Pappenheimer

"I know my Pappenheimer," says the teacher who knows it was her students who were smoking secretly in the bathrooms. And the father who's sure it was his son who started a fire in the neighbors' bushes says the same. "I know my Pappenheimer!" says the landlord who caught the neighbor kids red-handed as they were putting worms in all the mailboxes on the street. But what are Pappenheimer? It certainly sounds like they're people who get into lots of mischief. Originally, that wasn't the case at all. Pappenheim is a small, quiet town with only 4,000 residents. The famous 18th-century poet and playwright Friedrich von Schiller made the village famous in his drama "Wallenstein's Death," set during the Thirty Years' War. "That's how I recognize my Pappenheimer," says General Wallenstein (pictured, played by Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer) when a group of loyal, courageous soldiers are led in by Duke Gottfried Heinrich zu Pappenheim. Wallenstein knew he could count on them. Since then, the expression has lost its positive connotation, however. Nowadays, a "Pappenheimer" is someone who can be counted on to be naughty.