Hitler Has Only Got One Ball

Subject: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: LindsayInWales
Date: 13 May 04 - 08:42 AM

Last night on TV I was watching a documentary about the last 10 days of the life of Hitler in his bunker. It transpires that the Russians, who did an autopsy on the charred remains said to be that of Hitler found that the corpse had only one testicle ... and never allowed his medics to examine him during his lifetime ... so it looks like the songwriters may have been right after all ...

(sung to Colonel Bogey)

Hitler, has only got one ball
Rommel has two, but very small
Himmler, has got two simmler
But poor old Goebbels, has noebbels at all

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Sweetfia
Date: 13 May 04 - 09:11 AM

I like that!

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 13 May 04 - 09:13 AM

I remember it from childhood as Goering with two but very small.

The folk process - or a dodgy memory - strikes again

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Flash Company
Date: 13 May 04 - 09:26 AM

Max Miller Joke

Assistant runs across stage with dummy leg
Max-- Hitler's left leg! (Audience cheers)
Assistant runs across stage from other side with dummy leg
Max-- Hitler's right leg! (Audience cheers again)
Assistant runs across stage with a potato in each hand
When laughter has subsided- Max -- No, Lady, King Edwards!

FC

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 May 04 - 09:32 AM

During the second world war, due to this little ditty, Hitler's deficiency was discussed in the ' letters ' column of the Tmes no less.
eric

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 13 May 04 - 09:56 AM

Words by the late Hubert Gregg.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Brakn
Date: 13 May 04 - 10:05 AM

Hitler, has only got one ball
The other is in the Albert Hall
His mother, a dirty bugger
Took it from him when he was small

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 May 04 - 10:05 AM

Ein Volk, ein Ei, ein Führer

on the serious side: There is no indication (beyond rumours and a British book) that this is true. Since the same story has been told one and a half centuries before about Napoleon, we can take that as an indication that the British* like to rumour about sexual deficiencies of their respective enemies. Now, didn't I read lately about Saddam Osama...

Wolfgang

* this tendency isn't at all restricted to the British

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Cluin
Date: 13 May 04 - 11:43 AM

I've only got one ball too. That's all I need.

That and three clubs... a 3 iron, a 9 iron and a putter. I hit my one ball off the tee into the rough and by the time I fish 18 holes, I've got a whole bag full of balls I've found while looking for my Titlist 4.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 May 04 - 02:00 PM

Monorchid
JGM

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 May 04 - 02:35 PM

The hidden meaning in "One Meat Ball"

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST,Peter from Essex
Date: 13 May 04 - 03:17 PM

One of the few songs that I actually learned through the "folk process". Definitely Goering at my school.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: The Walrus
Date: 13 May 04 - 04:17 PM

My late Father had an earlier version.

The Great War lyrics to 'Colonel Bogey' seemed to consist of "Bollocks! - And the same to you" in various forms.

In the run up to WW2, my father learned a lyric to the intro which ran:
"Don't claw his eyes out Maggie
"Wait 'til you get him into bed
"Then claw his..."

Which then ran into the usual
"Bollocks! - And the same to you"

Perhaps 'Maggie' was the reason that "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball..."

Tom.

By the bye, I learned HHGOB with Goering as the second line subject, too.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 13 May 04 - 06:00 PM

I can't remember to whom this should be attributed, but with the recent release of the final part of "The Lord of the Rings":

Sauron, he's only got nine rings
Three are with the Elven Kings,
Seven in Dwarvish heaven,
And poor old Frodo 's
Got hold o' The One"


Nigel

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Joe_F
Date: 13 May 04 - 06:17 PM

I read the following story in what I recall seemed like a reliable place (si non e vero, e ben trovato): When Hitler was a boy, the family doctor was Jewish. When Hitler took power, he saw to it that the doctor got out safely, and he settled in New York City. During the war, when the story of Hitler's monorchidism (I think that's the word) was propagated via Col. Bogey & otherwise, the doctor was interviewed by the press and stated that, at least when young, Hitler had normal genitalia.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Gareth
Date: 13 May 04 - 07:06 PM

Oh my God, and raking my childhood memories _


Hitler has only got one ball,
Goerings are very very small,
Himler has something similar.
But poor old Geobels (SP) has no balls at all

Gareth

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Cluin
Date: 13 May 04 - 07:15 PM

Fine. This is how I remember it:

Hitler... has only got one ball!
Goering's... they say are awf'lly small
Himmler... is somewhat similar
And they say Goebbels
Has no balls
At all!

(but that's not really how you pronounce Goebbels, is it?)


Then of course there's

Whistle while you work
Hitler was a jerk
Mussolini
Bit his weenie
Then it wouldn't squirt!


Ah, those great historical lessons that stay with us.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Lighter
Date: 13 May 04 - 08:37 PM

When Oscar Brand recorded this on his 1963 LP "Cough!" he had four stanzas - two each for German and Italian leaders. He called it, somewhat imprecisely, "Enemy Generals on Parade."

How much of Brand's song was original with him I don't know. Some of those Italian leaders were pretty obscure by '63.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 14 May 04 - 04:45 AM

The version I learned at school (whatever happened to education since then?) was essentially the same as the one quoted by Brakn earlier in the thread, the main diference being we sang "Cartright Hall", which was a local museum, and the location of the missing item. I'll not quibble about a couple of minor variations in the precise wording.
Quack!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 14 May 04 - 05:29 AM

Cluin,

We sang; Whistle while you work
         Snowhite made a shirt
         Hitler wore it
         Goering tore it
         Whiste while you work

Then of course in 1945 it was:

       Vote vote vote for Clement Atlee
       Punch old Churchill in the Eye
       If it wasn't for the King
       We would do the bugger in
       .............?

to the tune of Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are marching, but I digress

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Flash Company
Date: 14 May 04 - 07:21 AM

A guy I used to work with had the Colenel Bogey Intro as:-

Don't throw the lamp at father
Wait till he gets in bed!

Can't think why, but there you go!

FC

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 14 May 04 - 08:22 AM

The way my brother and I sang it as kids was:

Hitler had but one big ball,
Goering had two, but they were small,
Himmler had something similar,
But poor Goebbels had no balls at all!

And to the same tune:

Vote for Wallace in '48,
Thurmond he stands for hate,
Dewey is really screwy,
And Truman ain't human of late!

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Pied Piper
Date: 14 May 04 - 08:34 AM

Hitler has only got one ball
The other is in the freetrade hall
His mother the dirty bugger
she sold it for three and four

As I was walking by St Paul's
A woman grabbed me by the elbow
She said you look a man of pluck
Come inside and have a ham sandwich
Twopence threpence sixpence a bob
All depends on the size of your appetite

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST,Jim Ward
Date: 14 May 04 - 08:42 AM

Here's how I remember it-

We are the night shit shifters
We shift shit by nigh-i-i-ght

Hitler- he's only got one ball
Goering- has two but very small
Himmler- has something similar
But poor old Goebbels (Goeballs), has no balls, at all

I've just looked in "Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major" (Martin Page- 1973)where there are three pages devoted to the origins of this song. It seems that Martin wrote to 'The New Statesman' after the Russian autopsy results were published asking how the author of the song could have known of Hitler's deficiancy. This became the subject of an intense, scholarly and lengthy debate conducted through the paper's correspondence columns through the spring of 1973.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: treewind
Date: 14 May 04 - 08:58 AM

Hooray! real folk songs at last:-)

A.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Pied Piper
Date: 14 May 04 - 10:23 AM

where d'ya live?
Down a grid
What street?
Pigs Feet
What Number?
Cucumber

somthin somthing Custard
Green snot pie
All mixed together
With a dead dogs eye
Put it in a toilet
Stir it with a stick
and all washed down
With a cold cop of sick

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Flash Company
Date: 14 May 04 - 10:28 AM

Pied Piper--

Some for a tanner, some for a bob,
It mainly depends on the size of you're gob!

These were tthe last two lines of the St Pauls verse as I knew it in the 1950's

FC

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Pied Piper
Date: 14 May 04 - 10:38 AM

Thats interesting having a rhyme at the end.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 May 04 - 10:48 AM

Arseholes are cheap today
Cheaper than yesterday
Little boys are half-a-crown
Standing up or lying down.

Oh how risque we thought those lyrics in childhood, and how non PC they are in retrospect.
JGM

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Joe_F
Date: 14 May 04 - 06:44 PM

Where was the engine-driver
When the boiler burst?

They found his ballocks
A thousand miles away,
Floating
Upon the Hudson Bay,
His arsehole
Was up a flagpole,
And his penis in [insert name of eating house you wish to insult]

Heard in Scotland, 1959

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: cobber
Date: 15 May 04 - 02:24 AM

Another digression - sorry! Reading a previous post reminded mje of
There once was a farmer who sat on a rock
Whistling a tune and abusing his
neighbouring farmer and watching the tricks
As he taught his wee children to play with their
Kites and their marbles as in days of yore
When along came a woman who looked like a
Decent young lady but walked like a duck
She said she was learning a new way to
Bring up her children and teach them to knit
While the boys in the farmyard were shovelling the
Contents of pigsties, the muck and the mire
The squire in the farmyard was pulling his
Horse from the stable to go to the hunt
His wife in the boudoir was pwdering her
Nose and arranging her vanity box
And taking precautions to ward off the
Gay young romantics who made her feel sick
Although she'd enjoyed her last dose of
What did you think I was going to say
No, you rude bastards! That's all for today,
The tune, of course, is "Sweet Violets"
Going back to the original, I remnember it well as a chilren's song for nasty little pre-pubescent boys in England not long after the war. I find it pretty incredible that there is any truth in it. Would you trust the Russian record to tell the truth about their greatest enemy?

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: darkriver
Date: 15 May 04 - 02:45 AM

The version quoted by Jim Ward a few posts above are exactly like the version quoted in Brendan Behan's prison memoir, Borstal Boy.

There was also a song similar to (though not the same as) the one quoted by Cobber. In fact, the book is full of songs like this--things that street kids, working class kids, and just plain thugs sang toward the end of WWII. Very musical book.

Doug

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Joe_F
Date: 15 May 04 - 07:15 PM

Cobber: See the DigiTrad & the forum under "Sweet Violets" for much, much more. Such songs are called "tease songs".

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: dianavan
Date: 16 May 04 - 02:21 AM

thats one more than Kerry.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 16 May 04 - 08:08 PM

OK---true tale. It is a fairly know fact/ legend. So--when I play tennis---prior to serving some always asks if I have 2 Balls (one nees both in tennis in case of a fault). If I don't I usually respond---NO--doing my Adolf imitation.


Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 16 May 04 - 08:21 PM

One of the lines above,:
Some for a tanner, some for a bob,
It mainly depends on the size of you're gob!
remind me of a version used for "Peggy O'Neill"


CHORUS: If her eyes are blue as skies,
That's Peggy O'Neil.
If she's smiling all the while,
That's Peggy O'Neil.
She may charge a tanner, she may charge a bob
It all depends on the size of your income.
Sweet personality,
Full of rascality,
That's Peggy O'Neil.


Also, Giok's quote:
Arseholes are cheap today
Cheaper than yesterday
Little boys are half-a-crown
Standing up or lying down.

I recall as:

Little boys are cheap today,
Cheaper than yesterday.
Small ones are half-a-crown.
Standing up, or lying down.
Bigger ones are three and six,
'Cos they've got bigger dicks.
But little boys are cheaper,
Cheaper today.
(TTTO : La Donna E Mobile)

Nigel

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 17 May 04 - 06:44 AM

Re La Donna E Mobile
To the same tune

Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay
Mae West had twins today
They sucked her tits away
Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay


From a miss spent childhood

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 17 May 04 - 07:25 AM

Couldn't you imagine it in the Berlin Bunker - "We're collecting for Hitler's last ball" - "How much is it ?" - "A cup of petrol each !"

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST,IanN
Date: 17 May 04 - 12:14 PM

From Dad's Army's legendary episode:

Pike (sings):
"Whistle while you work
Hitler is a twerp
He's half barmy
So's his army
Whistle while you work!"

German: "Your name too will go in the book. What is your name?"

Mainwaring: "Don't tell him Pike".

Fantastic.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Dickmac
Date: 17 May 04 - 03:19 PM

I recently heard about a couple who were founder members of the Burma Star Association and one of them saddly passed away. The coffin was carried out to the Colonel Bogey tune but there's no report of the congregation singing - that would have been a nice touch.

Subject: Colonel Bogey Was Right
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:17 PM

Hitler had only one ball

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Schantieman
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 03:24 PM

The version we used to sing (late '60s, N London) differed slightly from all those given above:

Hitler has only got one ball
Goering has got three but small
Himmler is very simmler
But poor Goebbels has no balls at all


And does anyone know whether there were any original words to that tune? Who was Colonel Bogey anyway?

Steve

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST,Jock
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 10:39 PM

"Colonel Bogey" was a famous marching tune played by military bands. I think it was one of the tunes whistled by the troops in the film "Bridge over the River Kwai (sp)". The troops often composed words to marching tunes, mostly derogatory of the enemy or authority, and sang them as they marched along. Hence the variations in the words, but the common theme.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 12:22 AM

---The "Colonel Bogey March" is a popular march that was written in 1914 by Lieutenant F. J. Ricketts (1881–1945), a British army bandmaster who later became director of music for the Royal Marines at Plymouth. Since at that time service personnel were not encouraged to have professional lives outside the armed forces, Ricketts published "Colonel Bogey" and his other compositions under the pseudonym Kenneth Alford. Supposedly, the tune was inspired by a military man and golfer who whistled a characteristic two-note phrase (a descending minor third interval) instead of shouting "Fore!". It is this descending interval which begins each line of the melody. The name "Colonel Bogey" began in the later 19th century as the imaginary "standard opponent" of the Colonel Bogey scoring system,[1] and by Edwardian times the Colonel had been adopted by the golfing world as the presiding spirit of the course.[2] Edwardian golfers on both sides of the Atlantic often played matches against "Colonel Bogey".[3] Bogey is now a golfing term meaning one over par.===
Wikipedia

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 12:49 AM

...troops often composed words to marching tunes, mostly derogatory of the enemy or authority...

It was reported that when one of the US Presidents was beginning his first term, the out-going predecessor recommended that he "pass the minutes" in ceremonies by creating his own words to the Presidential Anthem (Hail to the Chief). (Singing along, if only mentally, helps keep you from looking like you're asleep?) It was implied that the words would be a "personal secret" never to be revealed to anyone; but some years after leaving the office, as a former President, the subject once recited his "personal lyrics" in an interview.

It was not particularly favorable to a couple of (his own) Cabinet Members, a diplomat or two, and several Members of Congress, but was quite "singable" - - and pretty funny if you recognized the victims.

John

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 Nov 11 - 12:50 AM

At Hendon County School, mid·40s-early·50s, the intro was always sung as

"Where was the goalie when the ball went in the net?
Sitting on the crossbar with his trousers round his neck ~~

They found his bollocks &c"

This was so thruout my schooldays there. The fact that I eventually rose to the honourable position of 1st XI goalkeeper is purely adventitious.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST,Barmpot
Date: 09 Apr 15 - 12:01 PM

I remember this version:
"Slabber Dabber Custard,
Green Snot pie,
Dead Dog's giblets,
Cat's green eye

Spread it on a butty,
Nice and thick and
Swallow it down with
A cup of cold sick.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 09 Apr 15 - 01:09 PM

In Manchester late 60s
Hitler has only got one ball
the other is in the Free Trade Hall
His mother the dirty bugger
Nicked the other now he's got non at all

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Apr 15 - 01:43 PM

As far as the ordinary American aficionado of antediluvian films is concerned, "Colonel Bogey" is known solely as "the tune in 'The Bridge on the River Kwai.'"

Which reminds me of a childhood jest of that time (1957):

"Why did the little moron peel onions on the bridge? Because he wanted to see..."

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST,Barmpot
Date: 09 Apr 15 - 03:26 PM

My memory of this one:
"We are the Night Shite Shifters
Shifting Shite by Night
We love to shift your Shite by Night
We're Shifting Shite with all our might
'Cos Shifting Shite is our delight
We'll shift your Shite by Night"

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: BrendanB
Date: 09 Apr 15 - 04:12 PM

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST,Anne Marie
Date: 12 May 15 - 04:43 PM

Bit late in responding, I know, but Flash Company posted on 14/5/04 that someone had as his ringtone "Don't throw the lamp at father, wait till he gets in bed" and he didn't know why.
Well, the next line is: "then the lamp oil will oil the bedstead springs" to the tune of Colonel Bogey, Now, this has been on my mind today and I wanted to know the rest of this entertaining combination of comedy and economical household tips, so I Googled it and it returned only one result ( a Googlewhack, I believe) - on your site.
Can anyone supply further lines?
My mother, b. 1912, used to sing it.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Oct 17 - 08:59 AM

Dont throw the lamp at father - wait till he gets in bed then grab his matches and his old clay pipe

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Oct 17 - 09:08 AM

Didn't the Germans have any retaliatory ones? They presumably knew that Churchill was an alcoholic and Monty was homosexual, so they had plenty to go on.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 12 Oct 17 - 09:27 AM

The only version I have come across was on the rugby coach many years ago:-
Hitler has only got one ball,
One.... but very very small.
Himmler, has got one similar,
But Mussolini's got no balls at all.

The last line reflecting Mussolinis' part (or not part) in the Second World War.

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Severn
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 04:07 PM

I remember the song turning up in Thomas Pynchon's book "V".

My father used to sing something that I assumed came from the War to "Col. Bogey" that started out:

"Bullshit, will make the grass grow tall".....

....but that's all I remember. Can anyone add anything onto it? I always thought that it wasn't for a young son to inquirer about the rest.

I also remember an old ex-Major I worked with at a Post Office singing the first line of a song from time to time and never getting any further. It was to the tune of "Back Home InImdiana"

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Severn
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 04:13 PM

....(continued)

"When the ice is on the rice in Southern Hanshu (sp?)
And the Saki in the cellar starts to freeze ..."

Old partly senile Major Mike only ever got through that first line, but he'd sing it out a lot. Is there more to this one?

Subject: RE: Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Oct 17 - 09:07 AM

When the ice is on the rice in Southern Honshu
And the sake in the cellar starts to freeze
And you whisper "Sweet ojosan, I adore you"
Then you're getting just a skoshi Nipponese.

When you're dancing to the strains of "Tanko Bushi,"
And you're saying "Arigato," 'stead of please.
And you answer telephone with "moshi moshi"
I think maybe you are going Nipponese.

As you sit on the tatami sipping sake,
And the cold wind's whipping 'round your knees.
And you're munching on some gohan and osenbei,
Then you're surely getting taksan Nipponese

When you start spending yen like it was money,
'Stead of flinging it like paper in the breeze,
And think everything in English sounds so funny
Then, my lad, you're truly Nipponese.

VERSION II:

When the ice is on the rice in Southern Honshu
And the sake in the cellar starts to freeze
And you whisper to your josan, "I adore you"
Then you're getting just a skoshi Nipponese.

When your skipper [or "the colonel"] misses muster in the morning,
And the XO's got an undefined disease,
If the pilots are all medically restricted,
Then they're getting just a skoshi Nipponese.

When the benjos start to thaw in Asian springtime,
If the smell from them seems pleasant on the breeze,
It's time to write and tell your gal in San Francisco,
She's been replaced by your skoshi Nipponese.