“Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’…”

THE ACTUAL ORIGINAL QUOTE: “When I hear ‘culture’...I unlock my Browning!.” (“Wenn ich Kultur höre...entsichere ich meinen Browning!”)                          Hanns Johst (1890-1978)        German playwright and Nazi SS officer          The commonly misquoted, misattributed line from Johst’s 1933 play Schlageter        This line from Schlageter, Johst’s patriotic homage to the German World War I “martyr” Albert Leo Schlageter, is most widely-known in misquoted paraphrase form, as “When [or Whenever] ever I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my gun.” The literal translation of the German words “Wenn ich Kultur höre...entsichere ich meinen Browning” is: “When I hear culture...I unlock my Browning.” The ellipsis in the sentence (...) is a pause written into the text by Johst, not an indication of missing text. Most English translations incorrectly use the word whenever in place of when and insert word before culture. In German, Wenn actually means when and wann immer means whenever. Since a Browning is a pistol and the word entsichere (unlock) refers to a gun’s safety catch, the line has also been translated as: “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’ I release the safety on my pistol!” Sometimes the word revolver is used in place of Browning or pistol. Versions of Johst’s original line have been attributed to Nazi leader Hermann Göring and occasionally to other Nazi officials, such as Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels. These and other top Nazis were indeed fans of the play Schlageter and apparently did quote Johst’s line. But Johst deserves the real credit — or blame — for the origin.

AN ANTI-FOODIE APPLICATION:               “When I hear the words ‘healthy eating,’ I reach for my pork chop.”        Dick Stein                        Jazz show host on Seattle radio station KNKX/KPLU        In a comment on the KPLU website in June 2014

A TECH NERD’S VIEW OF FASHION: “When I hear the word couture, I reach for my cyanide pill.”        A quip posted on the now defunct TechEye.com site

HENRY MILLER’S GENIUS VARIATION: “When I hear the word Culture I reach for my revolver. Remember that? So, too, when I hear the word Genius.”        Henry Miller (1891-1980)        American novelist and painter        In Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

GROUCHO’S VERSION: “When I hear the word culture I reach for my wallet!”        Attributed to Groucho Marx        American comedian, writer, stage, film, radio, and television performer        Attributed to Groucho in Urban History: Volume 22 (1995), published by Cambridge University Press

THE POSTMODERN VARIATION: “When I hear the word ‘postmodern’ I reach for the remote control. I want to change channels immediately, before I get instantaneously and totally bored.”        McKenzie Wark        Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at The New School in New York City        In his book Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events (1994)

THE PUKE BOWL VARIATION: “When I hear the word nobility I reach for the puke bowl.”        Maeve Kelly         Irish novelist, short-story writer and poet        Said by a character in Kelly’s novel Necessary Treasons (1985)

A WINE LOVER’S VERSION: “When I hear the word culture I don’t reach for an Uzi, I reach for a corkscrew and a bottle of venerable and well chilled sauterne. Viniculture. Noble rot, mutating nobler by the minute.”        Glenn O’Brien        American journalist        In an article included in his book Soapbox: Essays, Diatribes, Homilies and Screeds (1997)

A PRODUCER’S VIEW OF GOVERNMENT: “It is unlikely that the government reaches for a revolver when it hears the word culture. The more likely response is to search for a dictionary.”         David Glencross (1936-2007)        Television executive and producer for Britain’s ITV        Comment at the Royal Television Society conference on the future of television in November 1988        Quoted in the Oxford Essential Quotations Dictionary (1998)

A LOVE HATER’S VERSION: “When I hear the word love, I reach for my revolver.”        Gore Vidal (1925-2012)        American-born novelist, screenwriter and playwright        Quoted in the book S and M, Studies in Sadomasochism (1983), edited by Thomas S. Weinberg and G. W. Levi Kamel

QUIRKY, EDGY, INDEPENDENT FILMMAKER’S QUOTE: “‘Independent.’ I’m so sick of that word. I reach for my revolver when I hear the word ‘quirky.’ Or ‘edgy.’ Those words are now becoming labels that are slapped on products to sell them. Anyone who makes a film that is the film they want to make, and it is not defined by marketing analysis or a commercial enterprise, is independent.”        Jim Jarmusch        American movie director, producer, screenwriter and actor        Quoted in the “Personal Quotes” section of his bio on IMDB.com

STEPHEN HAWKING’S CAT QUIP: “When I hear of Schrödinger’s cat, I reach for my pistol.”        Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)        British theoretical physicist and cosmologist        A favorite Hawking quip that’s often mentioned in articles about him. It refers to Erwin Schrödinger’s famed “thought experiment” about a cat that is simultaneous dead and alive. The “Schrödinger’s cat” paradox highlights a problem inherent in certain aspects of quantum theory.

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