History Main / GratuitousGerman

* The sole commercial album of American industrial act Fockewolf (itself a pun on the German aircraft manufacturer Focke-Wulf) is titled ''Die Toten Weg''("The Killing Path").

* Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling hired Creator/GoNagai to write the {{backstory}} of a soon to debut WrestlingMonster. The story goes that his name was to be Big Bang Vater(as in the [[AHeroToHisHometown original father of his village]]) but was mispronounced as the ([[WordSalad even more nonsense]])Wrestling/BigVanVader.

* A segment of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' imagines a talk show hosted by UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. The phone number to call in is, "One Eight-Hundred... DU WERDEST EINE KRANKENSCHWESTER BRAUCHEN!" The German part means, "You will need a nurse."

* In ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' Kurt, who comes from Germany, is one of the main characters. There are a few times when he slips German into his sentences, but he stops this early in the first season. As it's a longtime trait of his character, it's also present in ''WesternAnimation/XMen: The Animated Series'' and ''WesternAnimation/WolverineAndTheXMen''.

* In the [[LazyBum Sloth]] song for the Franchise/EvilliousChronicles "Deadly Sins Series," ''"Gift From The Princess Who Brought Sleep,"'' the word "Gift" is used over and over.[[labelnote:Spoilers]]In German, "Gift" means [[spoiler:"poison."]][[/labelnote]]

[[quoteright:300:[[Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Gratuitous_German_Negima.jpg]]]]

[[UsefulNotes/GermanLanguage German]] inserted into a work, whether it is necessary or not. Because after all, [[EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench Everything sounds Badass in German]].

* In ''VideoGame/MarioParty'' and ''VideoGame/MarioKart64'' (Japanese only), WordOfGod is that Wario's [[MemeticMutation infamous line]] "D'oh, I missed!" is actually a {{mondegreen}} for "So ein mist!", which is the German equivalent of "Aw, crap!"

[[UsefulNotes/GermanLanguage German]] inserted into a work, whether it is necessary or not.

German inserted into a work, whether it is necessary or not.

* ''VideoGame/GalaxyFrauleinYuna'' - German "Fräulein" (technically a diminutive of "Frau", woman or female title of address) being an obsolete address for an unmarried woman, and in this case a sort of AlternateCharacterReading for "{{ojousama}}".

In ''VideoGame/PurgatoryRPGMaker'', Neun says "du mein gute!", German for "oh my gosh!", when seeing the explosion that D-005 caused through its laser eye beam.

** Asuka in the Spanish dub is very fond of uttering phrases in Gratuitous German. In her introductory chapter from the Japanese original, when Shinji and Asuka [[Awesome/MechaAnime must open an Angel's mouth in order to make it swallow a battleship]], she says "Open, open, open!"; the dub, however, replaces it with "Öffnen, öffnen, öffnen!" . And just to [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar Get Crap Past the Radar]], she also loves exclaiming "Scheiße!".

[[quoteright:300:[[Manga/MahouSenseiNegima https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Gratuitous_German_Negima.jpg]]]]

* Music/{{Blur}} does this occasionally.

* Elliot from ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' speaks German, a fact that shows up in a few episodes, such as one with a German cancer patient; in fact, her German is way better than that of the "Germans", who speak hardly anything a German would accept as his native language. The actress, Sarah Chalke, actually ''is'' fluent in French and German.

* The ''Fanfic/NineteenEightyThreeDoomsdayStories'' for ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'' contains a nice helping of (largely translated) German. Given how most of the stories take place in Central Europe, it makes sense. Which makes the sudden appearance of [[spoiler:Gratuitious Hungarian]] deliberately jarring.

* The opening chapter of ''Manga/LitchiHikariClub'' consists almost entirely of German commands and exclamations in its first half.

* ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'':
** The series has this for Germany. He says "MEIN GOTT!" once and one of his {{Image Song}}s is titled "Einsamkeit" (Solitude).
** The dub takes this UpToEleven, some of which can overlap with BilingualBonus. In the episode where Britain and France are spreading nasty rumors about Germany, Britain tells Italy that Germany "hates [him] and thinks [he's] stupid." Italy goes over to Germany and asks if he hates him. Germany's response? "Lies. Actually... ich liebe dich," the German portion of which means "I love you." The {{shipp|ing}}ers rejoiced.
** Germany's mochi counterpart speaks entirely in German, as can be seen in the video at the bottom of [[http://www.hetarchive.net/scanlations/nonlinear.php?otyauke2 this]] page. While understandable, it's still obviously written by a non-native speaker.
** And then there's Prussia. His song with a title that no one really knows how to translate (the one from the "Ore-sama CD") contains many lines of badly pronounced and Google Translatorish German. "Über dem Rand" (over the edge, but as in "above the edge", not "falling over the edge" - the latter would be the accusative "Über de'''n''' Rand") is just the beginning.

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}''

* ''Manga/MiraiNikki'' is more into GratuitousEnglish (and ''lots'' of it), but for some reason, "eins, zwei, drei" occurs twice in the first opening theme. The subs just read "one, two, three" as they would for Japanese counting, so you have to be listening closely to notice.

* In Ep. 2 of the Anime version of ''LightNovel/MyriadColorsPhantomWorld'', Haruhiko explains us some alterations of the brains in the intro, with depiction of the brain lobes in German.

* [[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/73406/rainbow-in-the-dark Mecha calls Brownie a Dummkopf]] in the fic ''FanFic/RainbowInTheDark''. The [[WordOfGod author revealed]] that she uses German insults with her close friends and is said in a heartwarming way. Aside from that, she knows nothing of German.

* In ''FanFic/MyImmortal,'' Ebony and B'loody Mary watch "''Das'' [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas niteMARE b4 xmas]]".

* In ''FanFic/NobodyDies'', Unit 02's AI is named Zwei (the German numeral 2) since that Eva was built in Germany.

* The bits of griffon language we get in ''FanFic/HeartOfGoldFeathersOfSteel'' are all German.

* In ''LightNovel/BibliothecaMysticaDeDantalian'', while Dalian says ''[[GratuitousEnglish Yes]]'' and ''[[GratuitousEnglish No]]'', we have Rasiel who says ''Ja'' and ''Nein''. She even says ''Es ist das Ende'' (It is the end) in the anime.

** [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E11BurnsVerkaufenDerKraftwerk "Burns Verkaufen Der Kraftwerk"]] ("Burns Sells the Factory") in grammatically correct German would be "Burns verkauft das Kraftwerk".
*** That's probably because German words ending in ''-en'' [[RuleOfFunny just sound funnier to English speakers]] (which is also referenced in a brief "Germanglish" gag with Smithers in that same episode).
** [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E14DasBus "Das Bus"]] would be "Der Bus".
*** [[RuleOfFunny The former is supposed to be a pun]] on the movie ''Film/DasBoot''.
** And ''Uter'' is not a name. Not a German one. At least not in Western Europe.
** Oh, and Krusty's German-dubbed show in ''[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS20E14InTheNameOfTheGrandfather In The Name Of The Grandfather]]'':

--->'''Lisa:''' "Dad, do you know what Schadenfreude is? (...) It's a German term for 'shameful joy', taking pleasure in the suffering of others."
--->'''Homer:''' "Oh, come on Lisa. I'm just glad to see him fall flat on his butt! He's usually all happy and comfortable, and surrounded by loved ones, and it makes me feel...What's the opposite of that shameful joy thing of yours?
--->'''Lisa:''' "Sour grapes."
--->'''Homer:''' "Boy, those Germans have a word for everything."
** The only times ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' ever got spoken German correct (or close to it) was when Homer sang the original German version of Music/{{Nena}}'s "99 Red Balloons" (that was on the season 16 episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS16E17TheHeartbrokeKid "The Heartbroke Kid"]]) and when Lisa was going over the different conjugations for the German verb "to eat" on her German verb conjugation wheel (she left out "Du isst" ["you eat"] but everything else was correct) and Homer responds, "Ich bin hungrig!" (though Homer's pronunciation of "hungrig" sounded Americanized).
*** During the same episode, a German female backpacker calls [[TemporaryBulkChange the then-obese Bart]] a "strudel-sucking Globenheimer", which isn't even a real German word!

* The ending theme for ''LightNovel/YoujoSenki'' is in German.

* In the first full-length ComicBook/MortadeloyFilemon adventure, El Sulfato Atómico, the two titular heroes travles to what is essentially a parody of Nazi Germany, Tirania, under the yoke of dictator Präsident Bruteztrausen. The whole place is full of actual German signage and the locals alternate between proper German sentences and Spanish words ending in -en. In the German localisation they kept all the actual German intact, only modifying the parody words, although they renamed the villain to Brutalevic to make him seem Balkanic instead.

* The Panzer Kunst in ''[[Manga/{{Gunnm}} Battle Angel Alita]]'' is the main example, but not the only.

[[folder:Pro Wrestling (Profi-Ringen)]]