I've read plenty of POW memoirs and this line regularly comes up, allegedly spoken by a German guard - "You people think I know damn NOTHING, let me tell you I know damn ALL". Plenty of variants in the phrasing as you can imagine, but I've had it attributed to different Commandants in WW1, plenty of senior camp officers in WW2 and my latest read (Up and Under-Gwyn Martin) claims it was uttered by Glemnitz following the discovery of tunnel 'Tom' in Stalag Luft 3. What sticks in my mind is that all of the accounts claim to have heard this first hand. Is anybody else aware of this line?
Apart from showing its huge popularity in a slightly-different form, this simple search suggests that it originated from Paul Brickhill's original book of The Great Escape - but, apparently, didn't then make it into the film version. Steve
Cheers, looks like one of those stories that just got repeated down the line and ended up in the memoirs. As I and Bobby W said further up, it’s been knocking around since WW1 accounts so who knows if it was ever actually said. The WW1 memoirs got re-issued in penguin paperbacks around 1940 so would have been readily available for the chaps that ended up in the WW2 camps.
One O.R. account I've read describes the excitement at the Italian armistice and the (so they thought) imminent return home to wives and girlfriends . "And the second thing I'll do is take off my pack" What the first thing was is left to the imagination ....
Quality, I hadn't realized there were quite a few of these until I started thinking about it more. Another one oft repeated is the airman who got a letter from his fiancée saying she was calling off the engagement and had grown rather fond of his father, so had married him instead, then signed it off 'mother'.
Interesting thread! I think in one of the volumes of his autobiography David Niven attributes the line to a (non-English speaking) film director in the 30s, can't recall who. Michael Curtiz?
Hmm, even later still but as covered by “You think I know f nothing ” Stuff I Done Wrote - The Michael A. Charles Online Presence ?
Looks like it’s even more widespread than I’d first thought! I’ve seen the film Cruel Sea, not read the book yet though. Cheers for trawling through for other examples!
Cheers back at ya but, just to clarify, I was last simply replying to Pat, re which Niven tome, but incidentally glad to have also drawn your attention to a like-minded researcher who seems to have gotten further with this conundrum than we - though still seeming not to have considered your WW1 angle unless I'm being blinder than my new hemianopic norm !
From memory I’m sure it’s in either the Evans or Cartwright memoirs, definitely a big seller anyway. There were twins who ran a couple of camps and they garnered bad reputations. Apparently they had spent time in America and were keen to show off their knowledge.... The Turkish use is in Road to Endor I believe.
Russell Braddon's The Siege has some choice examples of mangled English by Turkish guards. An officer gave his name and home to the Turks as "Henry Curtis, Hants," and the Turks wrote it down as Henry Curseithants. An officer named Sir Robert Paul was always miscalled Sir Rubber Ball.
Sorry but that sounds dreadfully like unverified hearsay with that caveat. Having just separately scoured The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Road to En-Dor, by Elias Henry Jones for both "damn" and "know", I failed to find any such reference. And I did pay extra attention around wherever I spotted the word "Commandant". Looks like an interesting read though - much amused by Bones' 'borrowing' of The Pimple's list of super-secret questions in Chapter 13 for instance.
I love a Caveat! I've got very few Turkish accounts in my collection and not read them for years, so took a punt assuming Robert w would put me on the straight and narrow if my memory had let me down. I did a lot of social history modules at Uni, so the focus was on the broader experience rather than specific detail. Definitely a short coming in this forum, i'll freely acknowledge!
