Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a derog. term for a German; in cit. 1771, although ‘Mynheer’ suggests a Dutchman, the context proves mynheer represents mein herr.

1771		Foote Maid of Bath I iv: Here be Mynheer Sour-crout and Mounseer da Jarsey a come.
1803		C. Dibdin Cabinet (1821) 6: The baron’s gardener, Master Sour-Kraut, is visited by certain tormenting twinges.
1818		H.B. Fearon Sketches of America 140: Give old Sour Kraut (Hiester) a hundred and thirty.
1858		R.A. Dwyer et al. Songs of the Gold Rush (1965) 41: Sauer-Kraut was looking for a Justice of the Peace, / To send all the Yankee thieves to Hong Kong.
1863		J.W. Haley Rebel Yell and The Yankee Hurrah (1985) 108: One old female sauerkraut [...] cut a loaf into twelve slices.
1868		Sportsman 20 June 4/1: Notes on News [...] Gretchen Grubenhor [a], Bavarian by birth, ‘[f]inding that her husband had a bad temper,’ got rid of him by cutting him into slices, which were afterwards stewed [in] a large boiler full of sauer-kraut. ‘Like is cured by like,’ said Hahnemann.
1869		Territorial Enterprise (Virginia, NV) 24 Apr. 3: The man handed it over, but could not speak English (he was a regular ‘sour-krauter’).
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Feb. 7/3: We can’t go and bring our lads home if any European power chips in. ’Twould be the same as saying, ‘I won’t fight your Frogs or Sour-krauts, as they’re armed as well as I’.
1888		Morpeth Herald 28 Jan. 3/1: The stolid Germans sit out the entire opera and hiss if somebody speaks. What could you expect of a sauer-kraut eater?
1894		Truth (Sydney) 11 Feb. 1/3: The wives of these wooly gossoons / In the West African Cameroons / have been flogged by Sauerkraut.
1899		‘Pot’ & ‘Swears’ Scarlet City 304: Come on, Bingo, and let’s show the Sauer Krauts how to travel!
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Dec. 18/2: Does the Australian reckon himself mentally inferior to the German that he makes such grievous trouble over a matter which Herr Sauerkraut has settled so simply and effectually?
1909		Sat. Eve. Post 3 July 7: I’ll expurgate you, you old Dutch Sauerkraut!
1911		E.J. Brady Tom Pagdin Pirate 185: ‘Keep cool, Sour Krout,’ observed Tom grimly. ‘You’ve had your innings’.
1918		letter in K.F. Cowing Dear Folks at Home (1919) 217: We will scatter those ‘sauerkrauter eaters’ [sic] before the summer is over.
1922		Illus. Sporting & Dramatic News 2 Dec. 24/1: ‘olling home to merry England’ is their shanty [...] be they Scowegian, Saurkraut, Dago or British.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
[1982		W. Wharton Midnight Clear 80: Some crazy sauerkraut slurpers].
1983		Maledicta VII 25: Since 1904, Germans have been called sauerkraut.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 13: The French have long been reviled as frogs, the Germans as the Boche (cabbageheads) and as krauts (from sauerkraut), the British as limeys, the Mexicans as chili eaters, the Italians as spaghetti benders.
2006		C. Miller Salt and Honey 361: Pa said that was because she was German. [...] Pa called her ‘Sauerkraut’.

2. (also sourkroutish) attrib. use of sense 1.

1824		J. Grigg Ms of Diedrich Knickerbocker Jr 49: Then [...] he would crack a sly joke with the parson [...] adding with a sour-crout laugh, that ‘were it not for Beelzebub, neither of their livjngs could be decently supported’.
1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 17 Mar. 3/3: And Herr Von Joel Ludwig Miller, a German wireworker, felt a saurer kraut fever come over him all at once, from such ‘Teyflish’ goings on.
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 23 Aug. n.p.: A sourkroutish little dwarf, known as Dutch Louis.
1863		G.A. Sala Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous 201: Shall I, who have brained an English Grenadier, sneak off before a rabblerout of Sauerkraut Soldiers?
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 15 May 1/1: The slapping on of the saur-kraut colour was celebrated with [...] a razzle.
1912		Truth (Wellington) 6 Apr. 6/4: Both were subjects of Kaiser Bill of the ‘sprekken si Deutsch, mein Gott, and sauer kraut’ land.

3. a cantankerous person; a term of abuse.

1841		Ladies’ Cabinet of Fashion July 182: Now I said I have produced a piece which may bid defiance to the sneering, carping, malevolent cynical sour-crout.
1853		T. Haliburton Sam Slick’s Wise Saws I 75: Now, old sour crout has decided two cases on the branch of law that was under consideration to-day. [Ibid.] 215: Nebber havin’ been mong gentlemen, but only Dutch [not German] sour-crouts, up de ribber da, who is most as ignorant as deir oxen.

4. attrib. use of sense 3.

1822

Medico-chirurgical Review Dec. 551: For our own parts, we have always been in favour of this mixture [...] in spite of all the denunciations against it by those stiff-rumped and sour-crout philosophers, whose discourses are as dry as their skeletons.