The Rumor Doctor targets another bit of Marine Corps heritage
Stars & Stripes’ Rumor Doctor, Jeff Schogol chases down the origins of the moniker “Teufelshunde” bestowed on Marines during the First World War;
Indeed, a Marine Corps magazine, reported in April 1918 that Germans referred to Marines as “teufel hunden,” two months before Belleau Wood, according to Aquilina. The word “Teufelhunden” is a combination of the German words for “devil” and “dogs,” or “Teufel” and “Hunde.” But the possessive form of “Teufel” is “Teufels,” and the plural of “Hund” is “Hunde,” not “Hunden,” suggesting that whoever came up with the word wasn’t a native German speaker.
Uh-oh. You’d better read the whole thing.
Category: Military issues
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Rumor Doctor Gets It Wrong on Teufelhunden…
It’s good to have a smart man in the room, but sometimes the smartest man in the world is going to be wrong. Sometimes, research proves faulty or incomplete. With that said, I’m not going to attempt to identify who first used the term Teufelhunden or…
Could it be that they were speaking “Low German” which was more common among the masses rather “Hoch Deutsch”?? (High or Proper German) I have a friend fluent in German. I’ve sent him the link and we’ll see if he responds.
Thor, as demonstrated in “Perspectives,” the Germans didn’t get it wrong, the Rumor Doctor got it wrong.
It’s “Devil Dogs,” not the “Devil’s Dogs”
When used as an indirect object, the correct spelling is “Teufelhunden”
I’m not a linguist nor did I play one on TV, all that needs to be known is the Germans respected the tenacity, grit and markmanship of Marines and hated to face them. “Hey Diddle Diddle, Straight up the Middle.” Worked then, works now,every Marine a rifleman first…Semper Fi/Do or Die.
The correct word is “Teufelhunde” – unless, of course, some things are happening that we don’t know about.
The word “Teufelhunde” is a compound noun, as many German words are, by forming two separate nouns – der Teufel and der Hund. Forming this new compound word takes the feminine form, or “die Teufelhunde.”
The word “Teufelhunden” by itself does not tell us if it’s “Devil’s Dogs” or “Devil Dogs” because the noun “Teufel” takes the masculine article “der” in singular and the feminine article “die” when plural. The article is the only indication, in this case, when the noun “Teufel” takes the plural form since Germans don’t say “der Teufel” (singular) and “die Teufels” (plural). It’s “die Teufel” (no “s”) meaning “many devils”).
When we start talking about direct objects, we begin talking about the accusative case. If the term “Teufelhunden” were to be accurate, we would have to see that that word is used as an direct object. For example, “Wir kämpften gegen die Teufelhunden.” (We fought against the Devil Dogs.) The indirect object “Teufelhunde” takes a final “n” denoting the accusative case.
Alternatively, we could use the dative case which takes an indirect object. I could go into detail about that, but maybe another time.
We usually render it ??????? ?????? in Russian, if that helps. Y??h, I didn’t think so.
The rumor doctor is wrong. I just completed a book on Belleau wood, which cited letters from several Marines who said at the time (1918) that they were referred to as Devil dogs by their German prisoners. While the exact translation might be obscure, the gist is that they were called that by German prisoners.
Again, based upon the source, letters of WW1 Marines who were there, this guy is wrong.
Sounds like typical Marine behavior to me, making up some bullshit story to sound better to the civvies.