WW2 German phonetic alphabet..."Theodor" or "Toni"

[AMTG]

G'day all,

I have researched a lot of different sites, I have a field phone and a relic alphabet plate that both have "Theodor" and "Julius" for T and J, however some sites claim these are post war East German terms....and WW2 plates should have "Josef" and "Toni"... Still yet others state the reverse is true!

All the photos of original field phones I have seen have "Theodor" and "Julius".... Did they change their alphabet at some stage in the war?

Just curious! Thanking you

Tony, or Theodor

[HPL2008]

The Wikipedia article about the development of the German phonetic alphabet tables ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchstabiertafel ) states that:

• T was originally "Theodor"; by 1934 it had become "Toni" and post-war reverted back to "Theodor", which is still used today.
• J was originally "Jacob"; by 1934 it had become "Jot" and post-war was changed to the still-used "Julius".

"Jot" is a bit of an odd choice; it is simply the German way of pronouncing the single letter "J"; like "Jay" in English.
The "Jacob", along with some other previously used biblical names, was quickly changed during the Third Reich era due its being "Jewish". Other changes included "David" being changed to "Dora", "Samuel" to "Siegfried", "Nathan" to "Nordpol" etc.

I do not know if "Josef" was at any time used in the official German phonetic alphabet (although the aforementioned article does list it as being used in the Czech one and, in the spelling "Joseph", the French one).

While doing some online research for the matter, I also found a post in a German telephone forum ( http://www.wasser.de/telefon-alt/for...00000000004033 ) citing the phonetic table from an East German field telephone manufactured in the early seventies, which has both "Julius" and "Theodor".

So, although they were used in East Germany as well, the claim that "Julius" and "Theodor" are exclusively "East German" terms is definitely nonsense. I learned them in (pre-unification, West German) school way back when and in all my years of office work have never heard anybody using anything else for those two letters when spelling out a word.

Hope this helps.

[HPL2008]

I dug around my collection a bit and found this period spelling table in the 1936 edition of the German Army's Reibert training manual:

Buchstabiertafel.jpg

It lists "Toni" for "T", but "Jota" for "J". (Thus, either the "Jot" in the aforementioned article is erroneous, or there was yet another modification somewhere along the way.)

[mclenrd]

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[big ned]

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Morse code for 'T' I believe Matt?

[mclenrd]

hahah no... premature posting... happens a lot. haha

my period field phones (i have 3... 1938, 39, 40) all say "Theodor" for T (Germans don't pronounce the 'th" sound... they say it like 'tea-o-dor') and "Julius" for J

1938.JPG
1938

1939.JPG
1939

1940.JPG
1940

[AMTG]

Wow...thanks for all your replies.....appreciate all your efforts

My field telephone is a 43 and has the same plates as pictured