Donald Duck, one of the original characters created by Walt Disney, has seen his fair share of ups and downs in the nearly 75 years since first debuting in the Silly Symphonies cartoon "The Wise Little Hen" in 1934, but none as big as his rise to popularity in Germany.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the German comics featuring a more refined, thought provoking take on Disney's duck. The Donald the graces the pages of Egmont’s Micky Maus and Donald Duck Special quotes from German literature, speaks in grammatically complex sentences and is prone to philosophical musings. In addition, the stories often take a more political tone than those published in the United States.

Micky Maus, a weekly comic the features tales of Mickey, Goofy and more predominantly the tales Donald and the rest of the residents of Duckburg, has been published in Germany since 1951. The publication has grown in popularity to the point of selling an average of 250,000 copies per week, outselling the Man of Steel by a hefty margin each month, while the monthly comic Donald Duck Special sells an average of 40,000 copies per month to a mainly adult audience.

"Donald is so popular because almost everyone can identify with him," said Christian Pfeiler, president of D.O.N.A.L.D (the German acronym stands for "German Organization for Non-commercial Followers of Pure Donaldism") in the WSJ article. "He has strengths and weaknesses, he lacks polish but is also very cultured and well-read."

Much of the popularity of the character in Germany can be sourced back to the woman charged with translating the American comics to German, Dr. Erika Fuchs. Dr. Fuchs, who held a Ph.D in art history, breathed a new life into Carl Barks' ducks and transformed Donald into a "bird of arts and letters," a character who spouted fancy quotations from the literary classics of Goethe, Hölderlin and Wagner. In addition, Dr. Fuchs added a loftier, more complex tone to Donald and Scrooge, while angling the dialog of Huey, Dewey and Louie with a more youthful slang.

Dr. Fuchs provided dialog for the denizens of Duckburg for more than 50 years, stopping just prior to her death in 2001 at the age of 98, and although her knack for thickening and deepening the word balloons of this worldly duck, Donald continues to speak to the people of Germany as both comedian and philosopher.