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We grew up flying to Germany nearly every year to visit the extended family. My parents were German, and my brothers and I are 1st generation Americans. I stumbled upon your website tonight while looking for some German lullabies. Tweet 2 Responses to “Der Struwwelpeter – Slovenly Peter – A German Poem with Recording” German online version of book: Lustige Geschichten und drollige BilderĮnglish online version of book: The English Struwwelpeter, or, Pretty Stories and Funny Pictures If you’d like to read more of the poems, you can find online versions of the book at the links below… His intent was to scare kids – including his own children – into washing their hair, watching where they were going, and keeping their fingers out of their mouths.” It’s no surprise that it was an inspiration for Tim Burton’s movie, Edward Scissorhands.Īn interesting defense of the author is by a commentator on Wordsmith who wrote, “As a physician, Dr Hoffmann experienced firsthand the diseases and accidents that might befall children in the streets where sanitation and safety were not yet of concern. Half of the commentators refer to it as a beloved childhood book, while the other half is still creeped out or has nightmares about it! You can tell that some German people agree with my assessment when you read comments on different sites on the internet. Some of the other verses in the book are downright creepy, including one where a child’s thumbs are chopped off because he wouldn’t stop sucking them. Here’s a less-literal but more rhyming translation from “ The English Struwwelpeter, or, Pretty Stories and Funny Pictures” from 1909: MP3 of Der Struwwelpeter in German as recited by Roman Buettner. MP3 of Der Struwwelpeter in German as recited by Kara Shallenberg. Here you can see an early illustration of Slovenly-Peter…īelow you can listen to 2 different recordings of the poem followed by the original German text and an English translation…

Meanwhile, Wordsmith gives the definition of “A person with long, thick, disheveled hair.” In my translation below, I used Mark Twain’s translation. Mark Twain translated it as “Slovenly Peter”. Long ago, the title was translated into English as “Shock-headed Peter”. It’s the first poem and the title of the book, “Der Struwwelpeter”. One of the more mild poems in the book is about the results of not grooming. They’re somewhat like Grimm’s Fairy Tales in that they’re cautionary tales for children in a dangerous world. All of the poems have a moral about the consequences of bad behavior. He wrote the book for his 3 year old son, after searching for a children’s book for Christmas and not being happy with any he found. “Der Struwwelpeter” is a collection of 10 story poems written in 1845 by German physician, Heinrich Hoffmann (1809 – 1894).