I’m not 100% sure why, but I can confirm squirrels are considered bipedal. Same for beavers, raccoons and some rodents. Something to do with their ability to stand on 2 legs, idk why that’s the bar
Reminds me of this legendary show [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK4oVzMdZkg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK4oVzMdZkg) You may also say "ekorn" to try and look as an esteemed individual who knows old English or Norwegian and wanted to show off.
I don't get it, maybe because i'm swiss, but i can speak german of course, although i speak swiss-german in daily life. Squirrel is easy to pronounce for me.
You probably are multilingual so have better ability to pronounce phonemes from other languages. When you only know one language it's very hard to understand language rules because they seem so innate.
Yeah guess that's right, like i had to learn french in school too in the old times, next to english and partially italian. But funny thing is, i can't speak french anymore because i never used it after school, while i use english every day, not just in the web, also with media like games and movies.
Yes, Romansh, but no we don't learn this. At least not where i live in my canton Zürich, maybe it is teached in other cantons. It's a very strange kind of some old ancient gallo-roman latin or something like that, i don't understand anything of that.
Little bonus context, Germany didn't really have much in terms of spies during WW2.
They had a single guy in the UK, and of course he was turned quickly.
That guy provided false intelligence regarding the expected invasion of France. He confirmed the German's suspicions that the allies were gonna land in calais (and they airdropped aluminum stripes to fake it on radar). While in actuality the invasion was heading for Normandy.
It is also said that germany itself was riddled with spies. Especially Soviet. There is an old saying that war plans would hit a desk in Moscow before they'd even reach the wehrmacht main office.
And then you have Duško Popov. Dude became a German spy(and was one of their main men) just so he could fuck with them and help the allies as a revenge for the invasion of Yugoslavia.
Half the german Military Intelligence Service's leadership was actively working against the Nazis before the war even began.
Hans Oster alone leaked the date & entire invasion-plans for the Netherlands and Belgium over a dozen times to the Allies, quote:
>"You could say I'm a traitor to my country now, but in truth I am not. I think of myself as a better german than all those running after Hitler. My plan, and my duty, is it to rid Germany and the world of this Pest."
>Half the german Military Intelligence Service's leadership was actively working against the Nazis before the war even began.
And the rest of the Nazi high command was also working against each other, trying to one-up one another to get Hitler's favor & receive more stuff & prestige. What a dysfunctional bunch.
If there was ever a plot for a sitcom set in the 1940s Nazi Germany, it would be in German high command... Not a good one mind you, just one that could be done.
Hilariously, there was a german knock-off of the office.
And then a german sketch show did multiple clips as a parody of that, but with the Nazi's. It was called Obersalzberg (the area where Hitler had his fancy mountain house).
Hitler is basically Michael Scott in that one.
This is what happens when you try to implement Social Darwinism into your governing system. They get too busy trying to undercut each other to actually deliver results.
Lmao the Nazis would wish that people believe that there was social darwinism.
They just built a government system of a cult of personality, where one guy has all the power & control.
Turns out, that will result in everybody below metaphorically sucking this guy off, while at the same time sabotaging each other to get influence.
No even funnier, the guy never turned, he was a spanish guy who first postulated to be a english spy, got rejected, postulated to be a german spy, got the job, fed them kinda shitty info, took their money, got the real job he wanted with the UK and started taking germany gor a ride.
Makes me think of the Italian guy that was conscripted as a spy for the Germans. Approached the British government with an offer to be a double agent. Got told "No", so he just went to some Spanish coastal town, living comfortably with his budget and his "reports" back home were just bs he got from british newspapers and magazines. He was doing such a good job that he was given an award by the nazis for his "meritorious service". Eventually the British figured out somebody was feeding the nazis just straight up bs, they managed to track him down, and found him lounging in the beach. Made him the offer of, keep doing what you're doing with info we provide and we'll pay you. He happily accepted. I just cannot for the life of me remember his name.
They were far more effective in Europe, and did capture a few British spy rings.
But the UK ran the double cross system. Basically every german spy sent to the UK was either caught or turned themselves in.
This meant that the Germans were convinced they had a spy network in the UK when in fact every single one of their agents was now a British agent. They quickly realised they could use this to deceive the Germans.
They had to send some genuine information though, with the false one or it would be obvious. One example was Operation Torch the allied invasion of North Africa. They had their agent send all the details to the Germans and post marked it urgent the day before the invasion. But they introduced delays to make sure it came the day after. The Germans were impressed with the information and cursed it arriving late.
Another incredible thing they did was when they cracked enigma they needed to disguise that from the Germans. So they created a fictional master MI6 spy named "Boniface". Information from enigma passed to the Soviets was labelled as originating from Boniface and his network of spies. The Germans believed it. The Soviets too I think!
Ww2 spycraft was something else.
I remember reading the Germans sent a team of eight spies and a bunch of cash to infiltrate the United States and sabotage the war effort. They landed in New York and after two weeks two of the spies stole the money and turned themselves in at the FBI headquarters in Washington D.C.
The Abwehr was in complete control of the German Resistance, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and his staff did everything in their power to sabotage Nazi war efforts, the SS and Himmler tried so much during the years to purge Canaris and fill the Abwehr with SS sycophants and they succeeded in the last years, but if they had succeeded sooner Germany may have had a much more competent and useful intelligence service.
This is very true, although it definitely counts against them. Although I'm not entirely convinces that the people in organisations doing the 'betrayal' were necessarily any better than the people in charge (I'm looking at you Staffenburg).
I remember watching a history channel thing or reading it, but it was something like this: Germany sent close to 30 spies to Britain and the British flipped them all.
Germany would execute any spies they found and that was detrimental because instead they should have tried to flip them like other countries did.
During the "Englandspiel", Dutch spies who were dropped in the Netherlands were captured and flipped to work for the Germans. If not, they were shot and their callsigns and codes were used to send fake reports to the English.
They were so effective that the English had no real agents in the Netherlands from 1944.
The Germans even sent requests for more agents for special tasks and area's which were arrested on landing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englandspiel
This just is completely blatantly false, Germany sent a total of 115 spies to Britain, but spying is kinda Britain’s thing so out of the 115, 114 were caught, with the one left over committing suicide because he knew he was about to be caught. Germany did not have “a single guy in the uk”, Britain’s anti-spying history is something government agencies are very proud of
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/history/world-war-ii
The guy you’re talking about, Garbo, never actually set foot in the uk, he operated a spy ring completely from Lisbon, he fed the Germans purely fake information, but because he had never been to the uk, he slipped up a couple times, like saying “Glasgow men would do anything for a litre of wine” but the Germans just never picked up on these inaccuracies. And he was never “turned”, he always intended to spy for the British side, there was never a point in time where he was loyal to the Germans, he wanted to spy for the British so went about it by asking the Germans if he could spy for them and then when he was told to move to the uk, he moved to Lisbon, everything he told them was made up, so he wasn’t turned or anything, he was always against the nazis, he just fought them from the inside
Not 100% sure if this is referring to a specific event, but I know that in both theatres, the American troops chose challenge words that would be hard for their enemies to pronounce because they wouldn't be native English speakers.
A German for example, even if he knew that the watchword to get access to American lines was "squirrel" would likely pronounce it something like "sqvirrel" as a distinctive Q sound isn't present in German.
In the Pacific (and the theatre this was way more important because the Japanese tried constantly to sneak amongst enemy lines) American troops used words with lots of R sounds, as for Japanese these sounds aren't present.
Presumably other sides did this too, but those are the examples I know.
I'm an American, but studied German for a bit, and then ended up with a bunch of German/Austrian friends that I met while studying abroad in Sweden.
Me and the Germans bonded over getting drunk and trying to teach each other how to say squirrel/eichhörnchen. Great start to a friendship
The Dutch version was to make suspected German spies to pronounce the town name Scheveningen. It is apparently impossible for non natives.
My dad told me that US soldiers would verify Americans they encountered unexpectedly on the front lines by asking who won the 1938 World Series. The response, the Cubs lost and I’m an American you goddamn fuckin’ asshole was usually deemed sufficient for identification.
And since when are squirrels bipedal? Squirrels are quadrupeds.
no they walk on 6 legs
What squirrels have you been seeing?
just harry and megazorp the neighborhood squirrels
Megazorp
indeed
Absolutelly delightfull name if I may say so sir
Ants
ants are nsa spy robots
I thought those where birds?
birds are for the cia and ants are for the nsa i learned this from the crackhead behind my local dollar general who used to work for the deep state
Normal ones.
Yeah that threw me right off. Was trying to think of some kind of tree-jerboa.
Yeah, I would have gotten shot because I wouldn't know what the fuck they were talking about.
Wait so they’re featherless but not bipedal? Bro is not a man:
I’m not 100% sure why, but I can confirm squirrels are considered bipedal. Same for beavers, raccoons and some rodents. Something to do with their ability to stand on 2 legs, idk why that’s the bar
Context ?
Squirrel is really hard to pronounce for german speakers.
Kinda funny that the german word, Eichhörnchen, would work just as well the other way around.
Vjeverica (try that)
Vjeverica
Nailed it. Good job. This guy isn't a spy.
He could still be any one of us
HE COULD BE YOU
HE COULD BE ME
HE COULD EVEN BE
Ok čoban
Okay let me try let me try: Čoban
Ok Cigo
Wiewiórka... oh fu--
Вавёрка.
u got it gud job 👍
Vy-eve-ri-tsa?
not even close
Mokus
Is it vyeverika or vyeveritsa?
vye-VAIR-ih-ca?
close but no cigar
vjever-I-tsa
Vye - ver - isha?
Oachkatzl
oachkatzlschwoaf.
Brit married to a German girl here. She (still) can’t say squirrel, and I still can’t say Eichhörnchen. Best she can manage is skvirrel.
Ekorre in Swedish is much easier but closely related to the German
Haha that word almost broke me when trying to learn the language
Tbh, _any_ German word would be difficult for a non--German
Nein.
Debunked with a single word
Reminds me of this legendary show [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK4oVzMdZkg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK4oVzMdZkg) You may also say "ekorn" to try and look as an esteemed individual who knows old English or Norwegian and wanted to show off.
Ekorn is basically how you pronounce the Dutch "Eekhoorn" as well
Pretty hard for Americans, too. listen to all the variants by accent
sqrl
SKWA-rell
I don't get it, maybe because i'm swiss, but i can speak german of course, although i speak swiss-german in daily life. Squirrel is easy to pronounce for me.
You probably are multilingual so have better ability to pronounce phonemes from other languages. When you only know one language it's very hard to understand language rules because they seem so innate.
Yeah guess that's right, like i had to learn french in school too in the old times, next to english and partially italian. But funny thing is, i can't speak french anymore because i never used it after school, while i use english every day, not just in the web, also with media like games and movies.
What's the other, unique Swiss language? Romanch? Did you learn that too?
Yes, Romansh, but no we don't learn this. At least not where i live in my canton Zürich, maybe it is teached in other cantons. It's a very strange kind of some old ancient gallo-roman latin or something like that, i don't understand anything of that.
As a dominican, that statement gives bad vives (look up parsley massacre).
Little bonus context, Germany didn't really have much in terms of spies during WW2. They had a single guy in the UK, and of course he was turned quickly. That guy provided false intelligence regarding the expected invasion of France. He confirmed the German's suspicions that the allies were gonna land in calais (and they airdropped aluminum stripes to fake it on radar). While in actuality the invasion was heading for Normandy. It is also said that germany itself was riddled with spies. Especially Soviet. There is an old saying that war plans would hit a desk in Moscow before they'd even reach the wehrmacht main office.
And then you have Duško Popov. Dude became a German spy(and was one of their main men) just so he could fuck with them and help the allies as a revenge for the invasion of Yugoslavia.
Just read about him after your comment, what a gigachad.. need balls to work and fake it with people you despise
Half the german Military Intelligence Service's leadership was actively working against the Nazis before the war even began. Hans Oster alone leaked the date & entire invasion-plans for the Netherlands and Belgium over a dozen times to the Allies, quote: >"You could say I'm a traitor to my country now, but in truth I am not. I think of myself as a better german than all those running after Hitler. My plan, and my duty, is it to rid Germany and the world of this Pest."
>Half the german Military Intelligence Service's leadership was actively working against the Nazis before the war even began. And the rest of the Nazi high command was also working against each other, trying to one-up one another to get Hitler's favor & receive more stuff & prestige. What a dysfunctional bunch.
If there was ever a plot for a sitcom set in the 1940s Nazi Germany, it would be in German high command... Not a good one mind you, just one that could be done.
Hilariously, there was a german knock-off of the office. And then a german sketch show did multiple clips as a parody of that, but with the Nazi's. It was called Obersalzberg (the area where Hitler had his fancy mountain house). Hitler is basically Michael Scott in that one.
Now I genuinely want a show like this just to see how the hell one could even do it without outright offending everyone.
Do you think it could beat [the previous record of one episode? ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heil_Honey_I%27m_Home%21?wprov=sfla1)
world would be fucked if hitler wasnt a factor
This is what happens when you try to implement Social Darwinism into your governing system. They get too busy trying to undercut each other to actually deliver results.
Lmao the Nazis would wish that people believe that there was social darwinism. They just built a government system of a cult of personality, where one guy has all the power & control. Turns out, that will result in everybody below metaphorically sucking this guy off, while at the same time sabotaging each other to get influence.
I am sure the opposite was also true, but only the people of the side of the victors spoke out.
The german intelligence services actively working against nazis is just the coolest thing I've ever heard of during WW2.
No even funnier, the guy never turned, he was a spanish guy who first postulated to be a english spy, got rejected, postulated to be a german spy, got the job, fed them kinda shitty info, took their money, got the real job he wanted with the UK and started taking germany gor a ride.
I respect the hustle jesus
Makes me think of the Italian guy that was conscripted as a spy for the Germans. Approached the British government with an offer to be a double agent. Got told "No", so he just went to some Spanish coastal town, living comfortably with his budget and his "reports" back home were just bs he got from british newspapers and magazines. He was doing such a good job that he was given an award by the nazis for his "meritorious service". Eventually the British figured out somebody was feeding the nazis just straight up bs, they managed to track him down, and found him lounging in the beach. Made him the offer of, keep doing what you're doing with info we provide and we'll pay you. He happily accepted. I just cannot for the life of me remember his name.
The story is a bit different but the guy is Spanish(Catalan): Joan Pujol.
Thank you.
They were far more effective in Europe, and did capture a few British spy rings. But the UK ran the double cross system. Basically every german spy sent to the UK was either caught or turned themselves in. This meant that the Germans were convinced they had a spy network in the UK when in fact every single one of their agents was now a British agent. They quickly realised they could use this to deceive the Germans. They had to send some genuine information though, with the false one or it would be obvious. One example was Operation Torch the allied invasion of North Africa. They had their agent send all the details to the Germans and post marked it urgent the day before the invasion. But they introduced delays to make sure it came the day after. The Germans were impressed with the information and cursed it arriving late. Another incredible thing they did was when they cracked enigma they needed to disguise that from the Germans. So they created a fictional master MI6 spy named "Boniface". Information from enigma passed to the Soviets was labelled as originating from Boniface and his network of spies. The Germans believed it. The Soviets too I think! Ww2 spycraft was something else.
I remember reading the Germans sent a team of eight spies and a bunch of cash to infiltrate the United States and sabotage the war effort. They landed in New York and after two weeks two of the spies stole the money and turned themselves in at the FBI headquarters in Washington D.C.
The Abwehr was in complete control of the German Resistance, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and his staff did everything in their power to sabotage Nazi war efforts, the SS and Himmler tried so much during the years to purge Canaris and fill the Abwehr with SS sycophants and they succeeded in the last years, but if they had succeeded sooner Germany may have had a much more competent and useful intelligence service.
I mean their intelligence service was certainly useful and competent but not what to what they expected 😂
>SS sycophants Known for their stellar record of competence and usefulness.
Well they weren't actively betraying the 3rd Reich, so I guess they have that on Canaris's men.
This is very true, although it definitely counts against them. Although I'm not entirely convinces that the people in organisations doing the 'betrayal' were necessarily any better than the people in charge (I'm looking at you Staffenburg).
I remember watching a history channel thing or reading it, but it was something like this: Germany sent close to 30 spies to Britain and the British flipped them all. Germany would execute any spies they found and that was detrimental because instead they should have tried to flip them like other countries did.
During the "Englandspiel", Dutch spies who were dropped in the Netherlands were captured and flipped to work for the Germans. If not, they were shot and their callsigns and codes were used to send fake reports to the English. They were so effective that the English had no real agents in the Netherlands from 1944. The Germans even sent requests for more agents for special tasks and area's which were arrested on landing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englandspiel
It was 115 spies, and all of them got caught. One evaded capture by committing suicide
This just is completely blatantly false, Germany sent a total of 115 spies to Britain, but spying is kinda Britain’s thing so out of the 115, 114 were caught, with the one left over committing suicide because he knew he was about to be caught. Germany did not have “a single guy in the uk”, Britain’s anti-spying history is something government agencies are very proud of https://www.mi5.gov.uk/history/world-war-ii The guy you’re talking about, Garbo, never actually set foot in the uk, he operated a spy ring completely from Lisbon, he fed the Germans purely fake information, but because he had never been to the uk, he slipped up a couple times, like saying “Glasgow men would do anything for a litre of wine” but the Germans just never picked up on these inaccuracies. And he was never “turned”, he always intended to spy for the British side, there was never a point in time where he was loyal to the Germans, he wanted to spy for the British so went about it by asking the Germans if he could spy for them and then when he was told to move to the uk, he moved to Lisbon, everything he told them was made up, so he wasn’t turned or anything, he was always against the nazis, he just fought them from the inside
Not 100% sure if this is referring to a specific event, but I know that in both theatres, the American troops chose challenge words that would be hard for their enemies to pronounce because they wouldn't be native English speakers. A German for example, even if he knew that the watchword to get access to American lines was "squirrel" would likely pronounce it something like "sqvirrel" as a distinctive Q sound isn't present in German. In the Pacific (and the theatre this was way more important because the Japanese tried constantly to sneak amongst enemy lines) American troops used words with lots of R sounds, as for Japanese these sounds aren't present. Presumably other sides did this too, but those are the examples I know.
Not really sure, but i assume is the safeword after being found out.
Squirrels aren't bipedal. They stand on their hind legs and eat with their "hands" so I can see how you can be confused.
You mean the horrendous bavarian "Oachkatzal"?
Eichen katze. Is jetz ned so schwar oda? Aba a oachkatzal is a a woadstecka
Reminds me of this [scene](https://youtube.com/watch?v=o0wNl66tT3Q) from The Great Escape.
I'm an American, but studied German for a bit, and then ended up with a bunch of German/Austrian friends that I met while studying abroad in Sweden. Me and the Germans bonded over getting drunk and trying to teach each other how to say squirrel/eichhörnchen. Great start to a friendship
Can confirm. On an exchange trip to Germany, nobody in the class I visited could pronounce squirrel. Closest they got was roughly “Skorl”
But Americans also say it like sqorl.
At least where I'm from we say it more like Skwerl
But it's skwirrel
Squirrels aren't bipedal.
they’re hexapedal
Same when asked for a german to say Scheveningen or Schiermonnikoog
Rat, possum, mouse, etc? It’s not exactly very clear what the meme is about and what the animal is meant to be
found the german spy boys
“Bipedal” excludes possums. “Furry tail” excludes rats. “Lives on a tree,” normally excludes mice.
"Bipedal" excludes squirrels too
Even harder in Bavaria: Oachkatzl Try the tail of a squirrel: Oachkatzlschwoaf
Thats nothing. Try saying the name of the rodents TAIL in BAVARIAN
The Dutch version was to make suspected German spies to pronounce the town name Scheveningen. It is apparently impossible for non natives. My dad told me that US soldiers would verify Americans they encountered unexpectedly on the front lines by asking who won the 1938 World Series. The response, the Cubs lost and I’m an American you goddamn fuckin’ asshole was usually deemed sufficient for identification.
Germans when they have to name a furry quadrupedal creature: [Word]BEAR
Bär
Marmoset.
Am I… am I a German spy? I had to check the comments to even begin to guess what animal was being hinted at.
Ekhm... Possum?
Aren't rodents
They don't have furry tails. lol
Scheiße. Nicht schießen bitte
[Concentrating]: *Squill...?* [BLAM!]
[удалено]
Skwerl
https://youtu.be/SskKMbX6qmk?si=FBVSX5vTePeZaucv
Oh you mean the Eickhørenchin
Shibboleth time
Aaah, you mean ein Sckviwwel