Songfacts®:

• A top 10 hit from October 1942 to January 1943 for Spike Jones & His City Slickers, this novelty tune sold over one million copies and was one of the biggest hits during the Second World War. Not that RCA records initially saw any potential in the recording: They pressed a mere 500 copies of the disc at the outset and it was only when New York DJ Martin Bloc decided to play the song every half an hour during his then popular Make Believe Ballroom show that the record took off.
• The song was penned by a British composer, Oliver Wallace, who contributed music to nearly 150 Walt Disney productions including an Oscar-winning score for Dumbo.
• This is a parody of the Nazi anthem, "Horst Wessel Song." Spike Jones and his band were noted for their takeoffs of popular tunes.
• This featured in the 1943 Disney animated propaganda short film Der Fuehrer's Face. The cartoon, which features Donald Duck having a nightmare that he lives in Germany under the Nazi regime was made in an effort to sell war bonds. The movie won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film , the only Donald Duck film to receive the honor.
  
  The Der Fuehrer's Face film was originally called "Donald Duck in Nutzi Land." The title was changed after the success of the Spike Jones song.