 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "List of terms used for Germans" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(March 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
There are many terms for theGerman people; in English, thedemonym, or noun, isGerman. During the earlyRenaissance, "German" implied that the person spokeGerman as a native language. Until theGerman unification, people living in the Germany to come were named for the region in which they lived: Examples areBavarians andBrandenburgers.
Some terms arehumorous orpejorativeslang, and used mainly by people from other countries, although they can be used in a self-deprecating way by German people themselves. Other terms are serious or tongue-in-cheek attempts tocoin words as alternatives to the ambiguous standard terms.
Many pejorative terms for Germans in various countries originated during the two World Wars.
Hun (orThe Hun) is a term that originally refers to the nomadicHuns of theMigration Period. Beginning inWorld War I it became an often used pejorative seen on war posters by Western Allied powers and the basis for a characterization of the Germans as barbaric criminals with no respect for civilization and humanitarian values.[1] Although the common English association of the term is with the First World War, the term had been used throughout the preceding decades, with instances dating to the Franco-Prussian War, and some referring to British actions in the Second Boer War.[2][3]
The wartime association of the term with Germans is believed to have been inspired by an earlier address to Imperial German troops by KaiserWilhelm II. What is dubbed the "Hun speech" (Hunnenrede) was delivered on 27 July 1900, when he bade farewell to the German expeditionary corps sailing from the port ofBremerhaven to take part in suppressing theBoxer Rebellion. The relevant part of the speech was:
Kommt ihr vor den Feind, so wird derselbe geschlagen! Pardon wird nicht gegeben! Gefangene werden nicht gemacht! Wer euch in die Hände fällt, sei euch verfallen! Wie vor tausend Jahren die Hunnen unter ihrem König Etzel sich einen Namen gemacht, der sie noch jetzt in Überlieferung und Märchen gewaltig erscheinen läßt, so möge der Name Deutsche in China auf 1000 Jahre durch euch in einer Weise bestätigt werden, daß es niemals wieder ein Chinese wagt, einen Deutschen scheel anzusehen!
Come you in front of the enemy, the same will be beaten! Pardon won't be given! Prisoners won't be taken! Who falls into your hands is forfeit to you! Just as a thousand years ago, the Huns under their KingEtzel made a name for themselves which shows them as mighty in tradition and myth, so shall you establish the name of Germans in China for 1000 years, in such a way that a Chinese will never again dare to look askance at a German.[4]
The theme of Hunnic savagery was then developed in a speech ofAugust Bebel in theReichstag in which he recounted details of the cruelty of the German expedition which were taken from soldiers' letters home, styled theHunnenbriefe (letters from the Huns).[5]The Kaiser's speech was widely reported in the European press at that time.
The term "Hun" from this speech was later used for the Germans by British and other Allied propaganda during the war. The comparison was helped by the spikedPickelhaubehelmet worn by German forces until 1916, which would be reminiscent of images depicting ancient warrior helmets (not necessarily that of actual historical Huns). This usage, emphasising the idea that the Germans werebarbarians, was reinforced by the propaganda utilised throughout the war. The French songwriterThéodore Botrel described the Kaiser as "an Attila, without remorse", launching "cannibal hordes".[6]By coincidence,Gott mit uns ("God is with us"), a motto first used in theKingdom of Prussia and later theGerman Empire, may have contributed to the popularisation of 'Huns' as British Army slang for Germans by misreading 'uns' for 'Huns'.[7]
The usage of the term "Hun" to describe Germans resurfaced duringWorld War II, although less frequently than in the previous war. For example in 1941,Winston Churchill said in a broadcast speech: "There are less than 70,000,000 malignant Huns, some of whom are curable and others killable, most of whom are already engaged in holding down Austrians, Czechs, Poles and the many other ancient races they now bully and pillage."[8]Later that year Churchill referred to the invasion of theSoviet Union as "the dull, drilled, docile brutish masses of the Hun soldiery, plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts."[9] During this time American PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt also referred to the German people in this way, saying that an Allied invasion into Southern France would surely "be successful and of great assistance toEisenhower in driving the Huns from France."[10]
British soldiers employed a variety of epithets for the Germans.Fritz, a German pet-form of Friedrich,[11] was popular in both World War I andWorld War II.[12]
TheAmericans andCanadians referred to Germans, especially German soldiers, asHeinies, from a diminutive of the common German male proper name Heinrich.[13] For example, in the film1941 theSlim Pickens character calls a German officer "Mr Hynee Kraut!".
Heinie is also a colloquial term for buttocks, in use since the 1920s.[14] In German,Heini is a common colloquial term with a slightly pejorative meaning similar to "moron" or "idiot", but has a different origin.
During World War II, the slurJapanazi was developed as a combination of the wordsJapan andNazi, used as discriminatory words against both the Japanese and Germans for being the driving forces and brutalities in the same war.[15][16][17] The word was popularised in a 1943 propaganda cartoon,Tokio Jokio.[18]
.jpg)
Jerry was a nickname given to Germans mostly during theSecond World War by soldiers and civilians of the Allied nations, in particular by the British. The nickname was originally created duringWorld War I.[19] The term is the basis for the name of thejerrycan.
The name may simply be an alteration of the wordGerman.[20] Alternatively, Jerry may possibly be derived from thestahlhelm introduced in 1916, which was said by British soldiers to resemble a "jerry" (chamber pot).[21][22]
| This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(February 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Kraut is a German word recorded in English from 1918 onwards as a derogatory term for a German, particularly a German soldier during World War I. The term came up after theAmerican entry into World War I, which followed theTurnip Winter and had resulted in the food trade stop for Germany through neutral states. The analogy of this term is the starving soldier of World War I, who ran out of supplies for a long war-period and needed to eat wild cabbage.
Before the Second World War the term was used in relation to cabbage, because anti-German boycotts andde facto trade limitations hit Germany's food imports. Early American war propaganda used the language in such a manner that 'Kraut' and 'Krauthead' gave the Germans less dignity.
In the 18th century, poor Swiss German immigrants to the US were described as Krauts because they consumedsauerkraut. Sauerkraut was also a common food served on German ships to fightscurvy, while the British used limes and got calledlimey. In Switzerland it was a food preserved for hard winters that could go on for half a year.
The stereotype of a sauerkraut-eating German appears inJules Verne's depiction of the evil, German industrialist Schultze, who is an avid sauerkraut-eater inThe Begum's Fortune. Schultze's enemy is anAlsatian who hates sauerkraut but pretends to love it to win his enemy's confidence.
The rock music genrekrautrock has been commonplace inmusic journalism since the early 1970s and is of English invention.
Nazi, a shortening ofNationalsozialist (National Socialist) (attested since 1903, as a shortening ofnational-sozial,[23] since in German thenati- innational is approximately pronouncedNazi. A homonymic termNazi was in use before the rise of the NSDAP in Bavaria as a pet-name for Ignaz and (by extension from that) a derogatory word for a backwards peasant, which may have influenced[24] the use of that abbreviation by the Nazis′ opponents and its avoidance by the Nazis themselves.[23][25][26]
"Ted", and "Teds", fromTedeschi, the Italian word for Germans, became the term used by Allied soldiers during theItalian campaign ofWorld War II.[27][28]
In a more poetical sense Germans can be referred to asTeutons. The usage of the word in this term has been observed in English since 1833. The word originated via an ancient Germanic tribe, theTeutons[29] (see alsoTeutonic and theTeutonic Order).
Pronounced[boʃ],boche is a derisive term used by the Allies during World War I, often collectively ("the Boche" meaning "the Germans"). It is a shortened form of theFrench slangportmanteaualboche, itself derived fromAllemand ("German") andcaboche ("head" or "cabbage"). The alternative spellings "Bosch" or "Bosche" are sometimes found.[30][31] According to a 1916 article in theNew York Times magazineCurrent History, the origin is as follows:
Boche is an abbreviation ofcaboche, (comparebochon, an abbreviation ofcabochon). This is a recognized French word used familiarly for "head", especially a big, thick head, ("slow-pate"). It is derived from the Latin wordcaput and the suffixoceus.Boche seems to have been used first in the underworld of Paris about 1860, with the meaning of a disagreeable, troublesome fellow. In theFranco-Prussian war of 1870 it was not applied to the Germans, but soon afterward it was applied by the Parisian printers to their German assistants because of the reputed slowness of comprehension of these foreign printers. The epithet then used wastête de boche, which had the meaning oftête carrée d'Allemand (Germanblockhead orimbécile). The next step was to applyboche to Germans in general.[32]
"Squarehead", a generic derogatory term for people from Germany and Scandinavia;[33] Commonly used for Germans during the First and Second World War, but found in a collection of slang from 1906 relating particularly to German military style.[34]
The termBoxhead, commonly used after World War II within the British Armed Forces in the former West Germany is derived from this.[citation needed]
First came to prominence in the English 1983 television showAuf Wiedersehen, Pet. It was a term used by the English and Irish when referring to Germans without them knowing it was them being talked about.
TheAustrianethnic slur for a German isPiefke. Like its Bavarian counterpartSaupreiß (literallysow-Prussian), the termPiefke historically characterized only the people ofPrussia, and not people of other Germanic states. There are two hypotheses on how the term developed; both of them suggest an origin in the 1860s. One theory is that the term came from the name of the popular Prussian composerJohann Gottfried Piefke, who composed some of the most iconic German military marches, for examplePreußens Gloria and theKöniggrätzer Marsch - particularly since Piefke and his brother conducted the Prussian music corps in the parade in Austria following the Prussian victory of theAustro-Prussian War in 1866. The second theory suggests an origin in theSecond Schleswig War in 1864, where Prussians and Austrians were allies. A Prussian soldier with the namePiefke and a stereotypicallyPrussian gruff and snappy manner made such a negative impression on his Austrian comrades that the term came to refer to all Prussians.[35]
Since Prussia no longer exists, the term refers to the cliché of a pompous northernProtestant German in general and aBerliner in particular. However, the citizens of the freeHanseatic cities and the former northern duchies of Oldenburg, Brunswick and Mecklenburg are also quite offended by the termsPiefke and also bySaupreiß (a slur for any German who is not native Bavarian). In 1990, Austrian playwright Felix Mitterer wrote and co-directed a TV mini-series,Die Piefke-Saga, about Germans on holiday inTyrol. Sometimes the alteration "Piefkineser" is used. Some Austrians use the playful term "Piefkinesisch" (Pief-Chinese) to refer to German spoken in a distinctly northern German - that is, not Austrian - dialect.
The termMarmeladinger originated in the trenches of World War I. It is derived from the German word "Marmelade", which is afruit preserve. While Austrian infantry rations included butter and lard asspread, German troops had to make do with cheaperersatz "Marmelade". They disdainfully called itHeldenbutter "hero's butter" orHindenburgfett. This earned them ridicule from their Austrian allies who would call themMarmeladebrüder (jam brothers) orMarmeladinger (-inger being an Austrianderivational suffix describing a person through a characteristic item or action).[36] Germans would conversely call AustriansKamerad Schnürschuh "comrade lace-up shoe" because the Austrian infantry boots used laces while the German boots did not. This term has survived, but it is rarely used.
InShanghainese, a German can be colloquially called aJiamen (茄門/茄门), which is an adaptation of the English word "German".
This word carries a somewhat negative meaning of a stereotypical German being proud, withdrawn, cold, and serious. This phrase, when pronounced as "Ga-Men", can mean "disdainful, indifferent, or uninterested in someone or something".[citation needed]
Among theMapuche-Huilliche ofFutahuillimapu in southern Chile,German settlers are known asleupe lonko or blond heads.[37]
During theLapland War betweenFinland and Germany, the termssaku,sakemanni,hunni, andlapinpolttaja (Lapland arsonist, see:Lapland War) became widely used among the Finnish soldiers;saku andsakemanni being modified fromsaksalainen (German).
Boches is anapheresis of the wordalboche, which in turn is ablend ofallemand (French for German) andcaboche (slang forhead). It was used mainly during theFirst andSecond World Wars, and directed especially at German soldiers.[38]
.jpg)
Casque à pointe is derived from theFrench name for the traditionalPrussian military helmets worn by German soldiers from the 1840s untilWorld War I. In modernFrench Sign Language the word for Germany continues to be an index finger pointed to the top of the forehead, simulating the Pickelhaube.[39]
Chleuh derives from the name of theChleuh, aBerber ethnic group inMorocco. It also denotes the absence of words beginning in Schl- in French.
The termOssi, derived from the German wordOsten which means east, is used in Germany for people who were born in the area of the formerGerman Democratic Republic.
The termWessi, derived from the German wordWesten which means west, is used in Germany for people who were born or live in theold states of Germany (those that formed the Federal Republic or "West Germany" before reunification). Sometimes it is also modified to "Besserwessi", from the German wordBesserwisser which means Know-it-all, reflecting the stereotype that people from the Western part of Germany are arrogant.
In 2010 there was a lawsuit in Germany because a job applicant was denied employment and her application was found to have the notation "Ossi" and a minus sign written on her application documents. A German court decided that denial of employment for such a reason would be discrimination, but not ethnic discrimination, since "East German" is not an ethnicity.[40]
The termKartoffel (German for potato) is a derogatory slang term for ethnic Germans. In the 19th century it was used to describe areas of Germany in a need of eating potatoes like "potatosaxons".Gastarbeiter used the term "potatoeater" for Germans, while "spaghettieater" meant migrant Italians and "kebabeaters" Turks. Today the term is often also used ironically by members of the described group for themselves.Alman andBiodeutscher ("biological German") are similar terms coming out of the migrant community.Biodeutsch has also been adopted by some in theNew Right in Germany to refer to a supposed 'genetic origin' of 'true' Germans.
The termSaupreiß, derived from the German wordsSau (= 'sow') which means female pig andPreuße which means Prussian, is used inBavaria for people who were born or live in any German area north of theDanube river, or at least north of the Bavarian border. A number of other terms exist. Similar to the PolishSzwab, the termSchwab can be pejorative and be used to expressSchwabenhass. Various – more or less good-humoured – nicknames are being used between the different German states or areas, such asGelbfüßler ("Yellowfeeter") for the inhabitants ofBaden.[41]
The termsváb derives from the German word "Schwaben", describing people fromSwabia (ger: Schwaben). The first German-speaking people,Saxon merchants and miners, later becomingCarpathian Germans, first arrived to theCarpathian basin (then mostly under rule of theKingdom of Hungary) in the 12th century, their numbers and territory of settlement were limited, mainly in towns. In the 18th century various German-speaking peasant groups settled in Hungary in large numbers to inhabit the vast territories being depopulated during the Osman rule, they are known asDanube Swabians (Donauschwaben), though most of their forefathers haveBavarian orThuringian roots. They settled mainly where the destruction was most severe, especially aroundBuda (part of modernBudapest),Danube valley and southern part of Hungary. Although they have assimilated in large part, until the beginning of the 20th century they maintained strong cultural identity. These people, and through them German people in general are calledsvábok (plural), having a hint of pejorative nature.
The termlabanc came into use duringRákóczi's War of Independence. It was specifically used for the soldiers fighting for the Austrian/German soldiers of the Habsburg rulers, as well as for the Hungarians siding with the Habsburgs. There are multiple theories about where it came from, such as being a strange concatenation of the German term "Lauf Hans!" (Run Hans!) or the French termLe Blanc (the white one), it might also be a reference to the Hungarian wordlobonc which referred to the large, common wig, which used to be common in the Vienna court at the time.[42] NowLabanc is exclusively used for Austrians, but has become rare in usage as there are no tensions between the two countries. The expression describes a mentality or behaviour that is counter to general Hungarian interest and describes persons not content with "true" Hungarian values.
For the Jews who came from the German speaking world, there was a word in use for many years: "Yekke", inYiddish andHebrew. One of the explanations of the name in Hebrew is "Yehudi Kshe Havana" יהודי קשה הבנה "A Jew who hardly understands" for the so called "stiffness of their mentality".[citation needed]
The termcrucco derived from the Croatian and Sloveniankruh ("bread"). Italian soldiers invented this word during World War I when they captured some hungry Austrian-Croatian and Austrian-Slovenian soldiers who asked for "kruh". Later, during World War II, and still today, applied to all German-speaking people.
Tudro designates Germans as a people lacking flexibility and fantasy, but alsoemotional intelligence. It is more widely adopted to describe a sturdy and stupid man. Tudro is mainly used in Northern Italy.Tuder is theLombard usage of the word.
Fascia rossa (pejorative)
The termFascia Rossa is an Italian designation referring to German soldiers and specifically denotes their red armband adorned with a swastika, this term is mainly used in Southern Italy.
Fricis derives from the German name Fritz.
Zili pelēkie, literally translated, means "The Blue-Grays", from the Prussian war uniforms of the pre-World War I era. The term appeared in a popularLatvian legionnaire wartime songIk katru sestdien's vakaru ("Every saturday night") about trouncing the blue-grays after beating up reds (sarkanos) or lice-infested ones (utainos) – theSoviets.[43][44]
InDutch the most common term for theGerman people, after the regular/official "Duitse", ismof. It is regarded as a pejorative term, used exclusively for Germans and reflecting Dutch resentment of theGerman occupation of the Netherlands during theSecond World War and the respective German actions.[45]
In the late 16th century the area just beyond the current northeast border between the Netherlands and Germany now known asEast Frisia andEmsland, as well as the people that lived there, used to be referred to asMuffe. Some time later it evolved into an informal designation, still not a pejorative, of someone from Germany in general; however the term seemed to have died out around 1900. Then it was revived to a far greater use and with negative connotations ever sinceGermany invaded the Netherlands in 1940.[46]
A humorous (but false) etymology of the wordmof by theDutch is that it is aGerman abbreviation meaningMenschen ohne Freunde ("people without friends").
Germany was known asMofrika, an amalgamation ofmof andAfrika, during WW2.[47]
Pruus orPruusj, is a friendly but somewhat mocking term, used in the south eastern part of The Netherlands as part of the 'Limburg dialect'.
Poep is a term used in the northern eastern part of The Netherlands, in the province ofDrenthe, referring to a German from nearbyWestphalia. It is said that the etymological reference points to the German wordBube (=boy) yet this is unconfirmed.
Meansnovice, and comes from the German nameFritz, which is a diminutive of Friedrich. German trade and settlements acquainted Poles with this name. A German coming to Poland was actually a novice hence was calledFryc.[49]
A pejorative and historical term that came fromHose (clothing) being the part of wardrobe.[50]
A Polish term for an inhabitant ofPrussia and for the species of bugs calledGerman cockroach, and it is also a contemptuous term for a German.[51]
Contemptuous term for a German soldier of theWehrmacht during World War II as the wordszkop inPolish meant a wether, or castrated ram.[52]
Derives fromSuebi, a historical Germanic tribe. Used extensively during and after World War II.
Kolbasnik,колбасник – an outdated (used mostly before 1940s)[53] pejorative term, which verbally meant "a sausage-maker".
InEarly Modern Spanish (for example inDon Quixote),tudesco (cognate withdeutsch and the Italiantedesco) was used sometimes as a general name for Germans[54] and sometimes restricted toLower Saxony.[55][56]
German forrubber-neck. The term has been verified to be in use at least since the 1970s, with its meaning subject to debate. Theories include the stereotype of Germans talking too much or nodding their heads endlessly when listening to superiors.[57]
The ordinary (non-pejorative) meaning is people fromSwabia (roughly Baden-Württemberg) in South Germany, neighbouring Switzerland, but in Switzerland it is used for any German. A strengthening is Sauschwabe.
Hans and Helga, the German names.Almancı or Alamancı, often used pejoratively, refers to Germans of Turkish origin.
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)The Latvian legionnaires did not subscribe to Nazi ideology. They fought solely for their country, Latvia. In their popular wartime song "Every saturday night" ("Ik katru sestdien's vakaru") they promised to beat up the utainos (lice-infested Russians) and then "trounce the blue-grays" (a reference to the Germans and their uniforms).
When we were tired and fed up with the constant drill, we sang for spite of the Fritzes and for gratification for ourselves: Mēs sitīsim tos sarkanos—arvien, arvien. Pēc tam tos zili pelēkos—arvien, arvien)