Can one translate "limey" into German?

Question

In Robert Heinlein's “juvenile novel” Between Planets, published in 1951, we find this:

“Touchy, aren't you? Just like all fog eaters [ . . . ]”

“Fog eater,” used to describe a man from cloud-wrapped Venus, was merely ragging, no worse than “Limey” or “Yank”—unless the tone of voice and context made it, as now, a deliberate insult.

I don't yet have a published translation of this into German and I can't guess what the translator did with the word “Limey”, but this shows you how Heinlein viewed that word.

So now we go to another of Heinlein's books, Farmer in the Sky, published in 1950. Among the thousands of steerage passengers aboard a crowded ship taking emigrants from Earth on a 60-day journey to a colony that they will join, some troops of boy scouts are being organized. The boy scouts on one deck have convened, and that deck, unlike the other two, is on Greenwich mean time.

A kid named John Edward Forbes-Smith got up. [ . . . ] “Why don't we pick names that will show that fact? [i.e. that their deck is on Greenwich time] We could call ourselves the Saint George Troop.”

Bud Kelly said it was a good idea as far as it went, but make it Saint Patrick instead of Saint George; after all, Dublin was on Greenwich time too, and Saint Patrick was a more important saint.

Forbes-Smith said, “Since when?”

Bud said, “Since always, you limey—”

The book was translated into German by Michael Kubiak. Here is that passage:

Ein Junge namens John Edward Forbes-Smith stand auf. [ . . . ] »Warum suchen wir nicht Namen, die diese Tatsache verdeutlichen? Wir könnten uns doch Sankt-Georg-Trupp nennen.«

Bud Kelly meinte, das wäre eine gute Idee, aber wir sollten lieber Sankt Patrick nehmen anstatt Sankt Georg. Schließlich gelte für Dublin ebenfalls die Greenwich-Zeit, und Sankt Patrick wäre doch ein viel wichtigerer Heiliger.

Forbes-Smith wollte das nicht gelten lassen. »Seit wann das denn?«

»Schon immer, du Engländer«, erwiderte Bud.

Is there no suitable word in German?

Answer 1

Short answer

There is no equivalent to limey in German. The best ways to translate it are:

• Brite
• Engländer

Where Brite matches better, but it depends on context.

In German Engländer (a person from England) often was used as synonym for Brite (a person from Great Britain, but also a person from the UK), mainly in the time when this book was translated. Now people more often respect the difference between Engländer and Brite (but they still don't care about the differences between Great Britain, the British Isles and UK).

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Long answer

In the mid of the 19^th century sailors of the British Royal Navy had to add lime juice to their daily ration of grog to prevented scurvy. So this sailors got the nickname lime-juicer which soon was shortened to limey. It was mainly British immigrants in other countries who used this term.

Some decades later, the term limey became an U.S. navy slang for British sailors and also for British warships.

Later then, during WW I, limey turned into an American English slang for all British people.

But this term was used only in the united states. And, more important: It never was used in any other languag than English. So, there is no close equivalent to limey in any other language, including German.

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But during WW II there came up another similar nickname:

Tommy

This usage has a longer history (back to 1815), and it is based just on the fact, that Thomas (short: Tommy) in those days was a very frequent British first name. The same logic created »Ivan« (in German: Iwan) as nickname for Russian and Soviet soldiers, and in English spoken countries »Fritz« for German soldiers.

But Tommy always only was used for soldiers. It became popular during WW II. It never was used for civilizes, and so it has not the same meaning as limey.

Answer 2

My favourite German slang for us English is "Inselaffen". Would that fit?