nur Bahnhof verstehen

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Bahnhof verstehen

Wikipedia

Earlier 20th century. Literally, “to understand only train station”.

According to some sources (e.g. Duden) from WWI military slang. For front soldiers, Bahnhof (“train station”) would have been synonymous with furlough or relocation to the hinterland, so the phrase would originally have meant “to understand only what one wants to hear”, “not to pay attention”. What may corroborate this theory is the variant immer Bahnhof verstehen (literally “to understand train station all the time”).

Other suggested origins:

• Train stations are noisy, hectic places with whirring engines, shouting passengers, unintelligible announcements etc.
• The word Bahnhof (and its equivalents in other languages) would typically have been familiar to international travellers even if they knew hardly any other word of the local language.

• IPA^(key): /nuːɐ̯ ˈbaːnhoːf fɐˈʃteːən/

• Audio:

  (file)

nur Bahnhof verstehen (irregular strong, third-person singular present versteht nur Bahnhof, past tense verstand nur Bahnhof, past participle nur Bahnhof verstanden, past subjunctive verstände nur Bahnhof or verstünde nur Bahnhof, auxiliary haben)

1. (idiomatic) to understand nothing at all
2. (idiomatic) to deliberately not pay attention to a conversation