As told to me by the late Nick Pollatta, at breakfast on GenCon weekend back when it was still being held in Milwaukee, as he was staying at the house of my friend Paul, as was I.
Nick and his friends were driving to Origins, the national miniatures gaming convention, which was held in Baltimore at that time. Along the way, one of them began to whistle the familiar march from “The Bridge over the River Kwai”, also known as “The Colonel Bogey March”. (The march starts playing at 0:31)
When they were done, one of his friends said: “You do know there are words to that, don’t you?”
No, they didn’t.
During WW II, Allied soldiers applied lyrics to the popular march tune that ridiculed the Nazi High Command, in particular, their genitalia. It was why the soldiers were whistling the tune, so as to insult the Nazi allies of the Japanese without them even knowing it. The words went something like this:
“Hitler had only one big ball,
Goering had two but they were small.
Himmler had something sim’lar
And Goebels had no balls at all.”
A very amusing bit of military trivia, to be sure.
Well, along the way into Baltimore, they missed their exit, so they left the Interstate at the next exit, pulled off to park on a side street and started checking out their map. It was only then that one of them looked out the window and discovered where they were parked.
It was something, Nick said, that if it were written into a novel, would be so impossible that no one would believe it.
They were parked directly in front of the national headquarters of the American Nazi Party.
Given the means and the opportunity, they broke out singing the lyrics at the top of their voices. After about two or three repetitions, a window opened on an upper story, someone looked out, and then the window slammed shut.
“Gentlemen, I believe we’ve outstayed our welcome.”
Later, when they arrived at Origins, they walked in, all whistling the march.
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