History Main / GratuitousGerman

* Music/ElliotGoldenthal is a well known modern classical composer that has worked for the soundtrack of many movies and has a sense of humor when he puts titles on the tracks of his albums. One of the tracks in the ''Film/BatmanForever'' soundtrack is "Fledermausmarschmusik". It's obvious what it means and what it sounds like.
** Another track in the same OST is named "Batterdammerung"

See also YiddishAsASecondLanguage, which is essentially German with a generous sprinkle of Hebrew.

* Happens quite a bit in the earlier ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}'' games, to accentuate the fact that the setting is meant to be a kind of faux-Renaissance Germany; TranslationConvention breaking for flavor. This is essentially thrown out the window from ''Atelier Iris'' onward.
** The main theme of ''VideoGame/AtelierIris3GrandPhantasm'' is called Schwarzweiß -Kiri No Mukou ni Tsunagaru Sekai- (Blackwhite -Worlds Connected Beyond the Mist-) and even mixes the opening and ending with ominous German chanting. ("Ich gieren! Ich morden!")

* Generally, German in Creator/MarvelComics is nothing short of abominable ("Eyige!" "Hurensohn!" "Vas der teufel?") - the first issue of the Ultimate imprint comic "ComicBook/TheUltimates" made for a nice change in that regard. '' "Mein Gott! Erschiesst es! [[KillHimAlready Erschiesst es doch endlich!]]" '' which is something you can imagine Franchise/CaptainAmerica must have heard an awful lot.

* In ''ComicBook/PowerGirl'' story ''Fanfic/AForceOfFour'', it's used by Paula Von Gunter when three Kryptonian criminals are burning [[Franchise/WonderWoman Paradise Island]] down.

->''"The entire ''Gestalt'' of the ''Weltanschauung'' of these former ''Wunderkinder'' was characterized by a certain ''gemütlich'' attitude toward each other's ''Schadenfreude''."''
[[labelnote:Translation]]''The entire ''shape'' of the ''worldview'' of these former ''prodigies'' was characterised by a certain 'cheerful'' attitude toward each others ''enjoyment of others' misfortune''''[[/labelnote]]

[[labelnote:Translation ''The entire ''shape'' of the ''worldview'' of these former ''prodigies'' was characterised by a certain 'cheerful'' attitude toward each others ''enjoyment of others' misfortune''''[[/labelnote]]

[[labelnote:Translation ''The entire ''shape'' of the ''worldview'' of these former ''prodigies'' was characterised by a certain 'cheerful'' attitude toward each others ''enjoyment of others' misfortune'''']][[/labelnote]]

* ''Film/TopSecret'' has quite some written Gratuitous German, for example, signs like "Der Pizza Haus" or "Das Fencen Switchen".
** Amusingly the first means pizza hut (even though it has a wrong article. It should be "Das Pizza Haus" or even more correct "Das Pizzahaus"), which is called just that in German too. The latter are just capitalized English words with a German ending tacked on.

* Music/TheFall "Ich rausum mach aus Bremen Nacht". From "Bremen Nacht" (duh). The singer varies the phrase a lot, but doesn't manage to get it grammatically correct (that he leaves German town Bremen, for which reason ever).

** ''Series/StargateSG1'': In the episode "1969", Daniel Jackson pretends to be a German archaeologist and has a conversation consisting of PoirotSpeak English and surprisingly good German. Normally, this would be realistic when an American tries to con another American, but Daniel is supposed to be a genius linguist...

* ''Series/TheXFiles'': has numerous examples of this trope. "Die Hand Die Verletzt" features a Satanic cult that inexplicably chants auf Deutsch during its ceremonies. "Unruhe" features a serial killer who taunts his victims in German. In this episode, we learn Scully learned German in college and she speaks a few phrases. Then there's "Triangle," a dream/fantasy episode which recasts the series villains as Nazis in a World War II setting.
** But in "Triangle" it was also averted. As stated in interviews on DVD the actors tried to speak German without American accent and to pronounce words with "ch" correctly. Listening to the American audio as a native German speaker you have to admit that they did their job very well.

* ''LightNovel/{{Kampfer}}''(in).

* German cars are a staple in Japanese tuning culture. Some Japanese tuning companies specialized in German brands have adopted German monikers, the most notable possibly being "Rauh Welt Begriff", the company of tuning icon Akira Nakai known for his wide body conversions for Porsche's 911 model series. A very generous translation of the name would be "rough world concept", but to native speakers it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Nor is it gramatically correct (it should be "Rauhe Welt").

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' has tons of these as the primary human faction is a FantasyCounterpartCulture to the Holy Roman Empire. For instance, most of the provinces of the Empire have extremely literal names in German, such as the northernmost province being called Nordland, the central province being called Middenland, the easternmost province being called Ostland, the southernmost territory being called Sudenland, the land with the biggest university being called Wissenland (literally Knowledgeland), and the richest land being called Reikland (Reik is undoubtedly just [[XtremeKoolLetterz a cooler way]] of spelling Reich, meaning "rich" or "empire" in German). Some places just straight-up have real German names, like Marienburg (which is strange, as the fictional Marienburg is supposed to be a Dutch-inspired city even though the real Marienburg was a German city).

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' has tons of these as the primary human faction is a FantasyCounterpartCulture to the Holy Roman Empire. For instance, most of the provinces of the Empire have extremely literal names in German, such as the northernmost province being called Nordland, the central province being called Middenland, the easternmost province being called Ostland, the southernmost territory being called Sudenland, the land with the biggest university being called Wissenland (literally Knowledgeland), and the richest land being called Reikland (Reik is undoubtedly just [[XtremeKoolLetterz a cooler way]] of spelling Reich, meaning "rich" or "empire" in German). Some places even just have straight-up real German names, like Marienburg (which is strange, as the fictional Marienburg is supposed to be a Dutch-inspired city even though the real Marienburg was a German city).

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' has tons of these as the primary human faction is a FantasyCounterpartCulture to the Holy Roman Empire. For instance, most of the provinces of the Empire have extremely literal names in German, such as the northernmost province being called Nordland, the central province being called Middenland, the easternmost province being called Ostland, the southernmost territory being called Sudenland, the land with the biggest university being called Wissenland (literally Knowledgeland), and the richest land being called Reikland (Reik is undoubtedly just [[XtremeKoolLetterz a cooler way]] of spelling Reich, meaning "rich" or "empire" in German). Some places even just have straight-up real German names, like Marienburg (which is strange, as the fictional Marienburg is supposed to be a Dutch-inspired city even though the real Marienburg is a German city).

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' has tons of these as the primary human faction is a FantasyCounterpartCulture to the Holy Roman Empire. For instance, most of the provinces of the Empire have extremely literal names in German, such as the northernmost province being called Nordland, the central province being called Middenland, the easternmost province being called Ostland, the southernmost territory being called Sudenland, the land with the biggest university being called Wissenland (literally Knowledgeland), and the richest land being called Reikland (Reik is undoubtedly just [[XtremeKoolLetterz a cooler way]] of spelling Reich, meaning "rich" or "empire" in German).

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' has tons of these as the primary human faction is a FantasyCounterpartCulture to the Holy Roman Empire. For instance, most of the provinces of the Empire have extremely literal names in German, such as the northernmost province being called Nordland, the central province being called Middenland, the easternmost province being called Ostland, the southernmost territory being called Sudenland, the land with the biggest university being called Wissenland (literally Knowledgeland), and the richest land being called Reikland (Reik is undoubtedly just [[XtremeKoolLetterz a cooler way]] of spelling Reich, meaning "rich" in German).

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' has tons of these as the primary human faction is a FantasyCounterpartCulture to the Holy Roman Empire. For instance, most of the Elector-States of the Empire have extremely literal names in German, such as the northernmost state being called Nordland, the central state being called Middenland, the easternmost name being called Ostland, the southernmost territory being called Sudenland, and the land with the biggest university being called Wissenland (literally Knowledgeland).

** ''LightNovel/FateZero'''s anime adaption also, especially the Rin-focused episode 10.

* In the English dub of ''LightNovel/InfiniteStratos'', the German team member (Laura) does this, fitting in better with her thick accent. The original [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent didn't bother]].

* ''[[LightNovel/{{Kampfer}} Kämpfer]]''(in).

* 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.
* In ''LightNovel/TheMysticArchivesOfDantalian'', 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.

** And ''Anime/WeissKreuz'', apparently mostly because Creator/TakehitoKoyasu thinks German is cool. The series group takes its name from the broken German for White Cross -- the grammatically correct version would either be "Weisses Kreuz" or "Weißkreuz", the German name for lachrymatory gasses used in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. The other rival groups are Schwarz (Black) and Schreient (misspelled, means screaming).

** Incidentally, the Japanese and Chinese names ''are'' legitimate German names, if you fix the mangling caused by Romanization; Das Abscheulich Ritter (Terror Incarnate) roughly means "The Detestable/Disgusting Knight", while Das Extremer Traurig Drachen (The Ultimate Nightmare) means "The Extremely Sad Dragons".

** Vortag Schlieber's name: Schlieber is not a German word whatsoever, while Vortag translates as ''Eve'' in English. And, no, it's not {{Played for Laughs}}.

* The German in ''Film/SkyCaptainAndTheWorldOfTomorrow'' is often a bit mangled. A particularly noticeable example is a button labeled with "Dringlichkeitsfreigabe", which then gets translated as "Emergency Release". It should be "Notfallfreigabe/-abkopplung/-entriegelung/-freisetzung".