The Germans

"The Germans"

"The Germans" is the sixth episode of the BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. It is remembered for its line "Don't mention the war" and Cleese's "funny walk" when he is impersonating Adolf Hitler.

Plot

The episode starts with Basil and Sybil in the hospital, where Sybil is about to have an ingrowing toenail removed. Basil is not at all sympathetic to Sybil's problem – "I wish it was an ingrowing tongue" – and he claps his hands with glee when the doctor warns him that she will be in pain after the operation.

Chivvied out of the hospital by a bustling but efficient ward sister (who receives her own dose of Fawlty sardonic repartee: "Were you talking to me? I'm sorry, I thought there was a dog in here." and: "Why do they call you Sister, is it a term of endearment?"), Basil returns to the hotel where he begins to put up a moose's head, as instructed by Sybil. She rings to remind him of the task while he is trying to put it up, and he replies, growing more and more manic by the second, "I was just doing it, you stupid woman. I just put it down to come here and be reminded by you to do what I'm already doing. I mean, what is the point of reminding me to do what I'm already doing. I mean what is the bloody point, I'm doing it aren't I??". The moose head is then left on the front desk. While cleaning under the desk Manuel practises his English, and the bewildered Major hears him and thinks that it is the moose talking.

It is soon time for a scheduled fire drill. However, in fetching the fire alarm key from the safe, Basil sets off the hotel's burglar alarm, and then abuses guests who assume that the alarm is the fire drill and begin to evacuate. A protracted series of misunderstandings ensues while Basil tries to explain the difference between the bells, during which he tells them the latter is a semi-tone higher and demonstrates the two. Serving only to aggravate him further amid the confusion, again Sybil calls, this time to remind him about the fire drill, which the audience realises when, upon answering the phone Basil leaps up and down and screams "We're having it!!" before slamming down the receiver. The actual fire drill is finally held, but during the drill Manuel accidentally sets the kitchen on fire. However when he shouts "Fire!", Basil believes he is confused by the drill, and locks him in the burning room – "there is no fire, is only bell!"

Basil finally realises there is a fire – "I don't know how to say this, but... fire. Fire. F-f-f-f-f-fire. FIRE! FIRE!!!" – but he can't set off the alarm as he can't find the key. After cursing God he eventually sets it off by smashing the glass with the telephone receiver. He gets a fire extinguisher, managing to spray himself in the face before finally being smacked on the head by Manuel's frying pan. In a rage Basil prepares to punch him, but passes out before he does so. Suffering from concussion, he is taken to hospital, where we see him lying in bed while Sybil is sitting in a chair in the same room. He gradually remembers the recent events and decides he must get back to the hotel at once, insults the nursing sister who tries to manhandle him back into his bed – "Don't touch me! I don't know where you've been" – and tries to leave but is put back to bed by a doctor.

Basil feigns sleep until everyone leaves and then escapes from the hospital, arriving back at the hotel just in time to meet the German guests they have been expecting. The most famous section of all the 12 episodes takes up the last 10 minutes of this one.

Basil can't speak a word of German but is too proud to admit this to the first Germans he encounters, and when they tell him, "Wir wollen uns ein Auto mieten" (we want to hire a car), he thinks that they're "volunteering to go out to get some meat". He responds with "not necessary, vee haff meat here... in zer building!", reinforcing his message by pointing towards the kitchen, placing fingers against his head to simulate horns and going "Moooo!" to the obvious bewilderment of the Germans. He also uses charades to take another group of Germans through to the restaurant, to which the Germans reply in perfect English, "Can we help you?" Basil is shocked and taken aback by the fact they speak English. He warns everyone "Don't mention the war".

However Basil (who, for a change, is actually concussed rather than simply rude) manages to make reference to the war in almost every sentence he subsequently speaks to them. In between trying to chat to the German group light-heartedly, Basil subconsciously takes down their meal order incorrectly, (two eggs mayonnaises, a prawn cocktail, a pickled herring and four cold meat salads) reading it back to them as, respectively, "two egg mayonnaise, a prawn Goebbels, a Hermann Göring and four Colditz salads". One of the furious guests asks: "Would you please stop talking about the War?" "Me?? You started it!" replies an outraged Fawlty. "We did not start it!" insists the indignant German. Basil retorts "Yes you did, you invaded Poland!." Attempting to cheer up a German lady who has been literally brought to tears by the war references, he does an impression of Hitler (despite Polly's desperate attempts to have him do Jimmy Cagney instead) – "I'll do the funny walk" – and proceeds to Goose-Step across into the lobby and back, while yelling in Mock German and still wearing a bandage on his head. When told by one of the Germans that he isn't funny and is upsetting one of their party, Basil responds with "Not funny?... I'm trying to cheer her up, you stupid Kraut!" finishing by shouting that [they] "...have absolutely no sense of humour...!" and, with an air of inevitability, "Who won the bloody war anyway??"

Meanwhile, Polly has called the doctor, who arrives into the room to sedate Basil and return him to the hospital. After a short chase, during which Manuel is knocked senseless by Basil, Basil himself is knocked out when the moose head (which has finally been hung up on the wall, shoddily as it transpires) falls down on him, then ends up over Manuel's head. When Manuel moans "He hit me on the head!" the Major again assumes that the moose has spoken, and remonstrates with it, saying "No, you hit him on the head! You naughty moose!" and cuffing the moose's head lightly on the nose. The German group witnesses all this, and one of them, shaking his head in disbelief, asks the others rhetorically, "How ever did they win?"

Cultural impact

• In 2008, John Cleese confirmed that he has been learning German for a while and described himself as "speaking simple German fluently now." Referring to the Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans", he explained "Everybody thinks that was a joke about the Germans but they missed it. It was a joke about English attitudes to the war and the fact that some people were still hanging on to that rubbish."
• This episode popularised the phrase "don't mention the war". The Hitler impression has become infamous, and has been compared with the silly walk, also performed by John Cleese. Cleese turned the phrase into a song for the FIFA World Cup 2006, the first time Cleese has played Basil Fawlty in 27 years. The phrase was used as a title for a humorous travel book written by Stewart Ferris and Paul Bassett, detailing travels through Germany and other European countries. It is also the title of a book by John Ramsden, published in 2006, which examines Anglo-German relations since 1890 and a 2004 Radio 4 documentary looking at the British perception of Germans.
• This was the only episode from the series to be omitted when it was first aired in Germany, for reasons of cultural sensitivity. It has subsequently been shown there.
• This episode was voted as number 11 in Channel 4's One Hundred Greatest TV Moments in 1999.
• UKTV Gold, a channel that regularly shows Fawlty Towers, agrees that while The Germans is the most famous episode, the best episode is Communication Problems.

Connections and errors

• Andrew Sachs suffered burns to his entire arms whilst filming the sequence in the kitchen when Manuel caught fire. He had his arms in bandages for the rest of filming, and still bears scars to this day. This was the second occasion that Sachs was hurt via Fawlty Towers, having been seriously concussed by the frying pan-over-the-head routine in the climax of the episode "The Wedding Party".
• During the final seconds of the episode, when Basil makes his escape through the kitchen pursued by the doctor and nurse, a monitor displaying the scene is clearly visible through the dining room doors.
• During the fire drill when the ringing of the fire bell is supposed to be stopped by using the appropriate key, Basil (John Cleese) appears to ad-lib the action and very obviously misses the "keyhole".
• When Basil rants at the guests over the difference between the Fire Bell and the Burglar Alarm, shrieking that the Fire Bell is "... a semitone higher!!", this is in fact correct from a musical point of view, although both bells' sound and timbre are otherwise identical, rendering it laughable that he expects guests somehow to know the difference upon first hearing.

Cast

Episode Credited cast:

• John Cleese as Basil Fawlty
• Prunella Scales as Sybil Fawlty
• Andrew Sachs as Manuel
• Connie Booth as Polly Sherman
• Ballard Berkeley as Major Gowen
• Gilly Flower as Miss Abitha Tibbs
• Renee Roberts as Miss Ursula Gatsby
• Lisa Bergmayr as German Guest
• Willy Bowman as German Guest
• Brenda Cowling as Sister
• Claire Davenport as Miss Wilson
• Iris Fry as Mrs. Sharp
• Dan Gillian as German Guest
• Nick Kane as German Guest
• John Lawrence as Mr. Sharp
• Louis Mahoney as Doctor Finn

References

• Fawlty Towers: A Worshipper's Companion, Leo Publishing, ISBN 91-973661-8-8
• The Complete Fawlty Towers by John Cleese & Connie Booth (1988, Methuen, London) ISBN 0-413-18390-4 (the complete text)