Quote Originally Posted by Neil Miller View Post
You are correct Rob. I still cannot get an online translation of 'keilscliff' but I forget the germans have an inconvenient habit of tagging words together, so I tried 'keil schliff' and got back wedge type.

I also found a reference to it in a german-written book about WW! dated 1917:

Es war in handarbeit aus Bestens Stahl gefertigt und verfugte uber einen franzosischen Keilschlif, der bestens geeignet war, feiner Konturen des Bartes herauszuarbeiten.

The babelfish translation is not too helpful:

It was in handmade from fine steel and shops about a French Keilschlif who was ideally suited, to elaborate fine contours of the beard. (English)


I still have difficulty seeing 'stosser' as a tradename - it seems to me to be a 'type' rather than a tradename.

I also have difficulty in seeing a wedge being useful for fine contours - surely a full hollow would be more suited? Perhaps the babel translation is throwing a spanner in the works and we need someone proficient in German and English to help out.

Stosser (and its two other main variant spellings) also comes up time after time as 'sharp', 'thrusting', 'piercing', and 'ramming'. But it aslo has another meaning, and that is a geological one, meaning the step sides of a hill. Another reference is to be found in wartime, this time WW2. The germans, in the Battle of the Bulge, attempted a parachute operation called Operation Stosser - the meaning hear must refer to the hill.

Maddening, isn't it?

Regards,
Neil

Regards,
Neil
That's interesting. You wouldn't really think of a wedge in that way would you?

As for Keilschliff, Google translate spits out "wedge cut": https://translate.google.com/#de/en/keilschliff

My two cents (or pence, for those of you in the UK) on Operation Stosser is that it could work equally well with the thrusting, piercing or pushing definition. You'll recall that the Battle of the Somme in WWI was referred to as "The Big Push" -- it was an operation that was intended to push through the entrenched German lines and on to Berlin. I could see the Germans using that term to label an operation that dropped paratroops behind the enemy -- penetrating their line. Just speculation, of course.

But, yes, it is rather maddening.