Just read over two years of posts on this song and no one has quite hit the version I knew so I'll throw this into the mix. I learned this from my father--not at home, but in our Boy Scout troop, or actually, our Cub Scout Pack, when he was a Pack leader. This was in the late 1950s, in a town on Long Island, just outside New York City.

My father learned it in his Boy Scout troop when he was growing up in the Ridgewood section of Brooklyn/Queens in the 1920s/30s. He and most of his troop mates were of German origin so whether they were ridiculing their elders or celebrating their heritage is for more analytical minds than mine to decide.

There was a big fat German, his name was Dunderbeck,
And he was very fond of sauerkraut and speck.
He opened up a butcher shop, the worst you've ever seen,
And he invented and patented the sausage meat machine.

[chorus]
Oh, Dunderbeck, oh, Dunderbeck, how could you be so mean!
Why'd you invent the sausage meat machine?
The rats and dogs and pussy cats will never more be seen
'Cause they'll all be ground to sausage meat in the sausage meat machine.

One day a little boy came walking in the store
To buy a pound of sausage meat and eggs a half a score.
And while he was a waiting he whistled up a tune,
And the sausage meat began to hop and dance around the room.

[chorus]

Something was the matter, the machine it didn't work.
So Dunderbeck climbed into it to try and have a look.
His wife was having a nightmare, and walking in her sleep
She gave the crank a heck of a yank and Dunderbeck was meat.

[chorus]

A few notes and observations:
I'm not sure of the proper spelling of "speck" (German for bacon) but I know that we always sang it as "schpeck."

Most other versions say that Dunderbeck's shop was the "finest." This one says "worst" which seems more honest, considering.

I like the fact that it's a "little boy" who comes into the store while it's Dunderbeck who is described as "fat."   That it is a little boy who can animate the slaughtered sausage meat with his whistling seems a wonderful tribute to the power of music, even in the hands (or mouth, should I say) of one of the least powerful in society. And the alliterative quality of the line "And while he was a waiting he whistled up a tune" just knocks me out.

I also like that he's buying egg by the "score," (or "half a score" in this case). Who even knows what a score is these days?!! Unless you're parsing the Gettysburg Address it's not something you're likely to be familiar with. It's 20 of course, and half a score is 10. How very decimal of him. And when and by whom was it decided that eggs always had to come by the dozen?

Something that always bothered me tho--the flow of the story make you think that the last verse takes place during the day while the shop is open and Dunderbeck is serving customers. So what is Mrs. Dunderbeck doing sleeping and having a nightmare right then that she should go out sleepwalking in the middle of the day???   

I know, I know--I'm looking for too much logic and meaning in a simple, silly folk song. But this is the kind of thing you think about when you're an 8 or 9 year old kid trying to puzzle out the code, understand the significance of these wacky songs that the grownups are teaching you.

And finally, of course, I know that everyone is most partial and devoted to the version of the song that they learned when they were a kid from their father/grandfather/grandmother/great uncle/etc. And I make no claim of ultimate authority for my version of the song. It clearly wasn't the first version, and may not be the last. But I have my reasons for liking it.

Meanwhile, doesn't seem that anyone has been able to find a copy of "Our Own Boy's Songster," 1876, yet. I work near Library of Congress, will see if I can find the version they have there.

A. H. Haeberle