It Is On The Fritz (MC12)
I Tried Many That Should Work (Including "Beatles - White Album"), But Don't
It will pull up some data in the combo box but cllicking on a item (Album) in the combo box finds nothing
It is true that on the fritz 'in a bad way or condition; out of working order' was in use during World War I.
It is not true that it arose or was popularized then, and it is probably not true that it has any association with Germans.
There are two unrelated, or at least not provably related, fritzs. One, the capitalized Fritz, has two closely related senses: 'the German armed forces collectively' and 'a German, esp. a member of the German armed forces'.
This Fritz is indeed an artifact of the First World War, recorded for the first time in 1915 and common in both British and American English from then onwards, though it is now rare except in historical contexts. It is based on Fritz, a German hypocoristic (nickname) form of the common male given name Friedrich, equivalent to the English Frederick. An equivalent adjective, also Fritz, was in use in the military during World War I as well, as was Fritzie and Fritzer as variants of the noun.
The phrase on the fritz is first recorded in 1902 and is found in a number of (mostly quite slangy) sources before WWI. It is of unknown origin. Given the dates, it could not be from the later Fritz 'a German or Germans', and if it has any connection to the German name Fritz by some other route, that connection is unknown. The only important derived form is its use as a verb meaning 'to ruin or spoil; cause to malfunction', often in the form fritz up, which dates from the 1910s.
Or
It Don't Work, Broken, Busted, Out Of Whack, Out Of Order
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