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I am not sure but my opinion is that 90% of all nicknames were false.
I can imagine one or another German general referring to the Australians at Tobruk but I'm confident these names were not very common.
I'm especially thinking of the Fork-Tailed Devil (P-38), the Whispering Death (Il-2), ... I notice that the real German nicknames were rather neutral "Tommies", "Indianen", ...
But again, I'm not sure about all nicknames, just most of them. So perhaps the Canadians were indeed called the Red Devils.
Kris
Do you know if the British forces (RAF I suppose) also refered to his unit as the Abbeville Boys??
Of course, hats of to those brave men!!
I was just saying that many (but not all) nicknames were reversed after the war. The allies nicknamed their own units and equipment and after the war translated it to German as if the Germans came up with it. I have my doubts about the German soldiers calling them the Rats of Tobruk as there would not have been communication between the forces. My personal assumption is that the German newspapers/propaganda nicknamed those Australians "Ratten" as they - like you said - were dug in. And I can very well assume that the Australians took pride in what was originally a degrading comment, and used it to boost moral.
On a side-note where there any German units which received nicknames by the allies?
Kris