Anyone who has ever visited a wirtshaus will know that Hamburger, Wiener Schnitzel, and Dumpling are seminal items on the menu, usually served in large portions alongside a more than generous helping of sauerkraut; perfect for soaking up a litre or five of Paulaner or Hofbrau.  What you might not know (unless you were lucky enough to meet them) is that they were also, for a short period of time, the nicknames of Frau Moller’s three best customers. Steffen Schnieder, Herman Hoffman, and Christoph Schmidt had been ‘besten freunde’ for several years and were now all studying at the same business school.

Steffan was the first to pick up his nickname, Hamburger, not as some thought due to his city of origin, but because of the alarming rate at which he consumed his favourite foodstuff. Hamburger was tall and handsome with thick jet-black hair, deep dark eyes, and a soft round face. A stereotypically good looking German boy he kept his hair in a centre parting and was never happier than when eating, drinking, and joking with his friends in a bar or beer hall, usually in the St Pauli district of his home city.

Herman 'Wiener Schnitzel’ Hoffman collected his nickname soon after Hamburger and for the same reasons as his close friend. Best known for his ability to consume three or four plates of the oversized fried breaded pork chops on a standard night out, it made sense for him to also take a food based moniker. Wiener Schnitzel was about ten centimetres shorter than his friend, giving him a stockier appearance. He had short brown hair, naturally curly, which he hated, Wiener Schnitzel was hence always applying too much brylcreem in an attempt to straighten it out. This gave his hair a golden greasy appearance not so different from a certain pig based food product fresh out of the fryer.

Christoph was the only one not named after his favourite food item. He was named after his body shape. This was probably for the best as he didn’t have a favourite dish; he inhaled everything put in front of him with equal gusto. A real dumpling of a boy, he was about thirty centimetres shorter than his friends and at least thirty centimetres wider. His bell shaped torso was so soft and over packed with fat that it was almost unreal. His big round belly and thick wide love handles stuck out so far over the top of his trousers that they appeared to float as if his whole muffin top was made of nothing more than tightly packed candy floss. A traditionally well fed Bavarian boy, he had blonde hair and blue eyes. His hair he shaved short, in an attempt to make himself look tougher. For the same reason he had his neck and arms tattooed. His face was kind looking but he tried his best to wear a snarl at all times. This he thought would help him to come across as more masculine and therefore threatening. In reality it only had the effect of making him appear constantly hungry.

The three of them liked nothing more than spending every evening in the beerhall, filling their expanding bellies with thick foamy beers served in huge steins. They would eat their meats and joke and laugh and burp until they were too drunk or toofull to stand. Shirts stretched and beer bellies bulging they would munch down one final sausage each and stagger and waddle their way out of the hall into the empty late night streets, where down a dark alley they would do things that weren’t really allowed.

They were given the collective noun of ‘thick German sausages’ not due to their over consumption of the staple item, nor due to their portly manner or thick puffy arms and legs, that could have easily been said to resemble the ever popular meat socks. It was in fact, Pierre, the dainty little French foreign exchange student from just north of Paris, who named them thus after seeing their thick sausages in the youth club showers. Pierre couldn’t help but take notice of his three chubby friends' long thick appendages as they sudded themselves.

Hamburger packed a good length of fat leberwurst that filled out his underwear in a way that made Pierre feel lightheaded. He loved how it just sort of plopped out whenever Hamburger would get undressed before sticking to the side of his big and solidly thick left thigh.

Wiener Schnitzel’s was the longest. His girthy knackwurst was slightly kinked to the right but it was Dumpling who packed the most impressive meat of all. His giant bratwurst hung with pride between the softest roundest thighs that Pierre had ever seen. His thick sturdy shaft stood in contrast to the ludicrously puffy and doughy ball of air-light fat that pillowed out above it. When Dumpling saw that Pierre was staring at him he flashed him a mean and threatening look that made Pierre weak at the knees. It seemed that Dumpling was hungry for more than food.

It was a typically cold January day when Hamburger asked Pierre if he wanted to join them in the beerhall. At first the sausages hadn’t warmed to their new French classmate but after learning that his father was a successful businessman, who wanted his son to improve his German, they had softened to him. Bellies rumbling, they walked the short distance to the beer hall with the excited Pierre. Wiener Schnitzel kept him engaged in conversation, commenting on how impressed he was that both him and his father had not only accepted the zeitgeist but were actively embracing it. It was guys like them who would get to grow fat and rich rebuilding the economy together. Pierre noticed Wiener Schnitzel's positive use of the word fat and smiled to himself.

Pierre was amazed by the sights and smells of the beerhall, so many big German men swilling and filling, and he was sitting at the best table. Frau Moller welcomed her best customers by guiding them to their usual table and supplying them with three huge steins of dunkel and a giant plate each of their favourite meats. She apologised to Pierre for not knowing his order and made a joke about his nationality when he just asked for a small glass of wine. 

Pierre watched in amazement as the three friendly sausages began to swell themselves with aplomb. The first round of beers were cleared and replaced within ten minutes. The meat plates took barely five minutes longer than that. Only Dumpling took a second plate of food with the next round, well two plates: wiener wurstl and bavarian potato soup. The other two made do with two more litres of beer each before they felt like eating again. Hamburger and Wiener Schnitzel lived up to their names and Pierre made no effort to disguise his joyful stare as their bellies expanded despite the amount of gas that they were now both expelling. About two hours in new plates were ordered all around, alongside a portion of fifteen pretzels with butter. Pierre was not surprised to see Dumpling consume most of these. The fattest sausage was now red in the face, his neck tattoo expanding and shrinking with every mouthful. His supersoft expansive belly fat was straining the seams of his favourite brown shirt. His wide round thick love handles, that hung so far over his sides, were clearly causing a few of his buttons to buckle and twist as the fabric of his brown shirt was pulled further and further apart. Pierre watched as Dumpling took too big a swig from what must have been his fifth or sixth litre of gassy beer. The top of his super soft fat balloon lifted and two of the buttons popped off at exactly the same time as the right side of the previously tucked in shirt ripped open exposing a thick layer of doughy muffin top and white belly fat that appeared to be as soft as powdered snow. “Gott sei Dank dafür,” he said as he breathed out, an obvious look of relief creeping across his bloated face as the rest of the buttons broke and his whole frontal torso rolled and oozed out into his lap. He was by far the plumpest and squishiest boy that Pierre had ever seen. He could barely control himself. All of the boys laughed and cheered. Steins raised; a round of “Prost” rang out and the feast continued.

Pierre was overjoyed to see that Dumplings act of exhibitionism only seemed to encourage Hamburger and Wiener Schnitzel further and the rampage of consumption went on for hours while they discussed politics and economics, all the time warming more and more to Pierre who despite the fact that Germany was primarily for Germans, was the right type of immigrant. Afterall Germany and France had a shared heritage and culture. They drank to new found friendships and ordered their fifth or sixth serving of meat and sauerkraut. 

In total they spent about seven hours in the beer hall until it was clear that none of them could consume anymore. Hamburger was now leaning very much to the right despite believing that he was sat up straight and central. His sense of balance long since lost to the enormous amount of alcohol that he consumed on a daily basis. This rightward lean caused a long tall strip of side belly fat to hang out of his shirt which had long since untucked itself and now rode pridefully high above his expansive belly like a great leader astride a magnificent horse. Wiener Schnitzel, sitting opposite, kept a keen eye on this thick strip of friendly fat. Pierre recognised this look of longing in his now misty eyes. Wiener Schnitzel was slumped back against a post. His fat face sunk low back into his shoulders causing his fat neck to disappear behind his chins. His now massively bloated belly was pushed forward and out from underneath his dark shirt. His fat right hand digging into his exposed underbelly, he undid his top button and fly and sank his hand deep into his underwear, at first raising it to release himself of the pain of the elasticated waistband, before sighing and leaving his hand very clearly holding his now expanded knackwurst in what some call ‘the comfort position.’

Dumpling was the only one still munching away when Hamburger suddenly righted himself and declared that it was time to leave. As they stumbled up and began to look for their coats Pierre began to sense an awkwardness in the air. Unaware of their secret nightly tristes in the alleyway he couldn’t quite figure out why the atmosphere had suddenly soured against him. In an effort to retrieve the situation he suggested that they come back to his room for coffee and pastries. He said this with such a dainty French smile that the three thick German sausages couldn’t resist.

It only took a few rounds of coffee and several rounds of pastries before it was decided that the inappropriateness of their needs was not actually inappropriate at all. Afterall, even the Reichsmarschall was rumoured to like effeminate clothing. Pierre wrapped only in a red silk cloth lay on top of the glass coffee table while three thick German sausages slapped against and pounded his face. He gobbled on the fat leberwurst while he got himself a nice handful of thick thigh and licked the long shaft of the girthy knackwurst whilst fingering a deep belly button. But it was the thick juicy bratwurst that tasted best; he suckled on it for what seemed like hours, his face planted deep into the softest cloud of belly fat that he had ever felt. It tasted so meaty and musky that he whimpered with pleasure every time he felt it pulsate before stopping momentarily. He wanted this feast to go on forever. The night finally finished with a nightcap of three giant gulps of thick German milk. Each one fed to him by a thunderously shaking belly and screams of “Ja, ja, ja!” as each thick sausage throbbed deep inside his throat. The final one was of course the best. Dumpling filled him with so much milk that it drooled uncontrollably out of his mouth, the bratwurst too thick to form an efficient vacuum around. The sticky milk glued his flush cheeks to the biggest, roundest, fullest, and yet somehow lightest belly imaginable as his dug his slender fingers into the plushest rump that shook so wonderfully that he thought he was going to suffocate, as if trapped in a deflating bouncy castle. Him and Dumpling kissed passionately as the other two thick sausages wiped themselves off on his exhausted face.

The thick sausages soon fell into a deep and peaceful beer and food soaked sleep. Squashed together on his barely big enough bed, the three giant bellies pushed up against each other, he watched them for a moment as they rose and fell in time with the heavy snores. It was the most depressingly beautiful thing he had ever seen. He left them there like that and quietly made his way out of the door.

Pierre heard the planes flying overhead just as he made it to the outskirts of the city. That night three thick German sausages roasted in the flames. Their skin cracked and split as their fat spat and boiled in the unbearable heat. They died like they had lived, surrounded by the smell of frying sausage. Cooked alongside thousands of innocents; before they got the chance to do any harm.

Despite everything, Pierre felt guilty.