Hitler Has Only Got One Ball
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/* Variant stanzas about Nazis */
{{Cleanup|date=June 2007}}
{{Infobox Standard <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Songs -->
| title = Hitler has only got one ball
| english_title =
| comment =
| image =
| image_size =
| caption =
| writer = Unverified
| composer = Lieutenant F. J. Ricketts ([[Colonel Bogey March]])
| lyricist = Various
| published =
| written = Possibly August 1939
| language = English
| form = Propaganda ditty
| original_artist = Unverified
| recorded_by =
| performed_by = Numerous
}}
'''"Hitler has only got one ball"''' refers to the many variations on a set of lyrics to the popular "[[Colonel Bogey March]]". These are four-line lyrics making fun of the [[Nazism|Nazi]] leaders.
==Origin of the song==
In his [[autobiography]] ''Fringe Benefits'', well-connected [[Anglo-Irish]] gadabout and publicist Donough O'Brien claims the original was written by his father, Toby O'Brien, also a publicity agent, in August 1939 as British propaganda<ref>http://www.fringe-benefits.co.uk/frinfacs.html</ref>. This purported original version started with the words "[[Hermann Göring|Göring]] has only got one ball", and went on to imply that [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] had two small ones. In virtually all later versions, the positions are reversed. The statement that [[Heinrich Himmler|Himmler]] was "sim'lar" appears in all versions. The final line of this original and some later forms ends with the clever [[word play]] that [[Joseph Goebbels|Goebbels]] had "no balls". Both these variations argue strongly in favour of O'Brien's version being a very early version.
O'Brien's claims have not been substantiated, and no author has ever been identified for the more popular versions that begin "Hitler has only got one ball". There is no known attempt by anyone to claim or enforce a [[copyright]] on the lyrics. It is listed in the [[Roud Folk Song Index]], number 10493.
==Song lyrics==
All versions are sung to the tune of ''The Colonel Bogey March'':
* [http://www.ulujain.org/media/colonelbogeymarch.mid The Colonel Bogey March MIDI file]
===Claimed original version, credited to Toby O'Brien===
:Göring has only got one ball
:Hitler's [are] so very small
:Himmler's so very similar
:And Goebbels has no balls at all
This purported original version is interesting in that Göring has the one ball and Hitler apparently has two and that it starts with Göring. The musical comedy [[word play]] of rhyming Goebbels with "no balls" both argue in favour of this being a very early version.
===Variant stanzas about Nazis===
'''Variant number 1 (The most common variant)'''
: [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] has only got one [[Testicle|ball]],
: [[Hermann Göring|Göring]] has two but very small,
: [[Heinrich Himmler|Himmler]] is somewhat sim'lar,
: But poor old [[Joseph Goebbels|Goebbels]] has no balls at all.
(In line 3, "somewhat" was sometimes replaced by "rather". The first line may also be ''one left ball'', ''one brass ball'', ''one big ball''; approximately this version appears in [[Thomas Pynchon]]'s ''[[V.]]''. There is also an alternative to line 3: ''"[[Rudolf Hess|Hess]] has even less,"'')
'''Variant number 2'''
: Hitler has only got one ball,
: The other is on the kitchen wall,
: His mother, the dirty bugger,
: Chopped it off when he was a lad.
(Outside of the [[United Kingdom]], the second line is oft invoked as "The other is on the kitchen wall" or "The other is hanging on the wall". Some areas of the United Kingdom alter the second line to include local buildings. [[Manchester|Mancunians]] use "The other is in the [[Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall|Free Trade Hall]]", whereas Londoners use "the Albert Hall")
'''Variant Number 3'''
: Hitler has only got one ball,
: Rommel has two but very small,
: Himmler, has something similliar,
: But Montgomery has no balls at all.
Other variations include use of the past tense, referring to Goebbels as Doctor, Hitler's other ball being "on the wall", mixtures of the variants above, and Hitler's life being "much simpler if he didn't have any at all".
===Second verses: Hitler's mother===
When the first verse includes Hitler's mother, a second verse is generally added:
:She threw it over Germany,
:It landed in the deep blue sea,
:The fishes got out their dishes,
:And had scallops and bollocks for tea.
::or
:She threw it into a conker tree
:It missed and went into to the sea
:The fishes got out their dishes,
:And had scallops and bollocks for tea.
===Verses about Germany and Germans===
These verses mention neither Nazis nor Hitler:
:Frankfurt has only one beer hall,
:Stuttgart, die München all on call,
:Munich, vee lift our tunich,
:To show vee "Cherman" have no balls at all.
:Hans Otto is very short, not tall,
:And blotto, for drinking Singhai and Skol.
:A "Cherman", unlike Bruce Erwin,
:Because Hans Otto has no balls at all.
===Introductory verse===
(Sung to the tune of [[Land of Hope and Glory]], and followed by some variant of the Nazi verses, above.)
:Land of soap and water,
:Hitler's having a bath.
:Churchill's looking through the keyhole,
:Having a jolly good laugh
: ''Be..e..e..e..cause...''
:Hitler — has only [etc]
==The song in other media==
{{refimprove|date=August 2007}}
The song has frequently been heard and seen in other media.
*The lyrics were not sung during the famous Colonel Bogey March sequence in the 1957 film ''[[The Bridge on the River Kwai]]'' because they were considered too vulgar.
*The verse was obviously alluded to without actually using the words in episodes of ''[[It Ain't Half Hot Mum]]'' and ''[[Goodnight Sweetheart]]''. In the former, the Sergeant Major complained that the band at the last concert had played, he then hummed the tune of ''Colonel Bogey'', then he said "And we all know what the words to that are!". In an episode of the latter, a German officer sings the German lyrics.
*[[Thomas Pynchon]] quoted the words in his novel ''[[V.]]'' by putting them in the mouths of British artillerymen on [[Malta]].
*[[Bette Midler]] sang the lyrics in her concert film ''[[Divine Madness]]''.
*The lyrics were heard on the British TV [[situation comedy|sitcom]] ''[['Allo 'Allo!]]''
*The song is sung in the [[Czech Republic|Czech]] film ''[[Dark Blue World]]'' (2001).
*The lyrics were sung in the 1972 film adaptation of the [[John Knowles]] novel ''[[A Separate Peace]]'' (although they are not in the book, and the tune to which they are sung in the film is not the "Colonel Bogey March").
*A verse combining the first two lines of Variant 2 and the last two lines of Variant 1 appears in the 2000 [[Vertigo Comics|Vertigo]] miniseries ''Adventures in the Rifle Brigade'' by [[Garth Ennis]] and [[Carlos Ezquerra]]. The follow-on miniseries, ''Operation Bollock'', uses the missing testicle as a central plot device.
*The lyrics are alluded to in a 2003 advertisement for [[Spitfire Beer]] (the 'Bottle of Britain'), an English Ale. Hitler is shown photographed in full ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' Uniform with the caption 'Spot the ball'. The advertisement refers to print media ''[[spot the ball]]'' competitions in which readers were shown photographs of moments in football matches and asked to guess where the ball (which is edited out) would have been. See: [http://www.spitfireale.co.uk/advertising/press_ads/press2003.htm Spitfire site]
*In one of the 'Head-to-Head' dialogue sketches in the BBC comedy series ''[[Alas Smith and Jones]]'' Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones reminisce about the war and about the songs of the era. Smith sentimentally and poignantly sings the opening lines of "[[White Cliffs of Dover]]", and "[[We'll Meet Again]]", and then (to avoid lowering the tone) has to interrupt Jones when he begins to sing, "Hitler has only got one..."
*In an episode of the BBCTV comedy programme, ''[[2 Point 4 Children]]'' the grandmother character (played by Barbara Lott) mentions Goebbels in conversation with a friend and - when queried - points out that "he was the one with no balls at all, if you remember".
*In the [[United Kingdom|British]] radio series, ''[[The Bradshaws]]'', [[The Bradshaws#Alf|Alf]] taught [[The Bradshaws#Billy|Billy]] the song.
*The Hector Scott character (played by Donald Moffat) sings this ditty to Shirley MacLaine's character in the movie [[The Evening Star]] (1993).
*In the [['Allo 'Allo! (series 4)#Camp_Dance|Camp Dance]] episode of ''[['Allo 'Allo!]]'' where [[Captain Hans Geering|Captain Geering]] is disguised as a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[POW]] due to circumstances, he starts singing the first verse upon inspection by German officers so as to seem genuinely British and avoid detection, since he was illegally present in the POW camp.
*The main character of the 2003 movie [[Wondrous Oblivion]], a British teen who is the son of Jewish Holocaust survivors, sings this song for a friend.
*In [[Ricky Gervais]]' stand-up tour [[Fame]], he speaks about the version of the song which refers to the Albert Hall. He states that when he went to the Albert Hall he couldn't find it and he had even looked for it which is "suspicious". Gervais continues stating that "if I had that, I'd have it in the foyer. On a plinth. In an eggcup". He ends it by questioning why "His mother has got the other", which would mean Hitler had three.
==Did Hitler really have only one testicle?==
{{refimprove|date=August 2007}}
An alleged [[Death of Adolf Hitler|Soviet autopsy]] on Hitler's remains made shortly after the war claimed Hitler was [[monorchism|monorchic]], but most historians dismiss this reference as [[propaganda]]. This autopsy was only released around 1970. However, records show that he was wounded in 1916 during the [[Battle of the Somme]], and some sources describe his injury as a wound to the groin. Hitler's World War I company commander has said that a VD exam found that Hitler had only one testicle. Robert G.L. Waite in his book ''The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler'' (1978) accepts the accuracy of this evidence:
:Since the matter is of considerable importance to the psychological development of Hitler from infancy onward, let us pause here and come to grips with the problem of the Fuehrer's testicles. It can now be affirmed that the British [[Tommy Atkins|Tommies]] were right all along in the first line of their version of the Colonel Bogey March, they were although manifestly mistaken in the last—that is to say, unless [[Goebbels children|Goebbels' six children]] were the progeny of adoption, paternal surrogacy or some hitherto unconsidered, presumably unpalatable "Gott mit uns" form of divine intervention.
:The autopsy performed by the Red Army pathologists on Hitler's body... [produced clear] findings:
::The left testicle could not be found either in the scrotum or on the spermatic cord inside the inguinal canal, or in the small pelvis...
There was some discussion of this issue for several weeks in the letters column of the ''[[New Statesman]]'', a British magazine in the early 1970s, although all correspondents accepted the Soviet autopsy as valid. One claimed that British intelligence had discovered that Hitler was monorchic and written the song in an attempt to drive him even further round the bend than he was already, with some elaborate theories about how they might have discovered this. Others thought that it was sheer coincidence, and one even claimed that there had been a similar song sung about [[Napoleon]] (this may not be true). One pointed out that most English speakers would not pronounce "Goebbels" correctly (an approximate rhyme with "[[gerbil]]s"), they would pronounce it "Goballs", which suggests "no balls" and the rest would follow. (This correspondence came to a conclusion of sorts when one correspondent wrote a letter complaining about the conditions in which alleged illegal immigrants were being detained, adding that this was a more important issue than Hitler's balls.)
Unfortunately, the Soviet autopsy of Hitler cannot be accepted as authoritative. Hitler's death by suicide and the subsequent almost complete burning of his body would leave little for doctors to analyze — much less be able to focus on such a small body part. The autopsy is discussed in [[Ron Rosenbaum]]'s book ''[[Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil]]'' (1998). He concludes that it was fabricated, based on information from Hitler's doctor and recantations by the compilers of the published form of the report.
The DVD version of the TV series [[The World At War]] has an interview with the Russian doctor Lt. Col. Sherovski (spelling uncertain), who led the autopsy, who claims that they unexpectedly found one testicle missing. This interview would have been conducted in the early 1970s. The programme presents dental evidence that an autopsy really was conducted, but also shows that the findings may or may not have been distorted for political reasons. Furthermore, Sherovski specifically states Hitler was ''not'' shot in the head, but it is now [[Death_of_Adolf_Hitler#Ashes dumped in the Elbe river|known that he was]].
==See also==
*[[Discrediting tactics]]
*[[Nazi songs]]
*[[Propaganda]]
==References==
{{reflist|2}}
==External links==
* [http://www.ulujain.org/media/colonelbogeymarch.mid The Colonel Bogey March MIDI file]
*[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_128b.html Did Hitler have only one testicle?] from ''The Straight Dope''
*[http://www.britishsoldier.com/music.htm A British Soldier Remembers], songs and lyrics of [[World War II]]
*[http://weebls-stuff.com/toons/On+The+Moon+ep.2/ Weebls Stuff: On The Moon 2] Reference to Hitler's missing left testicle
{{Adolf Hitler}}
[[Category:1939 songs]]
[[Category:Adolf Hitler]]
[[Category:Comedy songs]]
[[Category:Folk songs]]
[[Category:Patriotic songs]]
[[Category:Propaganda examples]]
[[Category:Songs of World War II]]
[[ja:ヒトラーのキンタマ]]