroch, trans. Ben Fowkes, Social Preconditions for the National Revival in Europe. A Comparative Analysis of the Social Composition of Patriotic Groups among the Smaller European Nations (New York 2000), 14.
35. Pavla Frýdlovǎ (ed. ), Všechny naše včerejšky, 2 vols (Prague 1998);
36. Heda Margolis Kovály, trans. Franci Epstein, Helen Epstein and the author, Under a Cruel Star. A Life in Prague 1941-1968 (Cambridge, MA 1986);
37. Monika Glettler and Alena Mišková (eds), Prager Professoren 1938-1948. Zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik (Essen 2001);
38. Divided We Fall/Musíme si pomáhat, dir. by Jan Hrebejk (2000).
39. For example, months after war with Poland was declared, the top SS official in the Protectorate warned a crowd in Prague's Old Town Square that anyone 'who is not with us, is against us. And whoever is against us will be pulverized. ' Dušan Tomášek and Robert Kvaček, Causa Emil Hácha (Prague 1995), 81.
40. After Heydrich's assassination a quisling paper announced, 'Hitherto elements opposing the regime have been dealt with by Reich authorities. But from now on the Czech government will exterminate all elements who, even should they not oppose the Reich directly, are by their ambiguous attitude menacing the existence of the Czech people. ' 'Prague populace "mourns" Heydrich', New York Times, 8 June 1942, 2.
41. Karel Přikryl, 'Zprávy z domova', 23 September 1943, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/6, 5;
42. [anonymous informant], 'Zpráva z domova', 5-8 February 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 5;
43. [anonymous informant], 'Zprávy z domova', 13 July 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 3; Kovály, 29.
44. [Anonymous informant], 'Zprávy z Protektorátu', 17 August 1943, VHA fond 37, sig. 91/6, 1;
45. [anonymous informant], 'Zprávy z domova', 21 February 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 1;
46. for an overview, see Oldřich Sládek, Zločinná role Gestapa. Nacistická bezpečnostní policie v českých zemích 1938-1945 (Prague 1986).
47. Netíka, 'Zpráva z domova', 5 February 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 2.
48. Zbeněk Zeman with Antonin Klimek, The Life of Edvard Beneš 1884-1948. Czechoslovakia in Peace and War (Oxford 1997), 180-2.
49. Brandes, op. cit. , vol. II, 88, 89.
50. By 1943 nazi leaders had temporarily abandoned plans for large-scale expulsions and murder; their priority now lay with winning the war. Chad Bryant, 'Making the Czechs German. Nationality and Nazi Rule in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, 1939-1945', (Dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 2002), chaps 2 and 3.
51. Tomáš Pasák, Soupis legalných novin, časopisu a úředních věstníku v českých zemích z let 1939-1945 (Prague 1980), 78;
52. Inž. Barton, 'Zprávy o domově', 24 September 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 4;
53. [anonymous author], 'Zprávy z domova', 12 July 1944, VHA fond 37, sig. 91/7, 2.
54. Marek, 'Zprávy z domova', 2 October 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 2.
55. Stanislav Michalec, [no title], February 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 1.
56. [Anonymous informant], 'Zprávy z domova', 10 July 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 10.
57. Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia. A Czech History (Princeton, NJ 1998), 226.
58. See, for example, Ferdinand Strejček, Humorem a ironií k vítězství národa (Prague 1937);
59. Josef Trojan (ed. ), Úsměvy naší země. Čtvrt století českého humoru (Prague 1942);
60. and after the war Jiří Horák, Humor vtip a satira v české lidové písni (Prague 1947).
61. SS agents in the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst), while obsessed with finding any signs of anti-nazi thinking or behaviour in the Protectorate, almost never mention jokes in their reports. Or perhaps they did not consider them worth mentioning?
62. Vladimír Macura, 'Problems and Paradoxes of the National Revival' in Mikuláš Teich (ed. ), Bohemia in History (Cambridge 1998), 144.
63. John Edwards, Language, Society and Identity (Oxford and New York 1985), 24;
64. for Herder's influence on Czech nationalism, see Emanuel Rádl, Válka Čechu s Němci (Prague 1993), 170-3.
65. Sest let okupace Prahy (Prague 1946), 83-105.
66. Gary B. Cohen, The Politics of Ethnie Survival. Germans in Prague, 1861-1914 (Princeton, NJ 1981);
67. Mark Cornwall, 'The Struggle on the Czech-German Language Border, 1880-1940', The English Historical Review, 59, 433 (September 1994), 914-51;
68. Jeremy King, Budweisers into Czechs and Germans: A Local History of Bohemian Politics, 1848-1948 (Princeton, NJ 2002), esp. 48-152.
69. Brandes, op. cit. , vol. I, 164;
70. Libuše Otáhalová and Milada Červinková (eds), Dokumenty z historie československé politiky 1939-1943, vol. I (Prague 1966), doc. 398, 538-9, doc. 405, 545-6, doc. 425, 576;
71. Zbyněk Válka, Olomouc pod hákovým křížem. Temná leta okupace 1939-1945 (Olomouc 2001), 60;
72. Václav Černý, Křik koruny české. Paměti 1938-1945. Náš kulturní odboj za války (Prague 1992).
73. Dagmar A. interviewed by Pavla Frýdlová, Všechny naše včerejšky, op. cit. , vol. I, 47;
74. see also Zdeněk David, 'The War, The Nazi Protectorate, and Victory. Recollections', Kosmos, 12, 1 (Summer 1996), 7.
75. Vladimír Macura, 'Tak vlast si tvoří' in Masarykovy boty a jiné semi(o)fejetony (Prague 1993), 11-13.
76. Zbeněk Zeman, Heckling Hitler. Caricatures of the Third Reich (Hanover, NH 1987), 67.
77. 'Die politische Entwicklung im Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren seit 15. März 1939', SD report 15 March, VHA, box 7, fond 74/5, sbirka c 74, jednotka 46, 1940, 2;
78. Gebhart and Kuklík, op. cit. , 12;
79. [Anonymous informant], 'Ze soukremého dopisu z Moravy', 6 June 1939, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/1, 1 díl, 1.
80. [Escaped Protectorate soldier], 'Zprávy z domova', 10 September 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 1.
81. Zeman, Heckling Hitler, op. cit. , 112;
82. Wilhelm Dennler, Die böhmische Passion (Freiburg i. Br. and Frankfurt a. M. 1953), 99. Although related in the present tense, Dennler actually wrote of these events after the war.
83. Albert Kaufmann, 'Zpráva z domova', VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/6, 2;
84. Albert Schmidt, 'Pax Germanica. Bohemia and Moravia under Heydrich, 1941-1942' (PhD dissertation, Brandeis University 2000), 106, fn. 340.
85. [anonymous informant], 'Pro doktora Beneše', 22 January 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 2.
86. [Anonymous informant], 'Zprávy z Protektorátu', 30 August 1943, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/6, 1. The event, of course, made for good jokes. As one untranslatable jab went: 'What's the declination of the word Duce? Erster Fall Mussolini, Zweiter Fall Hitler. '
87. [Anonymous informant], 'Zprávy z domova', 24 January 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 12.
88. [Anonymous informant], 'Zpráva z domova', 24 January 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 8.
89. Rogers Brubaker, 'Nation as Form, Category, Event' in Nationalism Reframed. Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge 1996), 19.
90. Henk Driessen, 'Humor, Laughter, and the Field. Reflections from Anthropology' in Jan Bremmer and Hermann Roodenburg (eds), A Cultural History of Humor: From Antiquity to the Present Day (Cambridge 1997), 223.
91. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life (Woodstock, NY 1973), 2.
92. 'Ze soukromého dopisu z Moravy', 6 June 1939, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/1, 1. díl, 2, 1.
93. Detlev Peukert, trans. Richard Deveson, Inside Nazi Germany. Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life (New Haven, CT and London 1987), 63-4.
94. [Než bych Hitlerovi 60 vajec dala, raději jsem si život vzala. ] Inž. Barton, 'Zpráva o domově', 14 August 1944, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/7, 6.
95. Robert Darnton, 'Workers Revolt. The Great Cat Massacre of the Rue Saint-Séverin' in The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York 1985), 75-106, esp. 78.
96. And, as Darnton argues, by trying to 'get' the joke we can glimpse a foreign culture and a people's worldview. For other studies that use humour as a gateway to understanding a past culture/experience/worldview see J. P. Daughton, 'Sketches of the Poilu's World. Trench Cartoons from the Great War' in Douglas Mackaman and Michael Mays (eds) World War I and the Cultures of Modernity (Jackson, MO 2000), 35-67
97. and Mary Lee Townsend, Forbidden Laughter. Popular Humor and the Limits of Repression in Nineteenth-Century Prussia (Ann Arbor, MI 1992).
98. The Belgian Information Centre, Belgian Humor under the German Heel (New York 1943);
99. Otto Ramfjord, Ockupationshumor. Historier från ockupationstidens Norge och Danmark och andra länder (Stockholm 1944);
100. Wien wehrt sich mit dem Witz. Flüsterwitze aus dem Jahren 1938-1945 (Vienna and New York 1946);
101. Sait Orahovac, Partizani u anegdotama (Sarajevo 1964);
102. Hans-Jochen Gamm, Der Flüsterwitz im Dritten Reich (Munich 1979);
103. Franz Danimann, Flüsterwitze und Spottgedichte unterm Hakenkreuz (Vienna 1983);
104. Fritz Karl Michael Hillenbrand, Underground Humour in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 (London and New York 1995).
105. One joke from the summer of 1939, for example, went: 'Hitler, when he gave Poles their ultimatum, said at the end: "Entweder-oder" (translation - "either-or"). The Poles answered: OK as far as the Oder. ' (The Oder is a river which now marks the border between Germany and Poland. ) 'Ze soukromého dopisu z Moravy', 6 June 1939, VHA, fond 37, sig. 91/1, 1. díl, 2, 1.
106. Benjamin Frommer, 'Expulsion or Integration. Unmixing Interethnic Marriage in Postwar Czechoslovakia', East European Politics and Societies, 14, 2 (Spring 2000), 387;
107. For an overview of how nazi and then postwar Czechoslovak rulers attempted to come to terms with these 'amphibians', see Chad Bryant, 'Either Czech or German. Fixing Nationality in Bohemia and Moravia, 1939-1946', Slavic Review, 64, 4 (Winter 2002), 683-707.
108. Sigmund Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (Leipzig and Vienna 1905);
109. Henri Bergson, trans. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell, Laughter. An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (New York 1911);
110. Mary Douglas, 'The Social Control of Cognition. Some Factors in Joke Perception', Man, 3, 1 (September 1968), 361-76. Of course, not all jokes are destabilizing. Ethnic jokes, for example, can reinforce rather than question debilitating stereotypes and, hence, existing orders and hierarchies.
111. Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain. Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley, CA 1995), 121-2.
112. Michel de Certeau, trans. Steven Rendall, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, CA 1984), xix.
113. Cited in Alain Corbin, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, The Village of Cannibals. Rage and Murder in France, 1870 (Cambridge, MA 1992), 7-8.
114. 'Zpráva v poměrech v vlasti', 6 October 1943, VHA fond 37, sig. 91/6, 3;
115. Jar. P. Blašek, 'Národní školy za okupace', Šest let, op. cit. , 47;
116. Tomáš Pasák and Milan Drápala, 'Čeští vysokoškolští studenti v Sachsenhausenu a postoj protektorátní správy', Soudobé dějiny, 2, 4 (1996), 509, 512.
117. Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (London and New York 1975), 3-35.
118. Karel Kosík, trans. James H. Satterwhite, 'Švejk and Bugulma, or, The Birth of Great Humor' in The Crisis of Modernity. Essays and Observations from the 1968 Era (Boston, MA 1995), 98-9.
119. Iva Weidenhofferová (ed. ), Konfliktní společ enství, katastrofa, uvolěni. Nácrt vykládu německo-českých dějin od 19. století (Prague 1996), 29-30.
120. Tomáš Staněk, Odsun Němcůz Československa 1945-1947 (Prague 1991), 367.
121. Benjamin Robert Frommer, 'National Purification. Retribution against Nazi Collaborators in Postwar Czechoslovakia' (PhD Dissertation, Harvard University 1999), 2.