Stimmt. In meiner Heimatstadt waren britische Soldaten stationiert, und die wurden dort bis zu ihrem Abzug Mitte der 1990er immer noch "Tommys" genannt.

agree :-)

Wobei im Deutschem "Tommy" auch ganz allgemein für den Engländer (nicht nur Soldaten) stehen kann, oder?

Nun gut, bei Leuten, die es gerne etwas pauschaler haben, steht "der Tommy" mitunter in einer Reihe mit "dem Iwan" oder "den Amis, Türken, etc pp".

Hey, I remember an old "Tom and Jerry" cartoon made during the war
In this cartoon Tom played the Jerry, and Jerry played the Tommy... =D
Confusing, huh??..

@ Hakan: I think this is one URL which might suit you then - ever seen Donald Duck in a Nazi uniform? ;-)):

http://www.authentichistory.com/images/ww2/to...

It was the Duke of Wellington who coined the popular nickname Thomas (or Tommy) Atkins, for the ordinary soldier. In 1843, whilst Commander-in-Chief, he was asked to come up with a 'typical' soldier's name. Thinking back to his first campaign in the Low Countries in the 1790s he remembered a badly wounded, but stoical, soldier he had encountered - Thomas Atkins.

@ El Jerbo: ROTFL!

Hey, Thank you for the link! I know about some of these cartoons already, since I am an animation fan...
Have to D/L the full versions from somewhere, soon.. =D

As a matter of fact, the use of "Tommy" to mean a British soldier goes all the way back to the early 1800s, and is actually short for "Thomas Atkins." And who, one might ask, was Thomas Atkins to have his name immortalized in such fashion? Simple -- he was the British Army's equivalent of our "John Doe." Starting in 1815, British Army manuals and regulation books used "Thomas Atkins" as the example name, especially for privates, on most specimen forms. By the time they got through basic training, soldiers had seen the name "Thomas Atkins" a thousand times, and within a few years "Tommy Atkins" or just "Tommy" had been adopted in both military and civilian life as a synonym for "rank and file soldier."

http://www.word-detective.com/121603.html

@ Hakan: for a start, you might wish to try this URL; it is not the cartoon "The Fuehrer's Face" itself, but at least the theme of it (mp3):

http://tinyurl.com/ioex/ms/mus/derfface.mp3 on http://www.stelzriede.com/ms/html/sub/mshws.htm

The text can, however, be found here: http://www.ocap.ca/songs/fuehrers.html (Contains also a not-too-funny parody against the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as gouverneur, unfortunately.)

Also mein Biologielehrer nennt Briten immernoch "Tommys" und der sagt die würden das eigentlich auch mit Humor nehmen.

That's right Snow77, but why don't German people like it when we call them Krauts?

That's right Snow77, but why don't German people like it when we call them Krauts?

Weil es einen Unterschied zwischen Spitznamen gibt, die sich aus den Landesnamen (Ami, Oeschi...) oder anderen wertfreien Eigenschaften ableiten (Tommy), und solchen, die in herablassender oder beleidigender Weise Nationalitaeten nach einer (oft nur als typisch empfundenen) Eigenschaft charakterisieren (Krauts, Froschfresser, Inselaffen, Chaeskugler...).

Then why do you call Italians "Spahettifresse"???

Long ago that I heard Germans call us "Spaghettifresser". Belongs to a time when we were mainly regarded to be "Gastarbeiter".

@Mike: Tommy ist nicht despektierlich. Das geht als Kosename durch, ebenso wie Franzmann für einen Franzosen. Das deutsche Schimpfwort für einen Engländer lautet Inselaffe. Auch wenn Du es nicht glauben willst, aber dieser feine Unterschied besteht.

Wie weiter oben schon angedeutet ist Tommy wohl vergleichbar mit Jerry. Benutzen würde ich aber keinen der beiden Namen, und Franzmann auch nicht.