List of terms used for Germans
This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2008) |
There are many terms for the
Some terms are
Many pejorative terms for Germans in various countries originated during the two World Wars.
English
Hun (pejorative)
Hun (or The Hun) is a term that originally refers to the nomadic Huns of the Migration Period. Beginning in World War I it became an often used pejorative seen on war posters by Western Allied powers and the basis for a criminal characterisation of the Germans as barbarians with no respect for civilisation and humanitarian values having unjust reactions.[1]
The wartime association of the term with Germans is believed to have been inspired by an earlier address to Imperial German troops by Kaiser
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!
When you meet the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! No prisoners will be taken! Those who fall into your hands are forfeit to you! Just as a thousand years ago, the Huns under their King Etzel 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.[2]
The theme of Hunnic savagery was then developed in a speech of August Bebel in the Reichstag in which he recounted details of the cruelty of the German expedition which were taken from soldiers' letters home, styled the Hunnenbriefe (letters from the Huns).[3] 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 spiked Pickelhaube helmet 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 were barbarians, was reinforced by the propaganda utilised throughout the war. The French songwriter Théodore Botrel described the Kaiser as "an Attila, without remorse", launching "cannibal hordes".[4] By coincidence, Gott mit uns ("God is with us"), a motto first used in the Kingdom of Prussia and later the German Empire, may have contributed to the popularisation of 'Huns' as British Army slang for Germans by misreading 'uns' for 'Huns'.[5]
The usage of the term "Hun" to describe Germans resurfaced during World 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."[6] Later that year Churchill referred to the invasion of the Soviet Union as "the dull, drilled, docile brutish masses of the Hun soldiery, plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts."[7] During this time American President Franklin 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 to Eisenhower in driving the Huns from France."[8]
Fritz
British soldiers employed a variety of epithets for the Germans. Fritz, a German pet form of Friedrich,[9] was popular in both World War I and World War II.[10]
Heinie (pejorative)
The Americans and Canadians referred to Germans, especially German soldiers, as Heinies, from a diminutive of the common German male proper name Heinrich.[11] For example, in the film 1941 the Slim Pickens character calls a German officer "Mr Hynee Kraut!"
Heinie is also a colloquial term for buttocks, in use since the 1920s.[12] In German, Heini is a common colloquial term with a slightly pejorative meaning similar to "moron" or "idiot", but has a different origin.
Jerry
Jerry was a nickname given to Germans mostly during the
The name may simply be an alteration of the word German.[14] Alternatively, Jerry may possibly be derived from the stahlhelm introduced in 1916, which was said by British soldiers to resemble a "jerry" (chamber pot).[15][16]
Kraut (pejorative)
This section needs additional citations for verification. (February 2024) |
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 the American entry into World War I, which followed the Turnip 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 and de 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 consumed
The stereotype of a sauerkraut-eating German appears in Jules Verne's depiction of the evil, German industrialist Schultze, who is an avid sauerkraut eater in The Begum's Fortune. Schultze's enemy is an Alsatian who hates sauerkraut but pretends to love it to win his enemy's confidence.
The rock music genre krautrock has been commonplace in music journalism since the early 1970s and is of English invention.
Nazi (pejorative)
Nazi, a shortening of Nationalsozialist (National Socialist) (attested since 1903, as a shortening of national-sozial,[17] since in German the nati- in national is approximately pronounced Nazi. A homonymic term Nazi 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[18] the use of that abbreviation by the Nazis′ opponents and its avoidance by the Nazis themselves.[17][19][20]
Ted
"Ted", and "Teds", from Tedeschi, the Italian word for Germans, became the term used by Allied soldiers during the Italian campaign of World War II.[21][22]
Teuton (poetic)
In a more poetical sense Germans can be referred to as Teutons. The usage of the word in this term has been observed in English since 1833. The word originated via an ancient Germanic tribe, the Teutons[23] (see also Teutonic and the Teutonic Order).
Boche (pejorative)
Pronounced
Boche is an abbreviation of caboche, (compare bochon, an abbreviation of cabochon). This is a recognized French word used familiarly for "head," especially a big, thick head, ("slow-pate"). It is derived from the Latin word caput and the suffix oceus. Boche seems to have been used first in the underworld of Paris about 1860, with the meaning of a disagreeable, troublesome fellow. In the Franco-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 was tête de boche, which had the meaning of tête carrée d'Allemand (German blockhead or imbécile). The next step was to apply boche to Germans in general.[26]
Squarehead (pejorative)
"Squarehead", a generic derogatory term for people from Germany and Scandinavia;[27] 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.[28]
The term Boxhead, commonly used after World War II within the British Armed Forces in the former West Germany is derived from this.[citation needed]
Erics
First came to prominence in the English 1983 television show Auf 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.
Other countries
Austria
Piefke (pejorative)
The
Since Prussia no longer exists, the term now refers to the cliché of a pompous northern Protestant German in general and a Berliner in particular. However, the citizens of the free Hanseatic cities and the former northern duchies of Oldenburg, Brunswick and Mecklenburg are also quite offended by the terms Piefke and also by Saupreiß (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 in Tyrol. Sometimes the alteration "Piefkinese" 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 – accent.
Marmeladinger (pejorative)
The term Marmeladinger originated in the trenches of World War I. It is derived from the German word "Marmelade", which is a fruit preserve. While Austrian infantry rations included butter and lard as spread, German troops had to make do with cheaper ersatz "Marmelade". They disdainfully called it Heldenbutter "hero's butter" or Hindenburgfett. This earned them ridicule from their Austrian allies who would call them Marmeladebrüder (jam brothers) or Marmeladinger (-inger being an Austrian derivational suffix describing a person through a characteristic item or action).[30] Germans would conversely call Austrians Kamerad 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.
China
Jiamen (colloquial)
In Shanghainese, a German can be colloquially called a Jiamen (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. Today, this phrase, when pronounced as "Ga-Men", can mean "disdainful, indifferent, or uninterested in someone or something".
Chile
Among the Mapuche-Huilliche of Futahuillimapu in southern Chile German settlers are known as leupe lonko meaning blond heads.[31]
Finland
During the Lapland War between Finland and Germany, the terms saku, sakemanni, hunni and lapinpolttaja (burner of Lapland, see: Lapland War) became widely used among the Finnish soldiers, saku and sakemanni being modified from saksalainen (German).
France
Boches (pejorative, historical)
Boches is an
Casque à pointe (historical)
Casque à pointe is derived from the French name for the traditional Prussian military helmets worn by German soldiers from the 1840s until World War I. In modern French Sign Language the word for Germany continues to be an index finger pointed to the top of the forehead, simulating the Pickelhaube.[33]
Chleuh (pejorative)
Chleuh derives from the name of the
. It also denotes the absence of words beginning in Schl- in French.Germany
Ossi/Wessi
The term Ossi, derived from the German word Osten which means east, is used in Germany for people who were born in the area of the former
The term Wessi, derived from the German word Westen which means west, is used in Germany for people who were born or live in the old states of Germany (those that formed the Federal Republic or "West Germany" before reunification). Sometimes it is also modified to "Besserwessi", from the German word Besserwisser 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.[34]
Kartoffel / Alman / Biodeutscher
The term
Saupreiß
The term Saupreiß, derived from the German words Sau (= 'sow') which means female pig and Preuße which means Prussian, is used in
Hungary
Sváb
The term sváb derives from the German word "Schwaben", describing people from
Labanc
The term labanc came into use during Rákóczi'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 term Le Blanc (the white one), it might also be a reference to the Hungarian word lobonc which referred to the large, common wig, which used to be common in the Vienna court at the time.[36] Now Labanc is exclusively used for Austrians, but becomes rare in usage as there are no tensions between the two countries. Still however, the expression describes mentality or behaviour that is counter to general Hungarian interest and describes persons not content with "true" Hungarian values.
Israel
Yekke
For the Jews who came from the German speaking world, there was a word in use for many years : "
Italy
Crucco (pejorative)
The term crucco derived from the Croatian and Slovenian kruh ("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.
Tuder / Tudro (pejorative)
Tudro designates Germans as a people lacking flexibility and fantasy, but also emotional intelligence. It is more widely adopted to describe a sturdy and stupid man. Tudro is mainly used in Northern Italy. Tuder is the Lombard usage of the word.
Fascia rossa (pejorative)
The term Fascia 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.
Latvia
Fricis
Fricis derives from the German name Fritz.
Zili pelēkie
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 popular Latvian legionnaire wartime song Ik katru sestdien's vakaru ("Every saturday night") about trouncing the blue-grays after beating up reds (sarkanos) or lice-infested ones (utainos) – the Soviets.[37][38]
Netherlands and Belgium
Mof (pejorative)
In
In the late 16th century the area just beyond the current northeast border between the Netherlands and Germany now known as
A popular humorous (but false) etymology of the word mof by the Dutch is that it is a German abbreviation meaning Menschen ohne Freunde ("people without friends").
Germany was known as Mofrika, an amalgamation of mof and Afrika, during WW2.[41]
Pruus(j)
Pruus or Pruusj, is a friendly but somewhat mocking term, used in the south eastern part of The Netherlands as part of the 'Limburg dialect'.
Poep
Poep is a term used in the northern eastern part of The Netherlands, in the province of Drenthe, referring to a German from nearby Westphalia. It is said that the etymological reference points to the German word Bube (=boy) yet this is unconfirmed.
- A blaaspoep is a German playing a brass instrument
- blaaspoepenmuziek is German brass band music
- Poepenland refers to Germany
Poland
Fryc (pejorative)
Means novice, and comes from the German name Fritz, which is a diminutive of Friedrich. German trade and settlements acquainted Poles with this name. German coming to Poland was actually a novice hence was called Fryc.[43]
Szwab (pejorative)
Derives from Suebi, a historical germanic tribe. Used extensively during and after World War II.
Szkop (pejorative)
Contemptuous term for a German soldier of the Wehrmacht during World War II as the word szkop in Polish meant a wether, or castrated ram.[44] It also has the meaning of a skopek, meaning a bucket for milk or cream.
Other terms
Another pejorative term for a German (and, stereotypically, unattractive) woman is niemra, coming from a word "Niemka" (a woman of German nationality). This term can also mean a female German language teacher or German language classes. Similarly, the term for the Germans can be niemiaszki. It does not have to be pejorative, it may be permissive or irreverent, but it may also be used in an almost caressing way. Next term is
Russia
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Fritz, Фриц – the German name Fritz[46]
Gans, Ганс – the German name Hans[46]
Kolbasnik, колбасник – an outdated (used mostly before 1940s)[47] pejorative term, which verbally meant "a sausage-maker".
Spain
Tudesco (historical)
In Early Modern Spanish (for example in Don Quixote), tudesco (cognate with deutsch and the Italian tedesco) was used sometimes as a general name for Germans[48] and sometimes restricted to Lower Saxony.[49][50]
Switzerland
Gummihals (pejorative)
German for rubber-neck. The term has been verified to be in use since the 1970s at least. Its actual meaning is subject to debate. Theories include the stereotype of Germans talking too much or nodding their heads endlessly when listening to superiors.[51]
Schwab (pejorative)
The ordinary (non-pejorative) meaning is people from Swabia (roughly Baden-Württemberg) in South Germany, neighbouring Switzerland, but in Switzerland it is used for any German. A strengthening is Sauschwabe.
Turkey
Hans and Helga, the German names. Almancı or Alamancı, often used pejoratively, refers to Germans of Turkish origin.
See also
- Anti-German sentiment
- Barbarian
- List of ethnic slurs by ethnicity
- Names of Germany
References
- ^ Nicoletta Gullace. "Barbaric Anti-Modernism: Representations of the "Hun" in Britain, North America, Australia and Beyond". Picture This: World War I Posters and Visual Culture.
- ^ Die Reden Kaiser Wilhelms II, Hg. v. Johannes Penzler. Bd. 2: 1896-1900. Leipzig o.J., S. 209–212. Deutsches Historisches Museum
- ISBN 9783861534327.
- ^ "Quand un Attila, sans remords, / Lance ses hordes cannibales, / Tout est bon qui meurtrit et mord: / Les chansons, aussi, sont des balles!", from "Theodore Botrel", by Edgar Preston T.P.'s Journal of Great Deeds of the Great War, 27 February 1915
- ^ Original wavelength
- ^ "PRIME MINISTER WINSTON CHURCHILL'S BROADCAST "REPORT ON THE WAR"".
- ^ Churchill, Winston S. 1941. "WINSTON CHURCHILL'S BROADCAST ON THE SOVIET-GERMAN WAR", London, June 22, 1941
- ^ Winston Churchill. 1953. "Triumph and Tragedy" (volume 6 of The Second World War). Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Ch. 4, p. 70
- ^ "The English expressions coined in WW1". BBC News. 22 February 2014.
- ISBN 0-231-05557-9.
- ^ "etymonline, origin of "heinie"". Etymonline.com. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
- ^ Heinie, Merriam-Webster Dictionary
- ^ "etymonline, origin of "Jerry"". Etymonline.com. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
- ISBN 9781134879526.
- ISBN 9781473848016.
- ^ Dowell, Ben (18 February 2014). "Don't mention the Jerries: BBC changes World War I programme title". Radio Times. Retrieved 24 November 2018.
- ^ ISBN 3-11-017473-1)
- ISBN 978-9027223340. Retrieved 22 October 2014.
- ISBN 9780520955141.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
- ^ NZ Army Board (1946) One More River: With the Second New Zealand Division from Florence to Trieste p42 Army Board Wellington (ISBN none)
- ISBN 9781925011760p.111
- ^ "etymonline, origin of "teuton"". Etymonline.com. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
- ^ National Library of Scotland Digital Archive (click "More information")
- ^ Boche Archived 21 August 2006 at the Wayback Machine, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
- ^ Current History. April–September 1916. p. 525. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
{{cite book}}
:|work=
ignored (help) - ^ Squarehead at Merriam-Webster
- ^ Squarehead at OED
- ^ Peter Wehle. "Die Wiener Gaunersprache", 1977, p. 79
- ^ Anton Karl Mally: „Piefke". Herkunft und Rolle eines österreichischen Spitznamens für den Preußen, den Nord- und den Reichsdeutschen, in: Muttersprache. Zeitschrift zur Pflege und Erforschung der deutschen Sprache, [Wiesbaden] 1984, number 4, pp. 257-286.
- ^ Rumian Cisterna, Salvador (17 September 2020). Gallito Catrilef: Colonialismo y defensa de la tierra en San Juan de la Costa a mediados del siglo XX (M.Sc. thesis) (in Spanish). University of Los Lagos.
- ^ Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). Encyclopedia Americana. .
- ^ "The sign for Allemagne in LSF on video - Sématos". www.sematos.eu. Retrieved 23 April 2022.
- ^ "Diskriminierung: "Ossi"-Streit endet mit Vergleich - SPIEGEL ONLINE". Spiegel.de. 17 October 2010. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
- ^ "Wie die Gelbfüßler zu ihrem Namen kamen, oder auch nicht (How the Yellowfeet got their name, or didn't)". Wochenblatt. 18 August 2019. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ Kuruc or Labanc? Hungary’s Eternal Fault Line — Part I
- ISBN 978-38-382-1034-6. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
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).
- ISBN 978-15-144-0362-4. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
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)
- ISBN 90-274-9199-2. "Mof heeft historisch gezien niet de huidige betekenis (die van een verwijzing naar de Duitsers en hun acties tijdens de Tweede wereldoorlog) maar …"
- ^ Why Germans are called "moffen" (Dutch)
- ^ Waarom noem(d)en we Duitsers ‘moffen’?, Enne Koops, Historiek, 19 October 2019
- ^ "Zoekresultaten".
- ^ "Encyklopedia staropolska – Fryc". pl.wikisource.org. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
- ^ pl:Szkop at Polish Wikipedia
- ^ "Słownik języka polskiego – Pluder". sjp.pl. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
- ^ a b "Wiktionary: фриц".
- ^ "колбасник – с русского на немецкий". Translate.academic.ru. Retrieved 12 April 2022.
- ^ Don Quixote, Second Part, chapter LIV, Miguel de Cervantes: Sancho Panza meets some pilgrims (alemán o tudesco) from Augsburg.
- Diccionario de la Real Academia Española.
- ^ Don Quixote, Second part, chapter V: ¿Cuántos son los alemanes, tudescos, franceses, españoles, italianos y esguízaros? "How many are the Almains, Dutch, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians and Swiss?"
- ISBN 978-3-499-62403-2