Perhaps David Starkey is right and the Queen is a philistine. But as he churns out shows about monarchy, why trash the brand? He accuses the Queen of agreeing with Goebbels that ‘every time I hear the word "culture", I reach for my revolver’. So he will forgive me if I point out that the quotation wasn’t Goebbels’s. It originated with Nazi playwright Hanns Johst.
And if I may complete the corrections, it’s is said of Goring, not Goebbels, and it is not revolver, but "Browning".
If is, you see a pune*, a play on words.
*Pterry spelling: and yes, Browning the American poet and Browning the gun. Which is what Goring is said to have carried rather than a Luger.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Ludingtonian // Dec 23, 2007 at 1:22 pm
… Browning the American poet
(cough) ahem.
Tim adds: Browning the poet then?
2 The Englishman // Dec 23, 2007 at 1:43 pm
“Wenn ich Kultur höre … entsichere ich meinen Browning.” It comes from Hanns Johst’s most famous play, Schlageter (first performed in April 1933, for Hitler’s birthday) and occurs in Act 1, Scene 1. The character who says the line is called Thiemann.
http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/001764.html
3 Deadbeat Dad // Dec 23, 2007 at 10:11 pm
And it’s ‘Göring’, Tim (Goering also acceptable).
4 Jeff Wood // Dec 24, 2007 at 12:04 am
Thanks, Englishman. When I heard this first, as a boy in the 1960s, Goering was alleged to be the source, but always reached for his “gun”. Given that he would have carried an autoloader, my eyebrows rose when “revolver” came into now universal use. Pistol was always more convincing.
Given, too, Herman’s liking for a bit of art, even if it belonged to someone else, I am glad you have cleared the old brute of being a complete philistine.
Even memes mutate it seems.
Leave a Comment