Get Out of My Peel!

This week's exciting finale of the Pfefferkörner episode has a German idiom that could come across a bit as being a bit odd when translated directly:

Ja, wahrscheinlich wollte er ihr freiwillig nicht mehr von der Pelle rücken.

Yes, probably he didn't want to go away from the peel [idiom, leave her alone] of his own accord.

Caption 22, Die Pfefferkörner - Cybermobbing
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So just what is the Pelle and why didn't he want to get away from it? The word die Pelle is traceable in German as far back as the 12th century, originally as the skin of a wurst or sausage. Later it took on the same meaning as "peel" in English for the peel of a potato or other vegetable. Later on, die Pelle came to take on the idiomatic usage suggesting human skin, much in the same way as the slang usage of der Pelz (fur) is used for human skin. So does this mean that he didn't want to "get away from her skin?"

Man muss anderen Menschen sehr auf die Pelle rücken, um die zu schminken.

You need to really push people on the peel [idiom, invade their personal space] to do their make-up.

Caption 31, Kosmetik - Make-up-Artist-Schule
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The more common expression is jemandem auf die Pelle rücken, literally to "move on someone's peel (or skin)." What it means is to get too close, to be too intimate, or to invade their personal space. A similar idiom in English might be "to get in their face."

So what then does von der Pelle rücken mean? The best translation is probably "to leave somebody alone," as in the idiomatic expression "get out of my face." So we could translate the first example above as "Yes, probably he didn't want to leave her alone of his own accord."

Another similar idiom is jemandem auf der Pelle sitzen (or liegen), which means to bother someone with your continual presence, a similar meaning to the English idiom "to get on someone's nerves."

Further Learning
Learn more about this expression in this article, and get into the detailed German explanation on Duden. Look for an example of der Pelz on Yabla German in its slang usage to see how it's used in a real-world context.