Guido Fawked – Nazi Translation Howler

Following the generally well received Labour conference speech of Mil the Younger yesterday, many in the party were clearly cheered by what was seen as a potential Prime Minister stepping up to the plate and demonstrating that he was more than just a policy wonk with a liking for New And Often Big Words. Some MPs got a little over-enthusiastic, Barnsley’s Dan Jarvis being one.

You'll have to speak up, it's a bit noisy in here

However, what Jarvis wrote – “One Leader, One Party, One Nation” – was not quite, as a number of right-wingers believed, an echo of the Third Reich. But this did not deter the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, tame gofer to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, from calling “National Socialism” and applying his own cod translation in support.

Of course my translation's right, cos I'm on telly!

While Jarvis changed the headline to “Ed’s Vision For Britain” to remove any hint of similarity, Cole asserted that his first effort in German was “Ein Führer, eine Partei, eine Nation”. Well, up to a point: because of the linkage of the term Führer to the name of Adolf Hitler, modern German usage translates “leader” as Leiter. And the rest of the Cole translation does not match the Nazi era slogan he’s thinking of.

Once again - no research, no result

That slogan translated “nation” as Reich – bit obvious, really – and the third part was not “party”, but “people”. It was “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer”. There is a hint of a relationship between what Jarvis originally said to that phrase, but no more, and in any case Cole ruins the effect by not being able to accurately translate the odd word of English into the equivalent German.

Maybe History and German were also not his strongest subjects at school, along with Maths and Economics. Another fine mess, once again.