Draft:Ami — go home!

• Comment: If a cited source has a title (or subtitle) that's in German -- or in some other language that isn't English -- then you're welcome to translate it into English as an explanation of the actual title (subtitle), which you should also give. Thus for example:
  Amt für Information der Regierung der DDR (Office for Information of the Government of the GDR), ed. Ami go home. Warum die Amis heimgehen sollen ("Ami go home. Why the Americans should go home"). Die Wahrheit dem Volke ("The truth to the people"), volume 7. Berlin: Deutscher Zentralverlag, 1950. OCLC 248260806
  Avoid giving the impression that the title, etc, are in English, if they are not. Hoary (talk) 23:58, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

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Ami — go home! (also commonly referred to as Yankee go home!) was a political slogan that became popular after the Second World War in the West European sphere of influence and the Eastern Bloc.The slogan was directed against the American military’s occupation of other countries during the Cold War. In Germany, this slogan was replaced by a song of the same name, composed by the actor Ernst Busch (who was widely displayed in early East German propaganda posters).

“Yankee, go home” sign in Liverpool

The anti-American slogan “Go home, Ami” in West Berlin on the former sector border (the streets of Bernauer Straße and Schwedter Straße (1950). The sign saying Entrance to the French sector (to the left in German) was painted over.

Children’s home in the GDR (East Germany) 1951. The slogan can be seen on the blackboard.

History

Since 1950,many European communist parties and their supporters had used the slogan against the presence of US soldiers: In 1951, "disturbed troops of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and Free German Youth" on West Berlin train stations had adhesive strips with the slogan "Ami go home!" attached to them. However, these protests were declared "unlawful" by the West Berlin Police Chief. In addition, the slogan “Yankee go home” was used mainly in countries where a strong Political Left turned against the US military presence within the framework of NATO as in France (until 1966) or Italy.

In the 1960s, the slogan was used in response to the Vietnam War by the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition and remained current during the time of the peace movement in the 1970s. After that, it increasingly disappeared from public perception, but rather passed into general language with an ironic undertone. The Iraq War gave the slogan new popularity in political demands since 2003.

In films

In Billy Wilder’s film “One, Two, Three” - which takes place in divided Berlin shortly before the construction of the Berlin Wall - the modified slogan "Yankee go home" is written on balloons. Justification of the writer, who comes from the America’s southern states in the film, where the term “Yankee” is used for Americans from northern states: "It doesn't say 'Ami go home', but 'Yankee go home', and nobody likes it!"

In the Monty Python film "The Life of Brian" the slogan is parodied: In one scene, a wall with the Latin slogan "Romani ite domum" (English. Romans go home) painted.

A variation - namely "Ami, go to hell!" - can be found in "Apocalypse Now" at the bridge of Do-Lung.

In literature

A selection of literature in German contains the words "Ami go home" in the title. These include:

• Office for Information of the Government of the GDR (ed.): Ami go home. Why the Americans Should Go home (The Truth to the People, Issue 7), German Central Publishing House, Berlin, 1950

• Ernst Busch, Hanns Eisler: Ami - go home! (Ernst Busch (ed.): Friedenslieder. Heft 2), Verlag Lied der Zeit, Berlin o.J. (1952)

• James Wakefield Burke: Ami go home. A novel from our days, Amsel, Berlin, 1954

• Reinhard Federmann (de): Ami go home. Piece in 25 Scenes [Duplicated as an unseable manuscript], Sessler, Pfarrkirchen, Munich o.J. [around 1983]

• Rolf Winter (de): Ami go home: Plea for the Farewell to a Violent Country, Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-89136-288-9

• Ingrid Bauer (de): Welcome, Ami go home. The American Occupation in Salzburg 1945–1955; Memory Landscapes from an Oral History Project, Pustet, Salzburg 1998, ISBN 3-7025-0371-4 (Reading books on the history of Salzburg, Volume 6).

• Wilhelm Langthaler, Werner Pirker: Ami go home. Twelve Good Reasons for anti-Americanism, Promedia Vienna 2003 ISBN 978-3-85371-204-7