[MrFlibble]

A while ago I found a YouTube video of what appears to be a censored DOS shareware version of Wolfenstein 3-D:

This is apparently a version intended for a German release, as all the offensive elements like swastikas, the Horst Wessel title theme and the moustache have been edited out/removed. However, it is my understanding that the game was banned in Germany anyway.

Does anyone know how rare/common this version is? Is it available anywhere for download (the video apparently was recorded from the shareware version). The loading screen shows the Apogee logo but I'm not sure if this wasn't the standard thing for all releases of the game. It's probably more of a historical curiosity than anything now, but still quite interesting.

[Jolteon]

I never saw this version before. It's kinda weird not seeing swastikas and such in the game. But nice find though.

Fun fact, when I played this game when I was a kid, I always though those Blue uniform guys says "My lemon" when they are killed.

[MusicallyInspired]

My dad got a hold of the Wolf3D edit tools when I was a kid and removed all the blood. He turned hitler's death into a pile of melted brown suit lol.

After that he turned all the german guards into borg, replaced the swastikas with the borg symbol, all the guns with phasers, and the knife with a Dak'Tahg. It was fantastic as a kid. He called it Trekster 3D. Sadly, it's lost to time.

[Fox]

They left the mustache in the episode selection. Maybe Charlie Chaplin is now the big bad.

[MrFlibble]

Fox, on 22 February 2016 - 11:29 AM, said:

They left the mustache in the episode selection.

Good catch, didn't notice that.

So you guys think it's a mod? Or a legit censored version?

[Marphy Black]

Although it's remarkably bizarre that the guy would go to such trouble, this definitely looks to be a mod made by the video uploader. He also has a video of Return to Castle Wolfenstein's demo which too is manually censored. The actual censored German version of RTCW replaced the swastikas with the game's logo.

As far as I know, CuteFloor is German. Since the RTCW demo didn't have a German-specific release and Wolf 3D never had censored form at all, he presumably edited these demos on his own in order to abide by his country's laws.

[MrFlibble]

Impressive. I was nearly convinced that the Wolfenstein 3-D version was a legit, albeit obscure release. I thought maybe id Software or Apogee prepared a censored release for Germany but the game got banned anyway so this was never used.

[TerminX]

I thought Germany had an outright ban on depictions of violence against humans back then, leading to turning human characters into robots with oil instead of blood in some games, etc.

[MusicallyInspired]

TerminX, on 22 February 2016 - 12:24 PM, said:

I thought Germany had an outright ban on depictions of violence against humans back then, leading to turning human characters into robots with oil instead of blood in some games, etc.

Half-Life.

[MrFlibble]

Well, it still has:

Quote

Media content is considered harmful to minors if it tends to endanger their process of developing a socially responsible and self-reliant personality (§ 18 I JuSchG). This applies to, for example, media that contain indecent, extremely violent, crime-inducing, anti-Semitic or racist material, also to media content that glorifies National Socialism, drugs, alcohol abuse, self-inflicted injury or suicide, to media content propagating vigilante justice and to media content that discriminates against specific groups of people.

Source: BPjM website (English language pages).

It is my understanding that generally, the indexed media get severe restrictions concerning their public image, advertising and distribution:

Quote

Distributors of an indexed object are no longer permitted to let minors have access to it or to sell, rent out or even present this object in public or to broadcast it. The same goes for advertising for this object. Violations of these restrictions will be punished under German jurisdiction.

Source: BPjM website.

However, ownership of indexed media by adults is generally not illegal. The situation with Wolfenstein 3-D is different because of the Nazi symbolism, making it illegal to own the game by any German citizen:

Quote

Strictly prohibited in Germany – even among people over 18 – are the depictions of pornographic acts involving children, adolescents, animals or violence. This also applies to the denial of the Holocaust, the spreading of propaganda material by forbidden organisations, the depiction of symbols of the National Socialist regime and the glorification of violence.

Source: BPjM website.

On a side note, what constitutes "glorification of violence" entirely depends on the decision of the board's members. If in the 90s they banned Doom, the recent decision to remove this game from the index was made because the board members found no realistic depiction of violence by modern standards. IIRC they also noted that Doomguy is shown as a positive character who strives to save humanity.

[deuxsonic]

Why would someone work to create a censored version of the game just to record a video like this? Just record the SNES version if you want censorship.

[Fox]

Speaking of, I like how the censorship is similar to the SNES version.

[gibfrag]

Okay, I know a lot about Wolfenstein 3d so I'll have at this!

This is a fan-made patch. I'm not sure if it was released or not but it was definitely not official.

The apogee logo on the first screen was there for earlier versions of the game, and was changed on the Activision/GT releases to show the respected publisher logo. There's a few differences here and there in each version, but that's a different topic.

I know a guy in Germany who made Wolfenstein add-ons, and even translated the menu's and HUD to German, and he said even though the game was banned, that didn't mean Germans were unable to play it. They found loopholes into the system and not every German is against the showing of Nazi German material, especially when it's about killing Nazis, and loved the game. They didn't have to censor the game, they would just find ways to release it under different names (which would be codenames like T-3D or something), and were able to purchase the game or illegally download it that way.

tl;dr Germans didn't want a censored version, and found ways to get the game despite the laws.

Also this happened with Doom, so if you ever see add-ons for "Toom" that's a deliberate mistype to trick the German feds, as DOOM was banned. Again, these laws were never enforced as strongly as people may think. It's just like internet piracy, it's illegal, but you're probably not going to get in trouble for it. Besides it was mainly illegal to sell it, not really to possess it I'm pretty sure.

[Fox]

Here in Brazil they banned Counter Strike because a level that could be downloaded from the Internet. The name of the level cs_rio and displayed the slums in Rio de Janeiro, and it was quite accurate.

[MrFlibble]

deuxsonic, on 22 February 2016 - 02:05 PM, said:

Why would someone work to create a censored version of the game just to record a video like this? Just record the SNES version if you want censorship.

CuteFloor wanted to showcase the DOS version in the video. If he's indeed German, using a censored version, official or not, would probably be preferable from a legal standpoint.

gerolf, on 22 February 2016 - 10:10 PM, said:

Okay, I know a lot about Wolfenstein 3d so I'll have at this!

This is a fan-made patch. I'm not sure if it was released or not but it was definitely not official.

The apogee logo on the first screen was there for earlier versions of the game, and was changed on the Activision/GT releases to show the respected publisher logo. There's a few differences here and there in each version, but that's a different topic.

Is there any way to get this patch? I suppose it would be fun even if just for variety.

gerolf, on 22 February 2016 - 10:10 PM, said:

Also this happened with Doom, so if you ever see add-ons for "Toom" that's a deliberate mistype to trick the German feds, as DOOM was banned. Again, these laws were never enforced as strongly as people may think. It's just like internet piracy, it's illegal, but you're probably not going to get in trouble for it. Besides it was mainly illegal to sell it, not really to possess it I'm pretty sure.

Duke3D also had to be disguised from authorities. Here's a patch download page at the official site of CDV, a major German video game distributor and publisher (Wayback Machine copy):
http://www.cdv.de/dwn_ptch.htm

Among other things, it includes a VFX1 driver and an extra level for "D*** 3D"

I also remember how Hallfiry mentioned he has a German CD release of Duke3D shareware where "[e]very mention of DOOM in the diz file is replaced with XXXX".

On another note, it occurred to me that a great way to censor Wolf3D would be to refurbish it into a Rise of the Triad sort-of prequel using the art from the "Wolfenstein 3D Part 2" development stage.

[LkMax]

Fox, on 23 February 2016 - 12:55 AM, said:

Here in Brazil they banned Counter Strike because a level that could be downloaded from the Internet. The name of the level cs_rio and displayed the slums in Rio de Janeiro, and it was quite accurate.

Heck, Duke 3D was banned back then because of a shooting on a cinema.
But yeah, banning because of custom content downloaded from the internet is retarded.

[----]

MrFlibble, on 22 February 2016 - 12:59 PM, said:

However, ownership of indexed media by adults is generally not illegal. The situation with Wolfenstein 3-D is different because of the Nazi symbolism, making it illegal to own the game by any German citizen:
Source: BPjM website.

For a game like Wolfenstein 3D it is a bit different.

Generally you are allowed to import and own certain banned media (if it isn't something like child pornography or Nazi propagande).
So, how it is with a game like Wolfenstein 3D? Although the game was banned it was not Nazi propaganda, only a game with Nazi symbols in it.
And the German WIkipedia Article of Wolf3D states that it was still legal to privately own and play the game but you were not allowed to trade it at all.

PS: The BPJM isn't allowed to ban media. Only official judges are.

[MrFlibble]

Thanks for clarifying this!

[K1n9_Duk3]

MrFlibble, on 23 February 2016 - 03:07 AM, said:

I also remember how Hallfiry mentioned he has a German CD release of Duke3D shareware where "[e]very mention of DOOM in the diz file is replaced with XXXX".

On another note, it occurred to me that a great way to censor Wolf3D would be to refurbish it into a Rise of the Triad sort-of prequel using the art from the "Wolfenstein 3D Part 2" development stage.

Sorry for reviving this old thread, but speaking of replacing every mention of DOOM, here is the German box of RotT:

Mobygames (I actually own one box just like this, but using the link was faster than scanning & uploading.)

It advertises for the game using a quote from Interactive Entertainment that mentions DOOM. And the German box litterally spells it "XXXX™". And at the bottom of the box, it basically says "XXXX™ is a trademark of Id Software".

On the retail Duke3D CD (v1.3d) distributed by CDV here in Germany, every mention of "Rise of the Triad" had to be removed, too, and became "XXXX XX XXX XXXXX". They even had to edit the help files for Duke 3D and all the shareware games on that CD, too, thus turning all the *HINT.EXE files into plain .TXT files. That's because it is illegal to advertise for games that have been indexed here in Germany, and even just mentioning the title could already be considered advertising.

BTW, one of the first pieces of "modding" I ever did also happened to be a censored version of Wolf3D and Spear. I never released it (as far as I can remember), but you can still find some screenshots here.

[MrFlibble]

Yeah, everybody loves the legendary game XXXX^TM

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Jolteon, on 22 February 2016 - 08:09 AM, said:

Fun fact, when I played this game when I was a kid, I always though those Blue uniform guys says "My lemon" when they are killed.

Heh, I remember thinking it was "I'm leaving!" or maybe "I'm bleeding!"

[leilei]

I heard "beef stopper" and "i'm leavin'!" then. The original Sound Blasters were heavily filtered and it wasn't until Doom II that I heard what's said correctly

[Hendricks266]

I heard "I'm leavin'!" as well. Also, "shoe shuffle".

[MusicallyInspired]

To this day I have never known what it was the standard brown Nazi guards yelled when they saw you. "Hopstar!" "Hus there!" "Halts fair!". It's way too grainy and bit decimated. Every other voice was far more easily recognizable except that one.

[K1n9_Duk3]

I'm German and even I can't understand what the brown guards are saying. I know the SS are supposed to say "Schutzstaffel", but it sounds more like "Schuschaffel" (or "shoe shuffle"). Some of the boss lines are even worse. For example, the "k" in "Rosenknospe" (rosebud) should not be silent.

By the way, I watched Citizem Kane in German and it's still "Rosebud" and not "Rosenknospe".

[MrFlibble]

At least some non-PC versions have authentic German voice acting (AFAIK), even though faux German from the original version has its historical/nostalgic value too.

BTW, a while ago I found a demo of the German version of Star Wars: Dark Forces (apparently the game was translated into German and sold even though on the BPjS list), one can easily imagine the lines said by Imperials in the context of Wolf3D or a similar game. You can get the demo here.

[K1n9_Duk3]

From my experience, most American game developers don't really care about correct German language in their games. For example, Return to Castle Wolfenstein has the line "Angreift die Amerikaner" in it, which was probably supposed to mean "Attack the American" in English. But the German line uses a completely wrong variation of the verb "angreifen" that no German would ever use, and "die Amerikaner" is actually the plural form when there is in fact only one American around.
No One Lives Forever also has some very strange German signs in it. "Begriff: Kein Trespassing" ... yeah, "trespassing" is definitely not a part of the German vocabulary. That particular sign should rather say something like "Betreten verboten!"

But not all games are that bad. Medal of Honor Allied Assault was the first FPS I played that actually had correct German dialogue in the English/US version. I could play the stealth missions without having to pay attention to the subtitles to understand what the soldiers were saying.

As far as Dark Forces is concerned... I guess you could use a few lines in the Wolfenstein context, but certainly not all of them. It's been a while since I played Dark Forces (in English and German) and I remember the phrase "rebel scum" being used a lot, which might fit in with the new Wolfenstein 2, but not with Wolf3D. But then again, RTCW and Wolfenstein (2009) were also released as fully localized (and censored) versions here in Germany (and were put on the BPjS list anyway), so you could just take voice samples from these games instead.

[Dan]

MusicallyInspired, on 19 August 2017 - 08:27 PM, said:

To this day I have never known what it was the standard brown Nazi guards yelled when they saw you. "Hopstar!" "Hus there!" "Halts fair!".

It's Actung!.

[K1n9_Duk3]

Dan, on 23 August 2017 - 03:15 PM, said:

It's Actung!.

Well, the official Wolf3D hint book says it's supposed to be "Achtung!", but that's definitely not what I hear in the original PC version of Wolf3D.

I think the brown guards in the Wolfendoom TC for Doom II say "Achtung!".

[MusicallyInspired]

It sounds nothing like Actung. That's gotta be some truly terrible recording if that's what they actually say. It's so mind-boggling because all the death sounds and every other voice sound pretty much crystal clear by comparison. That one sounds like it was slowed down, sped up, slowed down again, sampled down, sampled back up, and then bit reduced.