cigars of the beeper:
Does the word "Kruziturken" appear in the French editions?
No, at least not in the French copies I have, which are from the 1950s. In
The Black Island Müller says "Malédiction!" ("Curses!"), whilst in
Land Of Black Gold it's "Tonerre!" ("Thunder!" - one of the Captain's favourites, but often used by anyone in the French editions).
Incidentally, I only just noticed two different spellings in the books; it's "Kruzitürcken" in
Black Island and "Krutzitürken" in
Black Gold, so there's some slight inconsistency.
cigars of the beeper:
Of course, most people now (in the US at least) think of those words as the names of two of ol' St. Nick's reindeer!
That might be true of the UK too, although I don't think people know the "T'was the Night before Christmas" poem in the UK as well as they do in the US.
I'm thinking back to a bygone age of old British war comics, when Germans were fair game for mickey-taking. Perhaps the misuse as a swear word might even have originated from the old christmas poem? I don't know. Perhaps any fluent German speakers could verify these claims?
I've been told by German friends of mine that you would use "Donner und
Blitz" to mean "thunder and lightning" (blitz
en is a verb not a noun, meaning to flash, to lighten), but you wouldn't use it as a curse.
When I also mentioned to my German friends that in comics nazis often said "Donner und Blitzen" they thought it was hilarious!