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In German Prisoner-of-War camps, escapes were a a major problem, so they would try to break the prisoners’ spirits by making them do mindless things. In particular, they would make the prisoners stand in a line and all move their heads like a clock back and forth and say, ‘tick tock tick tock.’
Some prisoners, unable to escape or otherwise change their situation, chose a very subtle rebellion. They would do the head motions, but instead of ‘tick tock tick tock’, they would wait until the guards were further down the line and switch to ‘tick tick tick.’
None of the guards noticed this was going on for many months, until finally, a young lieutenant was caught ticking by a senior SS Captain walking behind the line.
The captain stopped the exercise, walked over, face-to-face with the young man, and “A rebel. Vell, don’t vorry, ve have vays of making you tock.’
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