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Comment by jabl

4 days ago

If the person were a prisoner he wouldn't be carrying a rifle..

Thus the joke…

It’s a play on words, and the involuntary nature of service in the German military at the time.

  • German Army had 1.3 million conscripts and 2.4 million volunteers in the period 1935-1939 so odds are he signed up to be there.

    • Those numbers aren’t independent of each other. People about to be drafted will often volunteer to be in a military as a volunteer rather than a draftee, to get the waiting over with, etc.

  • For some value of 'joke'.

    • Fair, but it’s a meme thread. My initial thought was.

      Pioneer: O panzer of the lake, why are our uniforms white? Panther: They must be easy to spot.

      But, I tried to reach past the pun and failed.