German speakers / historians needed!

MarkEsq

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I'd like to know the commands given to a firing squad, pretty please.

I used Google translate to come up with Ready! Aim! Fire!:

Bereit!
Ziel!
Feuer!

But I would like confirmation that this is correct... or not!

Many thanks.
 

GeorgeK

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It's been 30 years or so since I could speak German. About the only militarisch (sp?) that I recall is that when marching, the counting will be Einz, Zwo...instead of the normal Einz, Zwei. For military cadence they changed the pronunciation of the count, "Two," so the soldiers in the back row could tell the difference easier between Einz and Drei. Since 1, 2 and 3 in civilian German all have a long I vowel sound
 
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Maryn

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I know a native German speaker who's a Twitter friend. Let me see if I can find her...

I sent her a message. She's a member here and may come to your aid when her work day is through. She's busy, but who hasn't got time for three words?

Maryn, who isn't fond of research
 

GregFH

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My native German friend says it's just a two step command: "Legt an! Feuer!"
 

Max Vaehling

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It's been a while since I watched any movies in German that featured firing squads. I think I remember there being a three-beat cadence, but its possible that it was "leeeegt... an!" for the first two and it's also possible that they did that to match the English original in the dub.

There's also "präsentiert das Gewehr" or rather "präsentiiiert ... das Gewehr!" for raising the rifles before "legt an" for pointing them. Maybe that's the thrid beat I was looking for...
 

M.C.Statz

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It's been 30 years or so since I could speak German. About the only militarisch (sp?) that I recall is that when marching, the counting will be Einz, Zwo...instead of the normal Einz, Zwei. For military cadence they changed the pronunciation of the count, "Two," so the soldiers in the back row could tell the difference easier between Einz and Drei. Since 1, 2 and 3 in civilian German all have a long I vowel sound

There's a Rammstein song where they count in military march manner "Links, zwo, drei, vier" (literally "left, two, three, four"). Not sure how much artistic liberty they are taking, but it is a data point.
 

M.C.Statz

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I'd like to know the commands given to a firing squad, pretty please.

I used Google translate to come up with Ready! Aim! Fire!:

Bereit!
Ziel!
Feuer!

But I would like confirmation that this is correct... or not!

Many thanks.

Probably wouldn't apply to a firing squad, but the German equivalent of "fire at will" is "Feuer frei" (literally, "fire freely" - which is curious to me since Feuer is a noun and not a verb) and "Cease fire" is "Feuer einstellen".

Take this with a shaker of salt - my German is very rusty and wasn't all that good at peak.