Are soldiers funny? On the face of it, fun is antithetical to the serious trade of the military profession, models of the decent and responsible soldier, and the strains of military life. However, military scholars acknowledge that humour forms an integral part of soldier culture. Still, these works largely highlight the psychological and social functions that humour serves in other social contexts as well. Instead, the paper examines the cultural peculiarities of soldier humour. The argument is that the German notion Schlagfertigkeit captures the humour style that prevails in the military because it encapsulates several soldierly virtues. Through exploring the semantics and performance of Schlagfertigkeit the article thus demonstrates how humour practices produce the soldier subject.
