Little Erna

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Klein Erna is the main character of the typical Hamburg Klein-Erna jokes . The figure goes back to the real person Erna Nissen.

Erna Nissen

Erna Nissen was born in Schleswig-Holstein at the beginning of the 20th century. Her family lived in Niebüll and Preetz . The first Klein-Erna anecdote goes back to a mishap of the young girl during a ship christening: When a boat was to be named "Klein Erna", the champagne bottle did not break. This story spread when the Nissen family moved to Hamburg in 1906. Erna's brothers joined the “ Alster-Piraten ” youth club and told the anecdote. Soon she and her club mates invented new Klein-Erna stories, also called Döntjes in Hamburg , which were told in Missingsch , a mixture of High and Low German. In 1958 Erna Nissen died in Upper Bavaria.

The writer Vera Möller (1911–1998) later collected many of the widespread Klein-Erna jokes, named the main character Erna Pumeier and published the stories she illustrated about the typical Hamburger Deern from 1938 in several episodes in book form.

Pattern of jokes

Little Erna jokes tend to have laconic punch lines. The jokes are structured according to different patterns. This should be illustrated with a few examples:

Naivety and ignorance

A large group of jokes flirted with the naivety and ignorance of the residents of Hamburg's Gängeviertel :

  • At Hagenbeck : "Little Erna, don't get that close to the polar bears - you've already had such a cold anyway!"
  • Mamma out of the window: "Little Erna, don't always pull the cat by the tail!" Little Erna: "I don't do that either. The cat always pulls, I just hold on to it! "
  • Little Erna once had an English friend [...] and the consequences cannot be avoided. - But you only lived the child for three days. Mamma: "Oh, little Erna, let's go, we wouldn't have understood it!"
  • Little Erna is sitting on the stairs with Fritze. The mother comes and asks: "What are you doing there again?" Says Fritze: "I'm just showing little Erna how to make children ..." The mother says: "Oh, I thought you were smoking again .. . "
  • Klein Erna lives in a 4-storey house on Eppendorfer Baum. One day the cellar screamed murder: "Mama, Mama, there is a man here!" "Yes, no, loat him!" "I will, but he will no'mal!"

The worth of man

The (dis) value of a person can be measured by the significance of his absence or his death:

  • Ms. Kripganz to Little Erna's mom: “How many children do you actually have?” Ms. Pumeier: “Five: Heini is a beer driver, Frieda goes to the factory, Maata is on duty, and little Bubi!” “But that's only four! "" No, I have five! Heini [...] Little Bubi - Oh sooo, Little Erna! The ischa has been in hospital for four weeks, have a look right away! "
  • On a nice, warm Sunday, Mamma, Little Erna and Little Bubi take a steamer from Landungsbrücken to Blankenese, Baden. And when they arrive in Blankenese, Mamma says to Little Erna: "Little Erna, where is Little Bubi !?" "He fell into water at Neumühlen !" "Stupid brat , say muscha!"

Pragmatism, hygiene

Life in the Gängeviertel was shaped by practical thinking:

  • Mamma: "Little Erna, come on, wash your feet, Mamma needs the kumme to Sala-at!"
  • Little boy is to relax with aunt Frieda in Schwaazenbek. When he needs to go to the toilet, he goes to Aunt Frieda and asks: “Where can I go here?” Aunt Frieda shows him the house with a heart in the door. [...] How little Bubi sits on a hole for kinners, there are always loud bums and sit down wherever little Bubi doesn't like it! And when he's finished, he goes to Aunt Frieda and says: "[...] so many Brummers, and they always sit down wherever I really don't like!" Aunt Frieda: "Don't go there either , but at noon between 12 and 2, then the Brummers are all in the kitchen! "

confusion

There is also no lack of confusion :

  • Little Erna goes for a walk in the dark with her Heini. And how they are in the area of ​​the Bismarck Monument and kissing bushes, Klein Erna says at once: "Hey, you know where I'm working on Blinddaam ?" "Oh yes, Klein Erna, show me!" Look, down there, where all the lights are on, there is the harbor hospital , that's where I'm working on Blinddaam! "

Culture

The Pumeiers go to the Thalia Theater and the opera , but only because of the subscription. In any case, the Pumeiers do not belong to the educated middle class. Various jokes prove this.

  • "I went back to the theater yesterday." "For pleasure?" "No - Abomang!"
  • "Are you also subscribed to the Thalja Theater?" "For years - don't look any more!"
  • “Yesterday I was in Theater: Faust . I think it's a memorial and put on a covered blouse. I go there: It's a pleasure! "

literature

  • Klein Erna - Very stupid Hamburg stories, retold and drawn by Vera Möller, published by Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg 1950, 3 volumes

Complement:

  • First edition: Hamburg 1938 -
  • First edition New series: Hamburg 1939/40 -
  • Edition in 3 volumes: Hamburg 1950 -
  • Edition in 5 volumes in a slipcase ("Now there are 5 in a bag"): Hamburg 1950 (Volume 5: 1964).
  • All of Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg.
  • New edition 2011: Klein Erna - Very stupid Hamburg stories. Retold and drawn by Vera Möller, published by Ellert & Richter Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8319-0447-1

filming

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmuth Thomsen: Materials on the genesis of "Klein Erna" . In: Walter Hävernick, Herbert Freudenthal (Hrsg.): Contributions to German folklore and antiquity . tape 7 . Museum of Hamburg History, 1962, ISSN  0408-8220 , p. 43-68 , 46 .