German Sprache aka speech in Polish films

My mum made me learn German as a kid. I could speak German (6 years old) before I got to know English (12 years old) . She was scared of Germans like hell and feared a new war and their return - she had lived through the WW2 occupation times as a small girl and witnessed some situations which taught her one thing: Poles could often escape death or imprisonment from the hands of Nazis if they were able to communicate with them in German.

A lot of Polish films used native German dubbing actors.

Check 4 Tankers and a Dog series - the episode Bet for Death. Germans capture the tank with its crew and offer them a deal - they have to ride in front of German anti tank cannons - if they manage to survive the shelling with a new type of explosives, they will be free. Poles agree and .... see for yourself.

Start watching from the POW scene at 44.25:

Du verfluchte Polen!!! :):):)

I forgot to add there is a funny transfer between films - Polish tankers are aided by a German officer who is in fact a Polish agent/mole. alluding to the main character in another WW2 series titled Stake Higher than Life.

The driver of the tank is Georgian but when Germans call him a Pole, he corroborates. Later he hears the Georgian war song while preparing for the mortal ride.

The average life expectancy of a tank crew in World War 2 was only 2 months on the russian side. I wonder if it's different today.

History likes to repeat itself but as a farce...
Alien, why didn`t you comment on German Sprache in the film? The actors are Polish and I suppose their voices are not dubbed coz I remember them from roles in other films. What is the quality of German they speak? I detect Polish accent in it.

Their German is grammatically correct but their Polish accent is very clear. I hope I'm better.

Absolutely correct, Alien!
In certain older Polish movies, especially from the forties, Polish actors were cast as Germans and spoke German properly but with horrible Polish pronunciation, on occasion, barely comprehensible to German speakers.

But it is quite impossible to speak German with such bad pronunciation that native Germans don`t understand you. It isn`t English after all.

I mean that certain of those Polish actors who spoke their lines in German had such faulty German accents that it was difficult to understand them if one were a native German speaker.

Frequently, people speaking a second language will be better understood by other foreigners, in this case Poles, than by those whose first language is being spoken by the foreigner in question.

I remember Polish acquaintances in Berlin speaking German with native Berliners and being told that their pronunciation was sometimes difficult to make out. However, the others at the table from different European countries seemed to understand the Poles perfectly:-)

I know what you meant but I still claim it was impossible. If there were any difficulties, they didn`t concern accent but the technical side of the film like bad quality sound. . :):)

The fact is that a person learning English will understand a foreigner speaking English more easily than a native speaker. It's probably the same in German.

How right you are, Alien.

Pole 1: Excuse me, mister! Are bathrooms for mixed people of both sex or only one at a time, please?
Pole 2: What you are talking, lady? Both sexes not allowed because we are only one!
American bystander: HUH?????

Translation: The first person wishes to know whether the restroom is a unisex stall and the second person replies that it's actually for men and women. The two Polish speakers understand one another's gobbledygook fluently.

Don't just get me started on LGBTQ or transgender:-)

LOL

Yes, it is time to show another film. :):):) This time the German Sprache is excellent - the producer probably hired native Eastern Germany speakers.

Neighbours - the 1969 film about the 3 September 1939 events in Bydgoszcz when Nazi saboteurs attacked Polish troops retreating through the city and in result German attackers as well as civilians were massacred by Poles. German propaganda called it Bloody Sunday and Nazis brutally retaliated on Poles when they captured the city.

Check these times when German Sprache occurs:
1:17:37 - decent German pastor surrenders to Polish troops.
1:39:01 - Germans converse about Poles. The pastor is spit on by a Nazi.
1:49:30 - German sabouters attack
2:08:15 - after capturing the city, Germans round up Poles in the square and select patriots for execution.

I see my link in the first post has been cancelled by youtube. Here is another one:
youtube.com/watch?v=vKRRppY-TCc

The comedy How I unleashed the 2 WW is a mine of German sprache. Here is the most famous example with a Gestapo officer unable to write down the Polish surname Brzęczyszczykiewicz

Mixed with Polish speech, of course.
A German soldier steps on the Polish partisan`s fingers who cries out in pain: Palce! (Fingers! )in Polish.
The German repeats: Panzer???
Other Germans are scared: Panzer???? hahahahaha

I have watched this scene hundreds of times and never cease to laugh.

Film Psy - Dogs. The time is after the collapse of the system. An ex communist secret service officer, a Pole, now a drug dealing gangster, meets his German rivals whose background is Eastern German Stasi secret service. They are discussing their drug business.

In German, of course.

In the Resistance Era film "Zakazane piosenki", the German
officers are naturally all played by Polish actors with thick Polish
accents! In one scene, a high-ranking Nazi whose plans to attack
Warsaw have been scuttled, exclaims, "Donnerwetter, verflixt nochmal!"
with such a heavy Polish pronunciation, the subtitles actually have to
appear phonetically below on the screen in order that viewers can understand
what is being saidLOL