slash (/) key dead, regardless of keyboard layout, missing XmbLookupString line on xev

["gw [j] iza [b] superstar" <gw-superstar@mp3groupie.de>]

I was working in the console on tty1,
I might have not even been root, so let's assume a user could also cause this problem

I was trying to simply type ~"cd /" to auickly access the root folder,
and I either mis-keyed and executed " cd {something else}" perhaps including a space, period (.), minus (-) or (_) ampersand (&) or any other random typo.

...result of {whatever i typed} was a successful command; I landed at a new ~ prompt...
and from them on the / key was completey unmapped in the tty and also in X11 (kde of course!)

What is really crazy is that I use German and US-alt/intl. layouts, and it now gives no ouput in either one. (The slash is in completely different places in each layout).

I pressed the up-arrow to see what I had done, and it said " cd &", I think--It's my mistake that I should have made a better note at that point.

When I do ~xev,
the slash key outputs to xev, like it should, but it is missing the line 
"...XmbLookupString  ..."
so in other words, output=1 on the other two responses, but then the XmbLookupString line is completely missing.

Also Nothing strange is in '/etc/default/keyboard' as far as I know

I'd appreciate any help:

Thanks jb