No! I love all the buildings from the early 20th century! Do you want Berlin architecture to look like the Ruhr Valley Area? Because those were flattened and rebuild effeciently in 50s and 60s style
@@xYouTubax Well you are right, Ruhr area is ugly as fuck but as I said... In 1945, the bombed and burned buildings would have had to be taken down anyway. Bombed entirely to the ground or not wouldn't have made a difference... Except for the Germans maybe not having to use as much wrecking ball at first.
Well, actually we all know by now that each and every european nation was keen on waging war - not only the germans. Disabled Willy II. although couldn´t wait and declared war as first. The rest is history.
I wonder if they even have that gesture in Germany! Ever since the cartoon of John Dean doing it during Watergate testimony, I assumed it was an American thing. Easy to believe we got it from the British.
@@Theoriginalsparkythemagicpiano No, ..it's the deal the EU wanted.... Sir Boris is already getting slack from British fisherman about betrayal to Brussels... and we haven't even read the whole "agreement" yet....
@@Theoriginalsparkythemagicpiano yes celebrate the fact you can take more fish, let’s not talk about the tens of thousands of financial jobs going to Frankfurt, Dublin, etc...
Now that is not fair. Jews have been returning to Germany, and they (the Germans) have expressed their moral outrage at government forces in Syria and Russian meddling in elections and general warlike behavior clearly enough. It is Trump and his American supporters who are failing to express the moral outrage.
Actually, we had a load of foreigners here between 39 and 45 from Poland, Russia working in our factories. But that did not make us happy. And them either.
@@davidcadman4468 It was France that officially declared the war due to the Polish guarantee but the world got the wrong impression due the the U.K. being the alliance leader. In fact the British government never wanted this war and if it wasn't for that lunatic Churchill they wouldn't had a part in it. Despite the crimes, destruction and decay that war was the best thing the world could have. Most of the far-right and far-left regimes that had ''power'' collapsed or transformed to something productive. Sad that we humans must mass murder each other in order to move on...
um ... right ... Hitler did not call his invasion of Poland a war. He hadn't declared war on England and France when he broke his treaty with those countries to militarily take the Rhineland (an area agreed, by treaty, to remain unmilitarized) and he didn't declare war when he marched into the neighboring country of Austria and he didn't declare war on Czechoslovakia when he marched his army in to take control of a part of their country ... and then ... he did not declare war on England or France when he marched into Poland despite his awareness that they were pledged to militarily defend Poland. When given an ultimatum to withdraw his forces by September 3rd or face the reality that a state of war will exist between his and those countries he neither declared war nor bothered to respond. So ... um ... yeah, one could technically say that "Britain declared war on Germany first". But it isn't only words that have meaning.
btw ... this business of who "declared war" before the other isn't much to rely on when looking for what happened. Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor before Japan declared war on the United States. Wikipedia shows the ways that war between nations in World War II came about ... you'll notice that only some of them began with a declaration en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarations_of_war_during_World_War_II
This is the joke you make if you were raised in the English school system. "If you don't say you're sorry i shall be very cross indeed." Exactly what a schoolteacher would say, I'd imagine.
This seemed like a strange system to me as a child and even now as an adult. Saying sorry was taught as being more important than actually being sorry. Effectively they were encouraging us to lie and fake contrition to avoid more serious consequences. If contrition doesn't come naturally, you're expected to just pretend, fake it to make everyone else feel better. Being forced to lie about your state of mind does not seem to me to be an exercise encouraging a healthy mental state. Needless to say when I attempted to make this argument in such a situation (with the much more limited vocabulary available to me), it didn't go down well.
@@stephenderry9488 Being respectful of others, saying sorry is more of an expression of respect and being polite, consideration ect. You need to be crying with regret when you use the term.
@@Anglo-Brit I can see that you might mindlessly use the expression out of etiquette without giving a moment's thought to sincerity in situations where you have nothing to gain or lose, but really, what is the value of forcing someone who really absolutely isn't sorry - and might, depending on the true circumstances, be internally raging with a sense of injustice - to produce such an obvious lie? It doesn't necessarily resolve the situation and long term could make things worse. Respect can be given freely but some people show by their actions that they really don't deserve it. And even children understand that.
The fella playing the German general on the left is a superb comedy actor, a key part of alot of brilliant shows. He's so legendary that I've forgotten his name.
You mistook ze level of reading, lieber Freund ! He äctually meant it as 'berlin', a type of horsedrawn carriage, äs in to 'run a flat' (tire) with your berlin on the cobbled streets of Kurfürstendamm ! Zer is absolutely nothing a Prussian aristocrat hates more than that - it is a major pain in dem Arsch. So this sketch is showing how ze fate of Görmany was once again decided by ze selfish whims of ze Junkers ! Sänk Gott I am very intelligent and able to decode these complex English Enigmas !
letosvet1 A Damm isn't made from cobbles, but from sticks. The road was named after where it was leading. The Kurfürstendamm to the Kurfürst. The road to the church was named Goddamn.
When the germans surrender to fieldmarschal Montgomery on the Luneburger Heide the german admiral Friedeburg said to Montgomery, we will rather surrender to the british than to the russians. Montgomery answered "well Germany should have thought of that before they started the war".
@Herbert Norkus Wilson's 12 demands included a free Polish state, with access to the sea, and WWII started when Germany invaded Poland for the very land in mention. So I don't know, if you're gonna go around blaming everybody for starting WWII but Hitler, you should start with Wilson first.
Herbert Norkus Versailles was actually a pretty lenient treaty given the circumstances. And given Germany’s actually harsh and unjust treaties with Russia and Romania.
@@adamkurowski1934 don't forget how glad poland was to join in the plundering of czechia together with the nazi germany. Poland the hyena of europe, always playing the victim card
@A Koster @John Cornell The verb "gleichmachen" as such simply means to equalize or to make equal. In the given context, a speaker of German would always say: "Sie wollen Berlin DEM ERDBODEN gleichmachen." [To make level WITH THE GROUND] This is the idiomatically correct way to say it. A more colloquial variant would be: "Sie wollen Berlin PLATTMACHEN", with "platt" meaning "flat" (sic!). This is both shorter and closer to the original.
@@guesswho5122 Well yes, maybe that would be clearer, but in colloquial spoken German, just like in English, parts of a sentence can be ommitted where the context makes clear what a person is saying. And if a British army officer tells you they are threating to level (gleichmachen) Berlin... without saying "to the ground" I'm sure it would be clear due to context.
My grandfather served in Soviet Artillery unit. He flattened Berlin as much as possible... After this he flattened very much Japan forces in Manchjuria and Korea... Also he didn't ask for apogize...
Agreed, nothing of value would get lost. Just a bunch of hipsters, chavs, Lebanese mobster clans, the entire political establishment and about 60.000.000.000 in debt.
@Lee Brown We did not.. The country as England was never really English until we saw the formations from the war of roses. The Normans and Germanic Anglo Saxons with the Nordic mix merging into the English with time.
Not so much on this channel but different TH-cam presentations downloaded by different people for different old shows, sometimes I see the picture as very tight, not the way a director would have wanted it framed. Does anybody have any opinion about this? Is it just my imagination? Thanks 🦉🌴🌞
Modern Videos are in 16:9 format, that is also the youtube standard. The other channels probably upload the old TV-Standard 4:3 without adjustments. TH-cam does support 4:3 format videos, but i guess not everyone knows how to do it properly. Or the 4:3 feature is new on youtube and all the videos that have been uploaded before the feature was implemented use 16:9
"Sie würden Berlin plattmachen" would be the right term. "Pfannkuchen" is the right term for pencake, not "geschnittenkuchenbratentorte" (cuttedpieroastedcake???)...
@@alicev5496 This isn't really that weird. The only difference between the english language is, that we don't use spaces between longer word complexes. But that's not that obvious in everyday speech, it's more a thing of official language and techical terms. Chamber of Agriculture would be Landwirtschaftskammer, but you could techically say Kammer der Landwirtschaft as well. It's quite awkward when english satire gives the impression that we would speak like that the whole time. In reality the amount of syllables between the german and the english language is almost identical, if you compare two analog sentences. I found this to be unneccessary in the context of this sketch. League of Gentlemen (Herr Lipp) is way more legit in their use of the german language, for instance.
Capitulation act was signed by German Iodle and USSR Susloparov plus American Y. Smith. There was also a witness from France. Limons were not detected.
This is a parody of Montgomery accepting the surrender of the German forces fighting against the British, Canadian and US troops in Germany at Luneberg Heath in May 1945. I believe it was Field Marshall Busch who turned up at Monty's command post to offer the surrender. As Eisenhower was the Commander in Chief of allied forces, Monty should not really have accepted the surrender himself, however he was very unhappy that he didn't get the top job himself and so he seized on the opportunity to make history and got the newsreel cameras in for the event.
The British officer with the beret, love the uniform, looks like he put his hand in a bag of military decorations and then attached them whether they were relevant or not
I'm very late on this one, but they got Monty's rank insignia wrong - by the time of the Luneberg Heath surrender, he'd been promoted to Field Marshal.
Is this WW1 or WW2? The joke seems to be about the Treaty of Versailles and the German unhappiness about Germany having to take the blame for the war, but they are wearing WW2 uniforms.
It is a joke about the German surrender to Montgomery (played by Jones - note the two badges on his beret, unique to Montgomery) in early May 1945. In actuality only the German forces of The Netherlands, Northern Germany, Denmark and Norway were surrendered there, but to make it simple they say "all".
@@duckling3615 The allies could've occupied Germany at the end of WW1. The reason they didn't advance further was simply because Germany surrendered and had no need.
Vladimir Kichev Yeah, it wouldn’t even have been an invasion, simply a matter of marching. The allies only stopped before entering Germany because Germany sort of ceased to exist as a country. And the German Army kind of wasn’t a thing any more by November, so who exactly do you fight?
@@sebastiantiainen2749 That seems a bit far-fetched to me. If we look at the realities, then the advance on the Rhine would have been over for now. And whether the Entente troops could have advanced further would have been a question of the Spanish flu ...
@@dantecaputo2629 'Germany sort of ceased to exist' sounds about right for May 1945 but certainly not for November 1918. the kaiser abdicated and monarchic systems were abolished all over the place but that doesn't mean the system of government was dysfunctional. plus the armed forces considered itself 'unbeaten in the field' and the border in the east was settled by the outrageous treaty of Brest-Litovsk. the western allies couldn't contemplate to occupy Germany in 1918 for fear of having to fight a costly guerilla war without end
I copied and pasted this from Wikipedia, apparently a quote from the New York Times: "After lunch, Field Marshal Montgomery called the Germans back for further consultation, and there he delivered his ultimatum ... He told the Germans: "You must understand three things: Firstly, you must surrender to me unconditionally all the German forces in Holland, Friesen and the Frisian Islands and Heligoland and all other islands in Schleswig-Holstein and in Denmark. Secondly, when you have done that, I am prepared to discuss with you the implications of your surrender: how we will dispose of those surrendered troops, how we will occupy the surrendered territory, how we will deal with the civilians, and so forth. And my third point: If you do not agree to Point 1, the surrender, then I will go on with the war and I will be delighted to do so." Monty added, as an after-thought, "All your soldiers and civilians may be killed."
So that's basically the Geneva Convention against war crimes out of the window... if you threaten to kill all unarmed German civilians it is a war crime
@UCyyWtqMdLBQ6vzVCwPtrVQw Montgomery was saying the obvious; unless the German forces surrendered the war in Northern Europe would continue and both soldiers and civilians would continue to die. He did not threaten to deliberately kill unarmed civilians as you state. The Germans had already extensively bombed civilian targets in Poland and had flattened Rotterdam. Do you think they would have stopped at the English Channel? They didn't require provocation. Churchill had many faults but your assertion that he wanted the East End destroyed is beyond ridiculous - where is your evidence?
@@Wotsitorlabart Rotterdam doesn't excuse the far greater destruction by allied bombing raids in all of Axis-controlled Europe. Also no, your fears of germans advancing past the Narrow Sea are completely unfounded, Germany had no means to invade the British Isles and Hitler didn't want to destroy the British Empire, he only wanted Russia.
@@colinp2238 this term does not exist in the german language. you would say something like "platt machen", "flach machen". "Geflatten" sounds like "flatmakening" or something equal in english. I Still love that line. Have a look at "nazi generals" from the same comedy-group.
You think it's funny that they struggled to translate "pancake", but that's nothing in comparison to the "Pfannkuchen/Berliner/Kreppel/Krapfen/Eierkuchen"-discussion
Insincerity in Apology for War Crimes committed during WWII might risk Berlin being Flattened like a Pancake , Again! 🕯 Yes , Sir Winston Churchill! 🌷🌿
I understand the comedic impact of a translator but I would have thought that a German Staff General would have spoken very good English as Germans of that standing, in those days were probably educated at Oxford, Cambridge, Eton or Harrow.
Pitty they never ask native speakers to play the roles of the Germans. We do have enough humour to do this and we find these comedies funny, too. I noticed there are lots of Russian war movies with native Germans playing the Germans.
@@sebastianriemer1777 I can hear the difference and trust me, Russians can never speak German that properly unless they were born and raised in Germany. However, the Germans in Russian movies speak on mothertongue level. You can barely learn it like that as a non-native speaker.
@@melchiorvonsternberg844 They regretted it, not due to a sense of justice, but because it doesn't look good in the history books... a bit like civilian target bombing, Churchill's wish to use chemical weapons and allied soldiers raping civilians or plundering shops in, for example Arnhem... it just doesn't look good... so.. hush, hush for 80 years
England: "Berlin will be flattened"
German: "how flat?"
England: "as flat a pancake"
Germany: "that is a very loose tolerence, we could do far better"
Toms Tech and funnier
If it would have been a real german general,he would have asked :"What part of Berlin,West or East ?"
England: "Berlin will be flattened"
German: "how flat?"
England: "Flatter than Twiggy."
Germany:"Tviggy?"
@@TheSoundsage Come on,Twiggy wasn`t that flat as Berlin had been.Probabely.
You guys really know how to make flattening compliments!
"How many germans does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
"One. germans are efficient and have no sense of humor."
Oh no. Germans have a sense of humor. Look at "Michael Mittermeier english"
I have met many Germans with a better sense of humour than Muricans.
As a german i would have almost laughed
Thoight the answer would be
NEIN!
@@solmoman Is that what you thoink?
Flattening Berlin would have been more a favour than a threat at this point.
Would have saved us a lot of bulldozing work.
No! I love all the buildings from the early 20th century! Do you want Berlin architecture to look like the Ruhr Valley Area? Because those were flattened and rebuild effeciently in 50s and 60s style
@@xYouTubax Well you are right, Ruhr area is ugly as fuck but as I said... In 1945, the bombed and burned buildings would have had to be taken down anyway. Bombed entirely to the ground or not wouldn't have made a difference... Except for the Germans maybe not having to use as much wrecking ball at first.
Should've started with Detroit.
Good luck with the three air defense towers!
@@xYouTubax Thats obviously right. But his point is, that Berlin was already only ruins at that point.
"We promise not to do it again"
"You said that last time..."
Had their fingers crossed that time too 😉
Iain MacLennan An old German gesture: knot your fingers, to remind you of something important. Like a promise.
'the big gerry had his fingers crossed, sir.' ^^
Well, actually we all know by now that each and every european nation was keen on waging war - not only the germans. Disabled Willy II. although couldn´t wait and declared war as first. The rest is history.
@R G it's certainly more complicated than just looking at the formal declarations of war which were sent between capitals in writing
"That doesn't count sir.The big Jerry has his fingers crossed ,sir".😂😂
I know, I love that bit. Keep repeating it.
I wonder if they even have that gesture in Germany! Ever since the cartoon of John Dean doing it during Watergate testimony, I assumed it was an American thing. Easy to believe we got it from the British.
Well, at least today we've got it. I'm not sure if we had it in the 40s, though.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossed_fingers "In German-speaking countries and also Sweden the gesture is only known for vitiating oaths." LYING BASTARDS! :D
"That doesn't count sir. The big Jerry has his fingers crossed, sir"
Now you understand why the UK is not getting a deal done for the brexit
German revenge for losing ze war 😄
Damn, you beat me to it.
We just got the deal we wanted, sorry to break it to you ^^ somebody else capitulated ^^
@@Theoriginalsparkythemagicpiano No, ..it's the deal the EU wanted.... Sir Boris is already getting slack from British fisherman about betrayal to Brussels... and we haven't even read the whole "agreement" yet....
@@Theoriginalsparkythemagicpiano yes celebrate the fact you can take more fish, let’s not talk about the tens of thousands of financial jobs going to Frankfurt, Dublin, etc...
"Sie wollen Berlin geflatet, so flat wie eine Bratentorte"... i had a good laugh on that one :D
only that 98% of Germans don't give a f*ck about Berlin :D
@@rumpelstilzz Right? The rest of the country would fucking cheer them on if it was just about Berlin...
@@Exodon2020 same thing here in the netherlands and Amsterdam.
@@cristianvandenbosse8989 Well, The Netherlands are already flat. So it wouldn't be much of a change, would it?
That is something we do not have in Germany: jokes about german surrender
mkmm60 You also don’t have much of a Jewish community or an ability to ever have moral outrage.
Well, at least we do still have an industry; you cannot have everything in life ;)...
Now that is not fair. Jews have been returning to Germany, and they (the Germans) have expressed their moral outrage at government forces in Syria and Russian meddling in elections and general warlike behavior clearly enough.
It is Trump and his American supporters who are failing to express the moral outrage.
Calm down, this is about comedy.
Actually, we had a load of foreigners here between 39 and 45 from Poland, Russia working in our factories. But that did not make us happy. And them either.
As a german i laughed my a** off. Drop dead funny - even without any sense of humor.
Just posted this at the top, but posting here, just for you.
@@davidcadman4468 It was France that officially declared the war due to the Polish guarantee but the world got the wrong impression due the the U.K. being the alliance leader. In fact the British government never wanted this war and if it wasn't for that lunatic Churchill they wouldn't had a part in it. Despite the crimes, destruction and decay that war was the best thing the world could have. Most of the far-right and far-left regimes that had ''power'' collapsed or transformed to something productive. Sad that we humans must mass murder each other in order to move on...
@@dominges Nope, the far-left regimes are just in power now instead and are unopposed.
um ... right ... Hitler did not call his invasion of Poland a war. He hadn't declared war on England and France when he broke his treaty with those countries to militarily take the Rhineland (an area agreed, by treaty, to remain unmilitarized) and he didn't declare war when he marched into the neighboring country of Austria and he didn't declare war on Czechoslovakia when he marched his army in to take control of a part of their country ... and then ... he did not declare war on England or France when he marched into Poland despite his awareness that they were pledged to militarily defend Poland. When given an ultimatum to withdraw his forces by September 3rd or face the reality that a state of war will exist between his and those countries he neither declared war nor bothered to respond.
So ... um ... yeah, one could technically say that "Britain declared war on Germany first". But it isn't only words that have meaning.
btw ... this business of who "declared war" before the other isn't much to rely on when looking for what happened. Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor before Japan declared war on the United States.
Wikipedia shows the ways that war between nations in World War II came about ... you'll notice that only some of them began with a declaration en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarations_of_war_during_World_War_II
This is the joke you make if you were raised in the English school system. "If you don't say you're sorry i shall be very cross indeed." Exactly what a schoolteacher would say, I'd imagine.
You may very well be held back a grade.
And now say it like you meant it!
This seemed like a strange system to me as a child and even now as an adult. Saying sorry was taught as being more important than actually being sorry. Effectively they were encouraging us to lie and fake contrition to avoid more serious consequences. If contrition doesn't come naturally, you're expected to just pretend, fake it to make everyone else feel better. Being forced to lie about your state of mind does not seem to me to be an exercise encouraging a healthy mental state. Needless to say when I attempted to make this argument in such a situation (with the much more limited vocabulary available to me), it didn't go down well.
@@stephenderry9488 Being respectful of others, saying sorry is more of an expression of respect and being polite, consideration ect.
You need to be crying with regret when you use the term.
@@Anglo-Brit I can see that you might mindlessly use the expression out of etiquette without giving a moment's thought to sincerity in situations where you have nothing to gain or lose, but really, what is the value of forcing someone who really absolutely isn't sorry - and might, depending on the true circumstances, be internally raging with a sense of injustice - to produce such an obvious lie? It doesn't necessarily resolve the situation and long term could make things worse. Respect can be given freely but some people show by their actions that they really don't deserve it. And even children understand that.
The fella playing the German general on the left is a superb comedy actor, a key part of alot of brilliant shows. He's so legendary that I've forgotten his name.
Geoffrey Whitehead ?
@@firestar7188 .
That's him.
He is having a problem not laughing at the end.
@@grahvis O.k. Thx.
He's Lucy's dad and Lee Mack's father- in-law in Not going out
The Scottish soldier at the end had me rolling
Scottish?
Liverpool more like
John bishop is from liverpool
That's the most English sounding Scot I've ever heard lol
@@psychologyteacher mantis
“There’ll be a lot of geflattening going on” lol brilliant
Wonderful old sketch. Geoffrey Whitehead's a pleasure to watch as always.
Geoffrey Whitehead is a long standing terrific supporting actor! Worked consistently for years.
There I was trying to remember his name and you’ve got it!
Struggling not to laugh though.😂
LOOOOOOL this was brilliant
That's a good one. Berlin is Full of flats anyway . I live in one .
How flat?
U.V. S. Oh just flatten the curve. Getting grey, but not enough to dye yet...
You mistook ze level of reading, lieber Freund ! He äctually meant it as 'berlin', a type of horsedrawn carriage, äs in to 'run a flat' (tire) with your berlin on the cobbled streets of Kurfürstendamm ! Zer is absolutely nothing a Prussian aristocrat hates more than that - it is a major pain in dem Arsch. So this sketch is showing how ze fate of Görmany was once again decided by ze selfish whims of ze Junkers ! Sänk Gott I am very intelligent and able to decode these complex English Enigmas !
letosvet1 A Damm isn't made from cobbles, but from sticks. The road was named after where it was leading. The Kurfürstendamm to the Kurfürst. The road to the church was named Goddamn.
@@u.z.9383 haha nice one ;) Damm it, unmasked again due to slender detail. I must to work better on my spy cover-story next time !
When the germans surrender to fieldmarschal Montgomery on the Luneburger Heide the german admiral Friedeburg said to Montgomery, we will rather surrender to the british than to the russians. Montgomery answered "well Germany should have thought of that before they started the war".
This is true, however its worth noting that Montgomery was famously pompous and arrogant.
@Herbert Norkus
Well, Germany did invade Belgium and France. So, a teeny weeny bit of guilt there, dontcha think?
@Herbert Norkus Wilson's 12 demands included a free Polish state, with access to the sea, and WWII started when Germany invaded Poland for the very land in mention. So I don't know, if you're gonna go around blaming everybody for starting WWII but Hitler, you should start with Wilson first.
Herbert Norkus
Versailles was actually a pretty lenient treaty given the circumstances. And given Germany’s actually harsh and unjust treaties with Russia and Romania.
@@adamkurowski1934 don't forget how glad poland was to join in the plundering of czechia together with the nazi germany. Poland the hyena of europe, always playing the victim card
That was a little funny. The idea of the jerry having his fingers crossed was the funny part.
wtf why cant the guy translate pancake?- PFANNKUCHEN!
Because in some regional dialects "Pfannkuchen" describes a pastry akin to a filled donut, while the flat, pan-fried kind is called "Eierkuchen".
I've just bought the 'At Last Smith and Jones - Volume 1' DVD as the result of watching this! Top stuff!
"It's 4pm honey, time to flatten Berlin."
The Big Jerry has his Fingers crossed hahahahah fkn funny im German by the way
Humor (done in the right way) can transcend history and culture, correct?
PS: I am Australian.
@@BadWebDiver yer absolutly Humor is the best thing in Life
@@SuperTimebandit Hmmm... Did you ever had real great sex...?
@@melchiorvonsternberg844 Ages ago lol
@@SuperTimebandit Na also mein Heinrich. Dann hast du ja Vergleichsmöglichkeiten, was so die besten Dinge sind, im Leben...
The German is now the old Father-In-Law in Not Going Out with Lee Mack...
Who's catch phrase is My God (or Mein Gott !! In German )
Kaiser Bill ?
Could he have promised never to beat England in penalties?
Mein Gott ! As the German General, the Actor who would later play Lucy's father Geoffrey in Not Going Out - his catchphrase? My God !!
Mont Gomery the Field Marshal on the Lunenburger Heath was never so shy.
Griff has captured his style perfectly here.
The plot twist got me good! 🤣🤣🤣
As a Dutch historian I approve this video.
It is historically accurate. Germans did not do it again.
...yet. 😉
@@yvettechevalier7089 They no longer have the military power to do so. The UK and France are the only real military powers in Europe now.
@@yvettechevalier7089 hahaha good point.
Making a proud man say he’s sorry is like trying to get a camel through the eye of a needle.
1:48 "There'll be a lot of geflattening going on"
I remember, all those years ago, asking my German teacher if 'Berlin Geflatten' was a real German statement :D Thanks for the upload
No... I would translate the meaning of "they want to flatten Berlin" as "Sie wollen Berlin gleichmachen" litterally meaning "to even out".
@A Koster @John Cornell The verb "gleichmachen" as such simply means to equalize or to make equal. In the given context, a speaker of German would always say: "Sie wollen Berlin DEM ERDBODEN gleichmachen." [To make level WITH THE GROUND] This is the idiomatically correct way to say it. A more colloquial variant would be: "Sie wollen Berlin PLATTMACHEN", with "platt" meaning "flat" (sic!). This is both shorter and closer to the original.
@@guesswho5122 Well yes, maybe that would be clearer, but in colloquial spoken German, just like in English, parts of a sentence can be ommitted where the context makes clear what a person is saying. And if a British army officer tells you they are threating to level (gleichmachen) Berlin... without saying "to the ground" I'm sure it would be clear due to context.
@@guesswho5122 See Google translate "gleichmachen"
NIEMALS!!!
That didn't count: the big Jerry 'ad 'is fingers crossed sir . Laughin' me 'ead off
My grandfather served in Soviet Artillery unit. He flattened Berlin as much as possible... After this he flattened very much Japan forces in Manchjuria and Korea... Also he didn't ask for apogize...
Good Lord, it's Geoffrey Whitehead from 'Not Going Out'!
So ridiculously funny. It s so childish and yet it is so funny.
Is the Nazi general Lucy's father in Not Going Out?
Oh, this is funny and will allways remain funny! A Dutchman (a neighbour country)... hahaa..
the german general is so well played by the actor
as a german i would have agreed with the "geflattening of Berlin" :-)
Agreed, nothing of value would get lost. Just a bunch of hipsters, chavs, Lebanese mobster clans, the entire political establishment and about 60.000.000.000 in debt.
@@marcelldavis4809 .... exactly
that´s also true @larsliamvilhelm
01:04: "Pfannkuchen". Of course, the treatment in the skit was even funnier.
Brits demanding from somebody else saying they are sorry for what they did is very funny :-D
@Lee Brown We did not.. The country as England was never really English until we saw the formations from the war of roses. The Normans and Germanic Anglo Saxons with the Nordic mix merging into the English with time.
"We will be forced to flatten Berlin."
"You mean you'll let the Soviets do it or do you intend to stab them in the back?"
Not so much on this channel but different TH-cam presentations downloaded by different people for different old shows, sometimes I see the picture as very tight, not the way a director would have wanted it framed. Does anybody have any opinion about this? Is it just my imagination? Thanks 🦉🌴🌞
Modern Videos are in 16:9 format, that is also the youtube standard. The other channels probably upload the old TV-Standard 4:3 without adjustments.
TH-cam does support 4:3 format videos, but i guess not everyone knows how to do it properly.
Or the 4:3 feature is new on youtube and all the videos that have been uploaded before the feature was implemented use 16:9
Ah , those sweet days on the Luneburger Heide.... I feel quite nostalgic about it.
Mantis python is the same it's half vertically the left side but but when you look at it, it's right
'How flat?' 'As flat as a hedgehog's flatmate'..
Scotts wouldn’t know a damn thing about surrendering
FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOM
Surrendering is just agreeing to take a break for them I hear... 😆
Yhhhhhhyyyhhhbhhhhhhhhhh byhhhybhbbhhhhhbhbyhbbbhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhbhhhh hhhhhhhhhbhbbhhhbbbbh bhbh
No but they'd know how to spell 'Scots' which is more than I can say for you. I assume you are from Australia or something?
This is the most humane thing ever :'D
'Humane'? That doesn't make sense.
@@markfox1545 Aww true, it makes sense in my language tho lol. I think proper translation would be "most human thing".
Very good, Rhys-Jones has got the 21st Army Group patch and everything.
"Sie würden Berlin plattmachen" would be the right term. "Pfannkuchen" is the right term for pencake, not "geschnittenkuchenbratentorte" (cuttedpieroastedcake???)...
thanks, I started laughing all over again.
@@SuperKSongz That wasn't the intention, I'm german.
@@vermilion7777 So am I, a Hartmann from Babylonian times, and the lessons learned handed down to me.
It's a joke about weirdly long german words for mundane things
@@alicev5496 This isn't really that weird. The only difference between the english language is, that we don't use spaces between longer word complexes.
But that's not that obvious in everyday speech, it's more a thing of official language and techical terms. Chamber of Agriculture would be Landwirtschaftskammer, but you could techically say Kammer der Landwirtschaft as well. It's quite awkward when english satire gives the impression that we would speak like that the whole time. In reality the amount of syllables between the german and the english language is almost identical, if you compare two analog sentences. I found this to be unneccessary in the context of this sketch. League of Gentlemen (Herr Lipp) is way more legit in their use of the german language, for instance.
It didn't work. There are even today still some Germans that are not sorry ...
another historic film from British Pathe, but colourised
This sketch isn't political, it's about the childishness of demanding an apology.
@william joyce Agreed.
Politics is the childishness of demanding an apology!
@Srithor like the big bang or your cat's litter box. damn politicians serving the establishment!
@Srithor zarthbacon is correct. It seems very petty after so much death
Not an opportunity for you to recite your history class
You say you're sorry for that remark, right now!
Y'know the thing about German humor?
It is no laughing matter.
I like Ottos' apology in A Fish Called Wanda
"I'm so very, very sss... FFF**K YOU!!!"
Could not keep his face straight while apologising!
This is exactly how it happened.
I think the Mitchell Web one with Admiral Doenitz (sp) is better.
0:58 lol, sounds like Jeremy Clarkson.
not even in the slightest
It sounds more like Attenborough than clarkson
Is this the actor that plays Lucys father in Not Going Out?
you know you probably right
Lee Macks father in law from Not Going Out is the german officer on left,other looks like Gareth Hale
And straight after I saw an ad for learning German.
Capitulation act was signed by German Iodle and USSR Susloparov plus American Y. Smith. There was also a witness from France. Limons were not detected.
This is a parody of Montgomery accepting the surrender of the German forces fighting against the British, Canadian and US troops in Germany at Luneberg Heath in May 1945. I believe it was Field Marshall Busch who turned up at Monty's command post to offer the surrender. As Eisenhower was the Commander in Chief of allied forces, Monty should not really have accepted the surrender himself, however he was very unhappy that he didn't get the top job himself and so he seized on the opportunity to make history and got the newsreel cameras in for the event.
German in the Titel:
Rosen sind rot
Veilchen sind blau
Diese Kommentarsektion ist jets Volkseigentum der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik!
Where is David Croft?
Only we can make fun out of this!!🤣
that is so great.
Great choice of actor...
The British officer with the beret, love the uniform, looks like he put his hand in a bag of military decorations and then attached them whether they were relevant or not
I think someone else said that the uniform and decorations were accurate for Montgomery.
Just looked up a couple of photos of Monty and you're right
still looks funny though
@@galexeqe It was Monty's trademark.
I'm very late on this one, but they got Monty's rank insignia wrong - by the time of the Luneberg Heath surrender, he'd been promoted to Field Marshal.
the scouser there to pull the germsn up on it
Is that John Bishop in the corner?
"Devil Industries are Gondor's fees in addition to the increases"
The subs are equally funny I'd say...
Is this WW1 or WW2? The joke seems to be about the Treaty of Versailles and the German unhappiness about Germany having to take the blame for the war, but they are wearing WW2 uniforms.
It is a joke about the German surrender to Montgomery (played by Jones - note the two badges on his beret, unique to Montgomery) in early May 1945. In actuality only the German forces of The Netherlands, Northern Germany, Denmark and Norway were surrendered there, but to make it simple they say "all".
@@duckling3615 The allies could've occupied Germany at the end of WW1. The reason they didn't advance further was simply because Germany surrendered and had no need.
Vladimir Kichev
Yeah, it wouldn’t even have been an invasion, simply a matter of marching. The allies only stopped before entering Germany because Germany sort of ceased to exist as a country. And the German Army kind of wasn’t a thing any more by November, so who exactly do you fight?
@@sebastiantiainen2749 That seems a bit far-fetched to me. If we look at the realities, then the advance on the Rhine would have been over for now. And whether the Entente troops could have advanced further would have been a question of the Spanish flu ...
@@dantecaputo2629 'Germany sort of ceased to exist' sounds about right for May 1945 but certainly not for November 1918. the kaiser abdicated and monarchic systems were abolished all over the place but that doesn't mean the system of government was dysfunctional. plus the armed forces considered itself 'unbeaten in the field' and the border in the east was settled by the outrageous treaty of Brest-Litovsk. the western allies couldn't contemplate to occupy Germany in 1918 for fear of having to fight a costly guerilla war without end
That's not German, they are speaking, that's ze Tomainian tongue!
Long live Tomainia
Un día explendida para la Humanidad y para vergüenza de los no aliados.
I died at "geflatten" 🤣
The History will repeat itself...
I copied and pasted this from Wikipedia, apparently a quote from the New York Times: "After lunch, Field Marshal Montgomery called the Germans back for further consultation, and there he delivered his ultimatum ... He told the Germans: "You must understand three things: Firstly, you must surrender to me unconditionally all the German forces in Holland, Friesen and the Frisian Islands and Heligoland and all other islands in Schleswig-Holstein and in Denmark. Secondly, when you have done that, I am prepared to discuss with you the implications of your surrender: how we will dispose of those surrendered troops, how we will occupy the surrendered territory, how we will deal with the civilians, and so forth. And my third point: If you do not agree to Point 1, the surrender, then I will go on with the war and I will be delighted to do so." Monty added, as an after-thought, "All your soldiers and civilians may be killed."
So that's basically the Geneva Convention against war crimes out of the window... if you threaten to kill all unarmed German civilians it is a war crime
@@clavichord
A total misreading of what Montgomery said.
@UCyyWtqMdLBQ6vzVCwPtrVQw
Montgomery was saying the obvious; unless the German forces surrendered the war in Northern Europe would continue and both soldiers and civilians would continue to die. He did not threaten to deliberately kill unarmed civilians as you state.
The Germans had already extensively bombed civilian targets in Poland and had flattened Rotterdam. Do you think they would have stopped at the English Channel? They didn't require provocation. Churchill had many faults but your assertion that he wanted the East End destroyed is beyond ridiculous - where is your evidence?
@@Wotsitorlabart Rotterdam doesn't excuse the far greater destruction by allied bombing raids in all of Axis-controlled Europe. Also no, your fears of germans advancing past the Narrow Sea are completely unfounded, Germany had no means to invade the British Isles and Hitler didn't want to destroy the British Empire, he only wanted Russia.
But the Russians already flattened it anyways😂
and stole all the watches.
"Sie wollen Berlin geflatten"
I see nothing wrong with statement . . . . . Ich habe Deutsche gelernt. 😄
Google translate seems to agree 😄 so it must be right 😄
geflatten gibt es NICHT lach
@@SuperTimebandit Warum?
@@colinp2238 this term does not exist in the german language. you would say something like "platt machen", "flach machen". "Geflatten" sounds like "flatmakening" or something equal in english. I Still love that line. Have a look at "nazi generals" from the same comedy-group.
@@SuperTimebandit Jetzt schon.
Is there are a Japanese version?
The ”Jawoole” General trying to exaggerate an accent, but having a thicker accent in German.
You think it's funny that they struggled to translate "pancake", but that's nothing in comparison to the "Pfannkuchen/Berliner/Kreppel/Krapfen/Eierkuchen"-discussion
German general: this cant get any worse
Nurumberg judge: guilty on all counts death by hanging
Insincerity in Apology for War Crimes committed during WWII might risk Berlin being Flattened like a Pancake , Again! 🕯 Yes , Sir Winston Churchill! 🌷🌿
What show is this from, please?
Alas Smith and Jones
It was unconditional which meant there were no conditions.
Jeez this is so funnyXXD Greets from Germany
*That was supreme HILARIOUS chunk of the British sense of humour !!!!* Congratulations .... I love it so much !!!!
The British Officer on the left looks like General Perceval.
is that adrian edmondson?
Berlin became a city of warehouses in 1945. Everyone was going around asking where's my house?
Brilliant humour.
Happy Christmas Geoffrey Whitehead y'all!
Best say no moor.
I didn't know that you can make Berlin flatter than it already is.
I understand the comedic impact of a translator but I would have thought that a German Staff General would have spoken very good English as Germans of that standing, in those days were probably educated at Oxford, Cambridge, Eton or Harrow.
It is common for a higher diplomatic level to have an interpreter even if they understand each other.
At one point the Field Marshall 'accidentally' speaks English in this sketch.
Pitty they never ask native speakers to play the roles of the Germans. We do have enough humour to do this and we find these comedies funny, too. I noticed there are lots of Russian war movies with native Germans playing the Germans.
They don't need Germans. Many Russians speak excellent German.
@@sebastianriemer1777 I can hear the difference and trust me, Russians can never speak German that properly unless they were born and raised in Germany. However, the Germans in Russian movies speak on mothertongue level. You can barely learn it like that as a non-native speaker.
It's funny because the british flattened Berlin and other german towns long before german capitulation. They called it strategic bombing
The real man did die. Soon after. As I recall, Alfred Jodl signed the instrument of surrender, and he was hanged by sentence of the IMT.
There was nothing to Jodl about then
@@clavichord Did Jodl know how to yodel?
@@fliegeroh Well, Jodl thought he could yodel... they hanged him shortly afterwards....
@@clavichord Afterwards, the western judges regret this. It wasn't not justified that much...
@@melchiorvonsternberg844 They regretted it, not due to a sense of justice, but because it doesn't look good in the history books... a bit like civilian target bombing, Churchill's wish to use chemical weapons and allied soldiers raping civilians or plundering shops in, for example Arnhem... it just doesn't look good... so.. hush, hush for 80 years