Schönen 15. Dezember euch allen!
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verbrechen
Brechen means to break and verbrechen, with the change-ver, used to be just a stronger, result focused version: “to break for real, to break so it’s really broken”.
Both were also used in context of breaking the law and that’s the meaning verbrechen has today: to commit a crime.
The verb itself is rarely used, and never in present tense, but the related words, especially the noun, are super common.
der Verbrecher – the criminal
das Verbrechen – the crime
- Ich habe nichts verbrochen.
- I didn’t do anything wrong. (lit.: I didn’t commit a crime)
- Ja, ich habe im Busch uriniert. Das ist doch kein Verbrechen.
- Yes, I peed in the bush. But come on, that isn’t a crime.
Wenn ihr Fragen habt, oder ein paar eigene Beispiel ausprobieren wollt, schreibt einfach einen Kommentar.
For “befehlen”, we had a famous war-related film, “Der Untergang”. But the word “Verbrecher” always makes me think of the last scene in a film from the DDR: “Ich war neunzehn”. Can’t find a clip, sadly. I saw it on DVD via Netflix. IIRC, it’s quite good for learners of German, because it’s relatively slow-paced.
You can rent the whole thing here for 4 Euro (no idea if this works outside of Europe though)
https://www.alleskino.de/filme/spielfilme/konrad-wolf-ich-war-19-stream.html?___store=default&___from_store=pt
And here’s a clip: