Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a German, esp. a German soldier.

[1837		T. Power St Patrick’s Eve I i: Good, says old Fritz [i.e. Frederick II King of Prussia] where’s Captain Gustavus?].
[1882		W.A. Baillie-Grohman Camps in the Rockies 387: The statue of ‘old Fritz‘ – Carlyle’s hero, Frederic the Great].
1894		St Paul Dly Globe (MN) 14 Jan. 6/2: Play ‘Ofer der Garden Vall’ [...] Fritzy.
1914		R. Tressell Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1955) 491: Has anyone seen a Germin band, Germin Band, Germin Band? [...] I want my Fritz, / What plays tiddley bits / On the big trombone!
1915		J.R. McConnell ‘With the American Ambulance in France’ in Outlook III 125: ‘Anything stirring?’ ‘Yes; Fritz eased in a few shrapnel about five-thirty, but did n’t hurt any one’.
1917		Truth (Melbourne) 17 Mar. 3/5: Every Fritz, which, you know, is the slang name for Hun, / When he smells an Australian, starts off on a run.
1918		A.C. Huber Diary of a Doughboy 22 Sept. 🌐 ‘Old Fritz’ is in for a merry time, and shortly too.
1918		Eve. Star (DC) 3 Nov. 68/2: Fritzy thought this would stop the tanks!
1919		E. Dyson ‘Bricks’ in ‘Hello, Soldier!’ 31: He slugged a tubby Hun, Then choked a Fritzie with his dukes, ’n’ pinched the sooner’s gun!
1919		Watch on the Rhine [Cologne] 3 July 2/2: We was rippin’ from Hazebrouck to Wipwers / With out lights, for old Fritzey was out!
1922		Joyce Ulysses 458: ...the World’s Twelve Worst Books : Froggy and Fritz (politics).
1922		M.E. Smith Adventures of a Boomer Op. 83: Anyway, I spent eighteen months shooting Fritzies and trying to make the world safe for the Democrats.
1929		(con. 1916) F. Manning Her Privates We (1986) 17: When they’ve ’ad me at ’em for a fortnight, they’ll be anxious to meet Fritz, they will.
1932		(con. 1917–19) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 391: Joe [...] told them how they were prisoners there like they were fritzies.
1932		(con. WWI) L. Mann Flesh in Armour 98: So hopeless and idiotic was the task [...] The Fritzies up there knew it too.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 117: There is a spot in Germany where we Aussies soon will be; / We’ll get to Berlin if it costs us our lives, / We’ll kill all the Fritzers and pinch all their wives. [Ibid.] 127: The blunny Fritzes seem to be winnin’ hands down.
1940		Eve. Post (N.Z.) 14 June 6/8: Rome was simply rotten with Fritzes.
1941		A. Gurney Bluey & Curley 17 Apr. [synd. cartoon strip] Another two thousand wiped out!! Fritzies or Italians?
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 5: You’re going to beat the pith out of old Herr Fritz.
1945		N. Marsh Died in the Wool (1963) 202: Think I don’t know a Jerry when I get one [...] Not yet, Fritzy, darling.
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 130: I wonder if the Russians take any prisoners, with the Fritzes shooting the women and children.
1965		F.J. Hardy Yarns of Billy Borker 148: Shot at by every Fritz in Africa.
1965		L. Haylen Big Red 101: The Fritzies could hear him.
1978		(ref. to 1917–18) H. Berry Make the Kaiser Dance 36: When we were in combat all I had to do was relay a target back to Jim and it was good nigh, Fritzie. [Ibid.] 261: If Fritz could put a slug in one of those tanks, you were a goner.
1986		in F. Manning Her Privates We (1986) ii: The sick dread of the next attack (‘Don’t worry, we’ll soon have old fritz on the run . . .’).
2006		F.X. Toole Pound for Pound 70: Fritzie was up and bouncing on his thick legs.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 341: It’s a Nazi bunkhouse flick. Fritzie types strutted in jockstraps and peeled from there.