"Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Germans" was a satiric, patriotic song popular in Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. It was composed by Noël Coward

Noël Coward

Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

. Although popular when performed live (Churchill himself demanded several encores when he first heard it) the humour did not translate well over the wireless and caused some fuss, leading the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 to ban the song.

The refrain is:

Don't let's be beastly to the Germans

When our victory is ultimately won,

It was just those nasty Nazis who persuaded them to fight

And their Beethoven and Bach are really far worse than their bite

Let's be meek to them

And turn the other cheek to them

And try to bring out their latent sense of fun.

Let's give them full air parity

And treat the rats with charity,

But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.

Links

• "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans" at Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
  The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
  
   (MP3, OGG)
• "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans" at YouTube
  YouTube
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