Glossary of the Third Reich
Glossary of the Third Reich
This is a list of words, terms, concepts, and slogans that were used during
Nazi Germany. Some words were coined by
Adolf Hitler and other
Nazi Party members. Others words and concepts were borrowed and appropriated. Other terms and words were already in usage during the
Weimar Republic. Some terms are from the general German cultural background.
Glossary
\n*agrarpolitischer Apparat (aA) — Agrarian Apparatus; Agricultural Affairs Burea of the NSDAP.\n**Leadership hierachy: Reichsleitungsfachberater held by William Darré; Gaufachberater; Bezirksfachberator; Kreisfachberater; Ortsgruppenfachberater. \n**Agents: LVL; Landesfachberater (consultants).\n**Administrative: Hilfsreferenten (staff members); Sachbearbeiter (aides); Hilfsrefent responsible for day-to-day propaganda campaign.\n* Amtsleiter — convener of NSDAP Party committees. They were personally answerable to Hitler.\n* Anschluss — annexation, in particular the annexation of Austria in 1938.\n*anti-semitism\n*Arbeit macht frei — "Work makes free", an old German peasant saying. Unluckily placed above the gate to Auschwitz by the commandant Höss. It was not created by the Nazis.\n*Arbeitnehmerschaft — workforce. The Nazi took this word to combine the two labor components that are both manual and mental workers.\n*"Arbeitertum der Faust und der Stirn" — "Workers of both manual and mental labor"; the Nazi Party self description as a workers party that included all (as opposed to the Communists that only protected the manual laborers).(3)\n*Bekennende Kirche — "Confessional Church" or better "Professing Church". The orthodox and fundamentalist Protestant churchs that resisted Nazification.\n*Berufskammern — Nazi's professional organizations \n*Bezirksleiter — NSDAP district leaders\n* Blitzkrieg — lightning war - quick army invasions aided by tanks and airplanes; \n*Blut und Boden — "Blood and soil". Famous Nazi slogan comes from the German Social Democrat August Winnig, cf. his Das Reich als Republik 1918-1928, (Stuttgart and Berlin: Cotta, 1928), pg 3.\n*bodenständigen Kapitalismus — productive captialism (as opposed to unproductive capitalism) was a Nazi economic concept.\n*Brown Creed — term for Nazism\n*Brownshirts — the SA\n*Bund Deutscher Mädel — NSDAP League of German Girls; It had three million members in 1937.\n*Das Schwarze Corps — The Black Corps; SS theoretical journal\n*Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP)— German Workers Party started by railway workers in Bohemia, Austria and Munich Germany. These were the starter groups that evovled into the DNSAP and the NSDAP in their respective countries.\n*Deutsche Christen — the "de-judaized" Christian church; those who were "Nazified". They removed the whole Old Testament from the Bible.\n*Deutsche Women's Order (DFO) — German Women's Order; The leader was Elsbeth Zander. \n*Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei (DNSAP) — the Austrian German National Socialist Workers Party.\n*Diktat — as in the Versailles Diktat. It was a sign of the German contempt for the Versailles Treaty.\n*Drang nach Osten — "Drive to the east, the historic German desire to expand into Slavic lands\n*Dritte Reich — Third Reich or third empire. Möller van den Bruck coined this term for his book Das Dritte Reich published in 1923 where he exhorted Germans to replace 'reason by faith, the individual by community, disintegration by union, and progress by evolution'. Class consciousness was to be replaced by national consciousness and materialism by self-sacrifice.\n*Eher Verlag — the Nazi Party's official publishing house\n*Ehrenliste der Ermordeten der Bewegung — Nazi honor roll of those who fought and died for the party before it came to power in January 1933.\n*Endlösung— "final solution", short for "final solution to the Jewish question" (or "... problem") , a Nazi euphemism for the Holocaust; use of the phrase, even in non-Nazi contexts, e.g., "the final solution of a mathematics problem" is frowned upon in modern Germany \n*Endlösung der Judenfrage — "final solution to the Jewish question"; see Endlösung, above.\n*Entartete Kunst — degenerate art; term used as the title of an art show consisting of Jewish and other "degenerate" art.\n*Erbhofgesetz — the 1933 NSDAP hereditary farm law; it guaranteed family farm holdings of three hundred acres or less.\n*Ermächtigungsgesetz — "Law to Relieve the Distress of the People and Reich"; Enabling Act of March 23, 1933\n* Ersatz — a substitute product. Germany did not have an easy access to some strategic materials. German scientist had to research how to produce artificial rubber (Buna), for example.\n* Fraktur — a fashion of black letter popularly associated to Nazi Germany, though it was forbidden by Hitler in 1941 on grounds of it being Jewish. \n*Frontgemeinschaft — front line community. It was termed for the solidarity felt by the German soldiers of WWI in the trench warfare.\n*Führer — leader. Adolf Hitler was called "Der Führer".\n*Führerprinzip — the leader principle \n*Führerstaat — the concept of Hitler's dictatorship of one-man rule\n*Gau, pl. Gaue — territory divided into NSDAP regional districts.\n**Bezirk — NSDAP districts\n***Kreise — counties or subdistricts; smaller units of the Bezirk\n****Ortsgruppen — Party branch or local branches. It took a minumum of fifteen members to be recognized.\n*****Hauszellen — tenement cells\n*****Strassenzellen — street cells\n*****Stützpünkte — strong points\n*Gauleiters — leaders of the gaue. They had to swear personal loyality to the Fuehrer. It was also handed out as an honorary title to deserving party members.\n*Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) — The Nazi Party secret police. Gestapo is made of the initials from this word: Geheime Staatspolizei.\n*Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz — "The common good before the private good"; Rudolf Jung popularized it in his book Der Nationale Sozialismus, 1922, 2nd edition. This became Hitler's basic stance on the subordination of the economy to the national interest. (6)\n*German School of Economics — also known as the historical, romantic or statist school; promoted the state intervenion in economics; leading authors: J. G. Fichte, Adam Müller, Fredrich List, Adolf Wagner\n*Gleichschaltung — the restructuring of German society and government into streamlined, centralized hierarchies of power, with the intention of gaining total control and coordination of all aspects of society\n*Godwin's Law — any perceived injustice is too often and too quickly equated to one of the horrors of history\n*Grossraumwirtschaft — contintental economic zone similar to Lebensraum\n*Hakenkreuz — swastika\n*Herrenvolk — master race\n*Heimatvertriebene\n*HIB-Aktion — "Into the Factories Campaign"; a part of the Nazi campaign to recruit factory workers.\n*Hitlerism is another term for Nazism.\n*Illustrierter Beobachter — NSDAP national tabloid\n*Judenrat — Jewish council. The Gestapo established judenrats in ghettoes to have them carry out necessary duties.\n*jüdische Grundspekulationsgesellschaften — Hitler's slang term for Jewish property speculation companies\n*Jungvolk — NSDAP young male association\n*Kameradschafts- und Gemeinschaftsstärkung — strengthening or comradeship and community; Nazi party Gleichschaltung of social institutions\n*Kapo — the priviledged inmate heading a work kommando.\n*kommando — a prisoner work detail\n*Konzentrationslager often abbreviated KZ for concentration camp; in German the word is distinct from Vernichtungslager, "death camp"; in (American) English, the distinction is not usually made.\n*Kraft durch Freude (KdF) — "strength through joy", state-sponsored programme intended to organize people's free time, offering cheap holidays, concerts, other leisure activities, and (unsuccessfully) a car (Kdf-Schiff, KdF-Wagen).\n**It was initially called Nach der Arbeit".\n*Kraut — a slang term for Germans applied by Allied soldiers.\n*Kreditschöpfungstheorie — Gregor Strasser's idea for government spending and credit creation.\n*Kriegserlebnis — myth of the war experience\n*Kristallnacht \n*Kultur — a German word for their particular brand of culture.\n*Landwirtschaftliche Gaufachberater — NSDAP agricultural conventions; first one held in Feb. 8, 1931. They held Bauernkundgebung (farmer's rallies).\n*Landwirtschaftliche Vertrauensleute (LVL) — NSDAP agrarian agents; used to infiltrate other agricultural/husbandry/rural organizations to spread Nazi influence and doctrine.\n*landwirtschaftlicher Fachberater — expert consultant on agriculture that was assigned to every NSDAP gau and Ort unit.\n*Lebensborn -- "Fountain of Life Society"; a human breeding plan intended to expand the "Aryan race". Gave aid to unmarried women who bore children by "Aryan" fathers. Especially "productive" mothers were awarded an honor pin: the Mutterkreuz.\n*Lebensraum— "Living space", specifically living space for ethnic Germans and generally referring to territories to be seized in Eastern Europe; see Drang nach Osten\n*Leistungsgemeinschaft — performance community; part of the Nazi Gleichschaltung of social institutions\n*Luftwaffe — (military) "Air force" under Third Reich\n*Mein Kampf — "My Battle", Adolf Hitler's autobiography and political statement\n*Militärbefeshlshaber — military commander for Belgium and northeastern France\n*"Mit brennender Sorge" -- A letter by the Pope warning against the Nazis.\n*Mussulman — “an immate who had resigned himself to death and lost the will to do anything to help himself survive”. (1)\n*Mutterkreuz -- a special cross awarded on three levels to all mothers "of favorable standing" who fulfilled the baby quota. A bronze medal was bestowed on mothers with four or five children, a silver one for six or seven children, and finally a gold one for eight or more children. \n*Nacht und Nebel — "Night and fog", code for some prisoners that should be disposed of leaving no traces.\n*Nazi is an acronym for the German National Socialist Workers Party. The term Nazi is a short form of the German word (NA)tionalso(ZI)alismus (National Socialism).\n**de-Nazification — the process in which Allied occupation dismantled the Nazi influence in post war Germany\n**ex-Nazis — Those who resigned or when the party was declared illegal at the end of WWII. \n*Nazism; the ideology of the NSDAP (generally considered to be a variant of Fascism under a misleading name.)\n*National Socialist Teachers Association\n*Nazi Student League\n*Nazi Students Association\n*NSDAP Zentralkartei — master file, containing approx. 7.2 million original and official individual German Nazi Party membership cards. Comprises of two separate files. It is housed in the Berlin Document Center (BDC).\n**Ortskartei — \n**Reichskartei —\n*Nationalsozialistische Betriebzellenorganisation (NSBO) — National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (Nazi Party labor union) which had a membership of approx. 400,000 workers by Jan. 1933. \n*Nationalsozialistische Briefe — pro-labor publication launched by Gregor Strasser and edited by Joseph Goebbels.\n*Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) — the National Socialist German Workers Party of Adolf Hitler\n*Nationalsozialistische Frauenschaft (NSF) — NSDAP Women's Group headed by Gertrud Scholtz-Klink; designed to create women leaders and supervise indoctrination and training. It had 2 million members by 1938\n*National-Sozialistische Landpost — NSDAP agricultural paper started by Richard Walther Darré\n*National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV) — NSDAP welfare organization founded in Berlin in Sept. 1931. It acquired the official role in welfare and later on the racial policy of the Third Reich.\n* Night of the Long Knives\n*Pan-Germanism — The idea that all Germans should live in one country.\n*Panzer, (military) — "Tank"; not specific to Third Reich, but listed here for its centrality to Blitzkrieg\n*Partei-Statistik — 1935 Nazi Party three volume publication of membership data\n*Planwirtschaft — a limited planned economy; Walther Funk promoted this idea within the Nazi party who thought genuine corportism to stifling for business growth\n*Putsch\n*Rednerschule der NSDAP — National Socialist Speaker's School\n*Reich — Empire\n*Reichsbauernführer — National Farmers' Leader; title given to Darré\n*Reichsleitung — national leadership; members of the NSDAP Party Directorate. They all swore personal loyalty to the Fuehrer.\n*Reichsmark (RM) — German money\n*Reichsmordwocke — "Reich Murder Week", also know as Night of the Long Knives of June-July 1934 during which the Nazis assassinated hundreds of opponents.\n*Reichsschrittumkammer — the Nazi Chamber of Literature. Johst was president.\n*Reichsstatthalter — Reich Governor; after the seizure of power in 1933, local governments were dissolved and the gauleiters were appointed to govern the states with full powers.\n*Reichstag (Imperial Diet; see Reichstag (building) and Reichstag (institution))\n*revolution der Gesinnung — a revolution of feeling; the concept that the German people would not only develop a purified race but also a new mind and spirit. It was about, in Hitler's words, "to create a new man". (5)\n*Schönheit der Arbeit — Beauty of Labor program\n*Schutzstaffel (SS) — Defense Squads; Hitler's personal body guard unit which was also a paramilitary group. "SS" is formed from Schutzstaffel. They wore totally black uniforms.\n**Allgemeine-SS – general body of the Schutzstaffel consisting of full-time, part-time, and honorary members.\n**SS Totenkopfverbände — Death's-head units.\n**Verfügungstruppe — "ready" action troops organized by the SS in 1938.\n**Waffen-SS — later name of the Verfügungstruppe.\n*Sonderkraftfahrzeug (Sd.Kfz.) - Special purpose motor vehicle; used to refer to tanks and other military vehicles.\n*Sprechabend — closed Nazi party meetings\n*Sprachregelung — a special language that masked the camp conditions and the policy of extermination. It took the words "extermination", "killing", "liquidation"; and substituted for them, the euphemisms: "final solution", "evacuation", "special treatment", "resettlement", "labour in the East". It was developed to deceive victims and to assist SS officials to avoid having to face reality. (2)\n*Ständesozialismus — corporative socialism; promoted by O. W. Wagener, sometime head of the political economy section of the party organization.\n*state socialism — comprehensive state intervention in and regulation of the economy; concept derived from the German School of Economics by Adolf Wagner (4)\n*Stosstrupp — Hitler's body guard unit before the Hitlerputsch; forerunner to the SS.\n*Strasser wing — named after Gregor Strasser who lead the left wing of the Nazi Party.\n*Stücke — pieces. A sprachregulung term for Jews and other undesirables that dehumanized them. (They were no longer humans or persons but pieces.)\n*Sturmabteilung (SA) — Storm troopers. NSDAP paramilitary group\n* Thule Gesellschaft — "Thule Society". The Nazis sought themes for their ideology in the Occult and the Germanic and Nordic traditions.\n*Turnvereine — German and Austrian calisthenic leagues. They were identically dressed men and women making identical movements in mass performance.\n*Übermensch — lit. higher man, or overman; An idea appropriated from the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and used by certain Nazis to describe the racially superior German "Aryan" people.\n**Untermensch — lit. lower man or underman; corallary of the term Ubermensch, but reversed as a label given to peoples considered racially inferior to the "Aryan" Germans.\n*Überwachungsdienst — surveillance service of the aA to protect the organization against Konjunkturritter (opportunists).\n*U-Bahn (abbreviated form of Untergrundbahn) — freeway\n*U-Boot (abbreviated form of Unterseeboot) — submarine\n*Umschlagplatz — place of assembly. Kapos were told to collect Jews and bring them to this designated spot for pick up and transfer to the death trains. \n*Uschla — arbitration committee of the NSDAP Party Directorate\n* V-1 and V-2 — Missiles used to attack Britain and other countries liberated by Allied forces.\n*Vernichtungslagern — extermination camps\n*Volk — the (German) people, Folk, or race.\n**Völkisch movement\n*Völkischer Beobachter — the official Nazi Party paper\n**"Deutsche Arbeiterpolitik" — special labor section included in the above party paper.\n**Der Angriff — Nazi Party labor newspaper started by Joseph Goebbels\n**Der Erwerbslose — Nazi Party labor newspaper\n**Arbeitertum — Nazi Party labor newspaper\n* Volkswagen — "people's car". Conceived during the mid 30s but reached its peak in the post war period.\n*Volksgemeinschaft — a concept that means national communal solidarity; popular ethnic community; classless folk community\n*Volkswirtschaft — a people's or national economy\n*von — an aristocratic appellation to German names though it does not always signify that class.\n*Wehrbauern — soldier-peasant settlements that were to be established in the East to act as a defensive shield against the inroads of Slav barbarianism.\n*Weltanschauungskrieg — war of ideologies\n*Winterhilfe — Winter Relief Program of the Nazi Party to support its members during the Great Depression of 1932.\n*Wirtschaftspolitische Abeilung — 1931 WPA; A NSDAP proposed program\n*Wirtschaftliches Sofortprogramm — 1932 Economic Program; A NSDAP proposed program\n*Wirtschaftliches Aufbauprogramm — 1932 Economic Reconstruction Plan; A NSDAP proposed program\n* Zeppelin — The rigid airships were a symbol of the German air technology.\n*Zielstrebigkeit — goal fixation\n*Zusammenstösse — gang fights; the brawls between the various party paramilitary groups \n*Zwangswirtschaft'' — forced or compulsion economy\n*25-point program — The Nazi Party platform and a codification of its ideology.\n*581 Abel autobiography — Weimar period Nazi Party membership data source
Slang terms
\nThese terms are used in American language\n*goosestep — a ceremonial marching form of many countries especially of the ones in cold climates. (Germany and Russia) The vigorous marching kept the participants warm. The Nazi’s use of it in their parades was later used as a term for totalitarian governments.\n*jackboot — the German military footwear that guarded against the cold, mud, brambles and barbed wire. Americans had gaiters and the British had puttees. It is a slang term used against totalitarian police states.
List by Abbreviations/Acronyms
\n*aA — NSDAP Agrarian Apparatus\n*DAP — German Workers Party\n*DFO — German Women's Order\n*DNSAP — the Austrian German National Socialist Workers Party\n*Gestapo — The Nazi secret police\n*LVL — agrarian agents for the NSDAP\n*Nazi — German for National Socialist\n*NSBO — National Socialist Factory Cell Organization\n*NSDAP — the National Socialist German Workers Party.\n*NSF — NSDAP's Women's group\n*NSV — National Socialist People's Welfare\n*RBA — National Socialist Factory Cell Division \n*RM &mdsah; Reichsmark\n*SA — NSDAP Storm troopers\n*SS — Hitler's body guard and extra NSDAP paramilitary group. \nReferences
\n#The Tragedy of Nazi Germany, Peter Phillips, Praeger Publishers, NY, 1969, 1970. pg 193\n#The Tragedy of Nazi Germany, Peter Phillips, pg 179\n#The Logic of Evil, The Social Origens of the Nazi Party, 1925-1933, William Brustein, Yale University Press, New Haven, CN, 1996. pg 143.\n#A History of Fascism 1914-1945, Stanley G. Payne, University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. pg 55\n#A History of Fascism 1914-1945, Stanley G. Payne, University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. pg 180\n#The Rise of Fascism, F.L. Carsten, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1969. pg 83.
Related Topics
\n* List of German expressions in English\n* Glossary of German WWII military terms\n* Weimar political parties\n* Weimar paramilitary groups\n* Songs of the Third Reich\n* Mysticism in Nazi Germany\nCategory:Nazi GermanyCategory:Lists of terms
