Editing Hitler Has Only Got One Ball (section)

== Origin ==

[[File:Colonel Bogey March piano solo.pdf |thumb|right |The Colonel Bogey March arranged for solo piano]]
An adaptation of the World War I-era "[[Colonel Bogey March]]",{{sfnm |Kelsey |2019 |1p=693 |Tyler |2016 |2p=22}} "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball" first appeared among British troops in 1939.{{sfnm |Kelley |2020 |1p=27 |Littmann |2019 |2p=64 |Jablonska-Hood |2016 |3pp=96-97 |Rothwell |2016 |Pennell |2013 |5p=177}}
The exact origins of the lyrics (which are listed as number 10,493 in the [[Roud Folk Song Index]]) are unknown, and though there have been several claims of authorship there have apparently been no attempts to claim copyright.{{sfnm |Kelley |2020 |1pp=28-30 |Murdoch |1990 |2p=200}}

Author [[Donough O'Brien (author)|Donough O'Brien]] stated in his autobiography that his father, [[Toby O'Brien]], then a publicist for the [[British Council]], wrote the lyrics in August 1939 to be used as wartime propaganda.{{sfnm |Kelley |2020 |1p=28 |Jablonska-Hood |2016 |2p=96}}
The version purportedly authored by O'Brien begins "Göring has only got one ball, Hitler had two but very small", while almost all other versions have the order reversed ("Hitler has only got one ball, Göring had two but very small").{{sfnm |Kelley |2020 |1p=28 |Pennell |2013 |2p=177}}

British composer and broadcaster [[Hubert Gregg]] claimed to have written the lyrics and submitted them anonymously to the British [[War Office]] to be used as wartime propaganda.{{sfn |Kelley |2020 |p=28}}

According to [[folklorist]] Greg Kelley of the [[University of Guelph-Humber]], such claims by O'Brien and Gregg are "dubious"{{snd}}governments rarely use humour as propaganda because such efforts are largely unsuccessful.{{sfn |Kelley |2020 |pp=29-30}} 
According to Kelley, another possible explanation for the song's origin is that the lyrics developed organically  from the difficulty English speakers had pronouncing Goebbels's name (in the song, "Goebbels" is mispronounced "go-balls").{{sfn |Kelley |2020 |p=30}}

In his purportedly factual 2001 [[BBC]] radio play ''Dear Dr. Goebbels'', British screenwriter [[Neville Smith (actor)|Neville Smith]] suggested that an undercover [[MI6]] agent in Germany named Philip Morgenstern wrote the lyrics and used the song as a means to transmit intelligence to Britain concerning private details about [[Joseph Goebbels]] (the last line of the adaptation's first verse is "But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all").{{sfn |Kelley |2020 |pp=28-29}}

[[Brian O. Murdoch]], a [[philologist]] with the [[University of Stirling]], wrote that the adaptation was an oral composition that likely originated in London.{{sfn |Murdoch |1990 |p=200}} 
Murdoch stated that the opening line may have originated from various folk sources, such as the Irish ballad [[Sam Hall (song)|Sam Hall]] (which, in some versions, includes the lyric "Oh my name it is Sam Hall / and I've only got one ball"{{sfn |Ashley |1977 |p=148}}).

According to Scottish poet [[Alan Bold]], the last line may have been influenced by an earlier song called "No Balls At All", itself a parody of an Air Force song called "No Bombs At All", which in turn was a parody of a song about women's clothing called "Nothing to Wear".{{sfn |Murdoch |1990 |p=201}}