SNAFU

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SNAFU is an acronym borrowed from the American soldier's language for Situation Normal, All Fucked Up or Situation normal, all fouled up (German for example: "Lage normal, alles im Arsch"). This corresponds to the expression “operation successful, patient dead”. A distinction must be made between the SNAFU state described in this way and the SNAFU principle leading to this state .

Origin of the term

The term originated in the US Army before or during World War II . Ex-soldier Don Taylor claims to have coined the term in 1941 while serving in the 160th Infantry Regiment at Camp San Luis Obispo , California. But it can only be proven from 1942, when Col. Frank Capra , commissioned by the Armed Forces Motion Picture Unit, invented a character named Private Snafu for the Army-Navy Screen Magazine . Between 1943 and 1945, 28 three to five minute black and white cartoons appeared under the title " Private Snafu " (one by MGM , one by Harman-Ising and 26 produced by Warner Bros .; 26 cartoons in the series are still preserved).

Descriptions of the SNAFU principle

In the Illuminatus trilogy! by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson , the so-called SNAFU principle plays a central role, which states that within hierarchies, superiors and subordinates specifically withhold important information from each other, which sooner or later creates total chaos ( Situation Normal, All Fucked Up ) . The intention of the superiors is to keep an information advantage over their subordinates , while the subordinates, in order to avoid difficulties, want to cover up their own mistakes and sometimes also their incompetence, or for the same reasons no honest feedback regarding the mistakes and incompetence of the superiors give. The unreflected application of the SNAFU principle is therefore the cause of the SNAFU state and thus the consequence of incompetence in the matter and in dealing with the incompetence.

In the book Der Phrasenprüfer about Wau Holland , the loss of information up to and including the lie "You only lie if the other person believes it" is reported as a result of hierarchical structures as an example of SNAFU experienced. The basis for this was formed by discussions held in 1999 at a security conference by Andreas Pfitzmann . The hierarchy referred to was that between the management of the companies and those responsible for IT security in the IT departments, who met in an extraordinary context (conference), which had led to the partial exposure of the SNAFU principle .

Media mentions of the SNAFU state

In the novel Die Leopardin (Jackdaws, 2001) by Ken Follett , which is about a British agent in occupied France in 1944, the term "total snafu" is used to mean "total debacle" when reporting on a failed commando operation.

In the US film Memphis Belle (1990), the term Snafu also occurs in one scene. In this, Snafu is explained by a bomber crew as the situation normal, all fucked up .

In the SF novel Die Lincoln-Jäger (The Lincoln Hunters, 1958) by Wilson Tucker , the term SNAFU is also used several times. The German translation (from 1984, Heyne Verlag ) notes on the first occurrence: “* SNAFU = acronym for SITUATION NORMAL; ALL FUCKED UP: Everything shit, your Elli. "

The seventh episode of the first season of the television series Marvel's Agent Carter bears the title "SNAFU" in the English original.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SNAFU - The original story ( Memento from April 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Daniel Kulla: The phrase checker: Scenes from the life of Wau Holland, co-founder of the Chaos Computer Club. Jungle World No. 9, February 18, 2004 ( online ).
  3. ↑ Wilson Tucker: The Lincoln Hunters. Heyne 06/4105, ISBN 3-453-31065-9 , German edition 1984, page 45.