Ostfriesenwitz
The Ostfriesenwitz belongs to the group of jokes about population groups, in this case the East Frisians living in northwest Germany .
The basic structure of these jokes is usually a simple question-and-answer scheme, which often asks about an alleged peculiarity of the East Frisians and the humor mostly comes at the expense of the supposedly stupid and / or primitive, low-level East Frisians; Often the East Frisians are described as farmers or rural populations, preferably as stupid, simple-minded coastal inhabitants. Many punch lines describe a failure of the East Frisians by taking a phrase or a word used in a figurative sense literally ( pun ). Occasionally the reverse case also occurs, in which the East Frisians are the smarter ones, with a population group from the southern German-speaking area usually being used for the opposite side. As a result, comedians like Otto Waalkes and Karl Dall , mostly according to a completely free scheme, told jokes with or about East Frisians.
In East Friesland itself, these jokes are mostly taken calmly. The positive effect of the greater awareness of the relatively small East Frisia is welcomed and recognized by those jokes, especially with regard to the relatively economically important tourism industry there. It is wrong, however, that the East Frisians invented these jokes themselves.
Since the East Frisians were also often abbreviated as Ossis at the time these jokes were made - until this term was also used for East Germans in the course of German reunification - one also spoke of Ossiwitz at that time .
Examples of typical East Frisian jokes
- Jokes in the typical question-and-answer scheme
- Why do East Frisians have a flat back of the head? - Because the toilet lid always falls on their heads when they drink water.
- Why do East Frisians take a stone and a box of matches to bed with them? They throw out the light with the stone, and with the matches they see whether they really hit.
- Why do East Frisians take a knife to the sea with them? - To set sail with it.
- Why do East Frisian police always take scissors with them when hunting down criminals? - To cut off the path of the crooks.
- How many East Frisians does it take to milk a cow? 24 - four people hold the four teats and 20 men lift the cow up and down.
- Why are the East Frisians hanging out the doors? - So that nobody can look through the keyhole.
- Why are the buses with the East Frisians 2.5 m long and 10 m wide? - Because everyone wants to sit in front.
- Pointe in favor of the East Frisians
- What do the East Frisians do at low tide? - You are selling building land to the Austrians.
- Other forms of East Frisian jokes
- Why are there ebbs and flows? - When the sea saw the East Frisians, it was so frightened that it fled. Now it comes back twice a day and see if they're still there.
- From Otto Waalkes' stage program : “The East Frisians and Bayern play soccer. A train passes nearby and whistles. The East Frisians think the game is over and go home. (Pause) Half an hour later, Bayern's first goal is scored. "
- With the East Frisian handstand you stand on your palms. Feet and legs stay down. Everyone can do a perfect handstand with their knees bent.
History of the East Frisian joke
The type of East Frisian joke came into being at the end of the 1960s and triggered one of the first big, nationwide jokes in Germany. The history of the origins of the East Frisian joke is relatively well known, unlike jokes about other population groups. The grammar school in Westerstede in Ammerland , a neighboring region of East Frisia, was and is also attended by East Frisian students. As in many other neighboring regions, there is often teasing and teasing between the populations of East Friesland and Ammerland. At the aforementioned grammar school, these culminated in 1968 and 1969 in a series published by the student Borwin Bandelow in the school newspaper “Der Trompeter” called “From Research and Teaching”. In this the so-called "Homo Ostfrisiensis" was caricatured as clumsy and stupid. Wiard Raveling , himself an East Frisian and teacher at this grammar school, published in 1993 the "History of East Frisian Jokes" in book form.
The series in the school newspaper was followed by a wave of jokes that quickly spread in the region and throughout Germany. Media such as the Stern or the Spiegel reported on the strange neighborhood disputes between East Frisians and Ammerländer - and spread the jokes on the side. These were soon adapted to the scheme of the Polish jokes that had appeared shortly before in the USA in the 1960s and numerous variants, including jokes about other population groups, were adopted.
In 1971 the East Frisian humorist and chansonnier Hannes Flesner released several long-playing records with the then new East Frisian jokes ( East Frisia, how it laughs and sings ). Later, the two comedians from East Frisia, Otto Waalkes and Karl Dall, built their careers on the East Frisian jokes or the cliché about the East Frisians and their country. Later waves of jokes, such as those about Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Manta drivers in the 1980s or about blondes in the 1990s , partly took over the structure and content of the East Frisian jokes .
Individual evidence
- ^ Wiard Raveling: The history of the East Frisian jokes, Verlag Schuster Leer, 1993, ISBN 3-7963-0295-5
- ↑ Lena Wendte (2009). Where the flat guys live. Spiegel (accessed May 13, 2010)
- ↑ Pretty cows . In: Der Spiegel . No. 31 , 1971, p. 60 ( online - 26 July 1971 ).
