Ah, Germany. The land of Oktoberfest, Biergartens, sausages, pretzels, chocolate, schnitzel, sauerkraut, Schweinshaxe, Jägermeister, gingerbread, marzipan, Black Forest cake, gummy bears, Berliners, and over 3,000 different types of bread.
Is it any wonder why this guy ended up the way he is?
The Gluttonous German is an overweight Big Eater from Germany, usually Bavaria (or some other part of Germany that inexplicably resembles Bavaria). In contrast to the other stereotype of Germans as dour and humorless, Gluttonous Germans are usually jolly and comedic characters. They always have comically thick accents and/or speak in Poirot Speak, and usually wear lederhosen or a dirndl as casual wear.
Their Trademark Favorite Food is either pretzels, sausages, or some kind of dessert. If they're an adult, they'll probably also be The Alcoholic with a particular taste for German beer. Their non-food-related hobbies (if they have any) probably include yodeling, slap-dancing, playing polka music, and going hiking in the mountains, and able to perform such strenuous physical activity despite their weight.
While this type of character is usually a good guy, Fat Bastard and Villainous Glutton examples do exist. Especially when All Germans Are Nazis.
Within Germany itself, this stereotype is more associated with the southern Alpine highlands, in contrast to the Germanic Depressives cultural stereotype of the northern plains.
A sub-trope of Big Eater, and frequently overlaps with Oktoberfest. Often prone to Sausage String Silliness. See Fast-Food Nation for another country stereotypically thought of as fat and gluttonous.
Examples
- A Bug's Life has Heimlich, a fat German caterpillar with a thick accent who is constantly eating.
- Hansel and Gretel from Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil. Both are Fat Bastards with a Sinister Sweet Tooth who work together with the witch Verushka to steal a secret truffle recipe.
- Beerfest is practically built on the "Germans constantly drink beer" variant of this trope.
- In Octopussy James Bond is once forced to hitch a ride with two chubby Germans who continuously offer him beer and sausages.
- Augustus Gloop from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is the Trope Codifier, if not the Trope Maker. While in the original book he didn't have a stated nationality, he was made German in this adaptation, which all subsequent adaptations copied. And, as in the original book, he's Obsessed with Food to the point where eating is his hobby, and is the first kid to find a Golden Ticket because of how many chocolate bars he goes through.
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tim Burton's Truer to the Text adaptation of the book, also makes him German, and makes his gluttonous tendencies even more apparent than in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory—here, he's constantly carrying around a chocolate bar, has food all over his face and clothes, and at the end of the film when he's drenched in chocolate from the Chocolate River, he's licking it off of himself.
- Hogan's Heroes:
- Sergeant Schultz is a Nazi prison guard who isn't very good at his job and often helps the heroes. He's also a Big Eater with a particular taste for apple strudel, and is easily bribed with food.
- General Burkhalter is the man in charge of the Nazi prison camps, and a Fat Bastard with a massive appetite.
- The "Bavarian Restaurant" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus satirizes the Oktoberfest trope, and fittingly, the man who presents the couple with their menus is a fat man wearing a Tyrolean hat.
- Augustus Gloop appears once again in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Here, he's explicitly described as being from Bavaria, even being referred to as "The Bavarian Beefcake", and he even yodels at one point. In addition to having a massive Sweet Tooth, as in canon, he's also described as an Eating Contest champion who eats the pigs his family raises "limb from limb".
- Hugo from Final Fight and Street Fighter III is a German professional wrestler, and he loves potatoes. He's constantly eating or talking about potatoes, and gets very angry when someone insults them. His official bio also reveals he likes eating hot dogs and Chinese food.
- Disenchantment: True to the show's tendency to put twists on classic fairy tales, it features a Hansel and Gretel who are reimagined as obese cannibals who speak with a thick German accent.
- In the Dexter's Laboratory episode "The Bus Boy", there's a fat German boy in lederhosen, and his story involves the bus boy (whom he is clearly projecting onto) eating food and talking about how good it is.
- Pepper Ann has Dieter Lederhosen, a chubby German kid with a thick accent.
- Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town: The mayor of Sombertown, Burgermeister Meisterburger, is an obese man who wears lederhosen, speaks in a heavy German accent, has a garrison of soldiers who wear Imperial German-style pickelhaube helmets, and is depicted in his introductory scene as munching on a giant shank of meat. He is also a rare example who is both villainous as well as being dour and humorless, as he's a despot who hates toys and spends most of story trying to arrest Santa Clause.
- The Simpsons has Üter, a German Foreign Exchange Student who loves candy and is usually seen eating.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Krabby Land", SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs approach a newly built playground, where one of the "weak and malnourished" kids is a chubby boy in lederhosen munching on a big lollipop.