# NAZI as an acronym? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 19, 2004, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-as-an-acronym/270042 "2004-10-19T15:47:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-as-an-acronym/270042/1 "2004-10-19T15:47:56Z")
I’m watching _Marathon Man_ again on AMC and need a long-awaited answer. The _National Socialist Deutche Arbeiten Partei_ (please correct the mangled spelling, it’s been a few years since I’ve studied German) comes out to NSDAP. In English it’s the National German Worker’s Party, or NGWP. So where does NAZI come from? The best I can think is it’s an anglicized phonetic reading of NSDAP in some convoluted way. Though even that doesn’t make much sense. So where did NAZI come from? ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-as-an-acronym/270042/2 "2004-10-19T15:50:47Z")
It comes from the first two syllables of the German pronunciation of “national.” ---
**Author:** ![Snaggletooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Snaggletooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snaggletooth)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-as-an-acronym/270042/3 "2004-10-19T15:53:51Z")
I don’t know but found [this](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Nazi) you could probably make sense out of it. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-as-an-acronym/270042/4 "2004-10-19T15:55:13Z")
If you’d like to hear it pronounced, go [here](http://dict.leo.org/le?32046405). ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-as-an-acronym/270042/5 "2004-10-19T16:07:00Z")
The dictionary is your friend. Any half-decent dictionary will give the derivation of a word as well as its meaning. > [@dictionary](#): > > **Nazi** : C20, from German, phonetic spelling of the first two syllables of _Nationalsozialist_, National Socialist. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-as-an-acronym/270042/6 "2004-10-19T16:18:46Z")
Sometimes the answer is so obvious you miss it. Thanks all. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-as-an-acronym/270042/7 "2004-10-19T18:52:51Z")
> [@Early Out](#): > > It comes from the first two syllables of the German pronunciation of “national.” This way of shortening a word is fairly common in German. Also in the political arena, you have “Sozis” for “Socialisten” or “Socialdemokraten”. ---
**Author:** ![Roches](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc8723/32.png) [@Roches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roches)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-as-an-acronym/270042/8 "2004-10-19T19:32:13Z")
‘Gestapo’ for _Geheime Staatspolizei_ (Secret State Police) is another common abbreviation of this type from the Nazi era. In the post-war era, the East German secret police were called ‘Stasi’ from _Ministerium für Staatsicherheit_ (State Security Ministry). This type of abbrevation isn’t restricted to political names though – there’s ‘KaDeWe’, ‘Kaufhaus des Westens’ (Department Store of the West), a large department store in Berlin. And not all political organizations were abbreviated like this, such as the SS and the SA. Those would’ve been something like ‘Schuta’ and ‘Stuab’, which makes it clear why they weren’t. I think the abbreviations taken from the first syllables of words are generally meant to be familiar and colloquial. For this reason, political speakers would talk about the ‘NSDAP’ and less often about being ‘Nazis’. I don’t recall ever seeing the Gestapo referred to as anything else in English though. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nazi-as-an-acronym/270042/9 "2004-10-19T20:27:34Z")
Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm boulevard is much more commonly known as the _Ku’damm_ or _Kudamm_.