# Things ruined in Germany by the Nazis **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 5, 2014, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395 "2014-07-05T05:17:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Doughbag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Doughbag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doughbag)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/141 "2014-07-11T00:22:40Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > Nein! Ich liebe Bernd das Brot! -Und mein Deutsch ist schlecht > > Somehow though, whenever I am in Germany (used to be a lot) I find Bernd and both understand and ejnoy it. The first couple of times there, I would get back to the Hotel and seek it out. I didn’t know what was going on, but I couldn’t stop watching. Now I get it! Then [enjoy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBYvbcwfL20)… ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/142 "2014-07-11T01:49:04Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > You mean a Hindu (or Buddhist) swastika. Sanskrit is a language. For a few decades, the swastika was a popular [good luck charm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_use_of_the_swastika_in_the_early_20th_century)in Europe and America, too. I inherited a [small bit of evidence](http://theguiltlist.blogspot.com/2013/03/postcards-did-i-mention-that-political.html) of that. (Scroll down.) ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/143 "2014-07-11T03:22:15Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Not that Hindus do not have every right to use their own symbols, but the cost is having to educate everyone or suffer a certain amount of hostility. I went to college with an Indian guy named Swastik. He decided to go the “educate everyone” route, as it was his own name and he wanted to use it. I respected that. He was very patient about explaining it to people. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/144 "2014-07-11T12:06:36Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > As far as I know Nietzsche is wildly misunderstood just about all over. I blame his raging bitch of a sister. Also the fact that he can be _really_ hard to follow at times. Being half-insane will do that. Very true. Alas, Wagner’s attackers understand Wagner perfectly. Fantastic music, though! ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/145 "2014-07-11T12:25:48Z")
Soccer. Twitter’s replete with [**Nazi references**](http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/brazil2014/why-germany-s-world-cup-soccer-wins-unleashed-a-flurry-of-nazi-tweets-1.2703231) after Germany’s soccer wins. > [@](#): > > And then there was the Malaysian lawmaker, who, with no irony intended, tweeted “Well done. Bravo. Long live Hitler.” ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/146 "2014-07-11T12:28:59Z")
> [@cookiecuttercc](#): > > and I’d add German food in the US (spaetzle, schnitzel, even German cake). Completely out of sight even in areas where German descendants are the biggest ethnic group by plurality. That has not been my experience at all. Ever see how popular Oktoberfest is at any bar? Every town I’ve lived in has German restaurants. Plus, “German cake” isn’t German, it’s named after the brand of chocolate, German’s. I think your info is suspect. > [@Celyn](#): > > Really? Even now? That does seems a bit sad. How about German ham? Or Lebkuchen at Christmas? Is German beer OK? Ah, just realised that would be quite a long distance to export beer. OK. But isn’t there a sort of young-people fashion for drinking Jägermeister? No, I do not think it’s true. German food and beer is quite popular. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/147 "2014-07-11T13:10:29Z")
When working on a joint project with people from the Netherlands, we referred to them as “collaborators” – they informed us they preferred the term “colleagues” since collaborator had a specific negative connotation because of certain people who collaborated with the Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/148 "2014-07-11T16:46:04Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Is it pretty much acceptable in Germany to be into Wagner’s music & Nietzsche’s philosophy? Because both in the U.S. will get you looked at a bit sketchily in some circles. Whatever those circles are, they must be pretty obscure or rather extremist. Wagner is played all the time with no issues I have heard. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/149 "2014-07-11T16:47:21Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Very true. Alas, Wagner’s attackers understand Wagner perfectly. I doubt it. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/150 "2014-07-11T19:42:23Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Very true. Alas, Wagner’s attackers understand Wagner perfectly. Fantastic music, though! _“Wagner’s music is much better than it sounds.”_ -Mark Twain ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/151 "2014-08-20T13:36:21Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > The world _reich_ is similarly verboten in a non-historical context. The only post-war exceptions were \*_East Germany keeping the name Deutsche Reichsbahn \* (in order to preserve treaty rights to operate in West Berlin)_ and the _Reichstag_ building in Berlin (for historical reasons, and it was still a highly controversial decision not to rename it). Have been net-surfing, probably with too much time on my hands – hence resurrecting this thread from some weeks back, on a rather small point, tangential to the general theme. Being a railfan, I had long been puzzled by the German Democratic Republic’s keeping the pre-1945 name\* Deutsche Reichsbahn\* for its rail system – what with the importance that the Communist world attached, to symbolism and rhetoric and proper “correct” language: surely\* Reichsbahn\* would have had unacceptable connotations of the bad old times. (The German Federal Republic called its system, \*Deutsche Bundesbahn \*.) Was recently engaged in discussion of this matter, on another board; where the only explanation offered, was that the GDR was a rather gimcrack affair, initiated and run by people who were not all that able or bright: whereby, lots of bungling and inconsistency – and just sticking to pre-1945 precedents – happened there, in various fields. I find the above “legal technicalities re operating in West Berlin” explanation, more sense-making. I am not, and have never been, super-knowledgeable about my hobby: so when travelling for the first time through Berlin, in 1980 (by rail, heading further east) — I had hitherto imagined that traffic between the Federal Republic and West Berlin, would be taken care of by specific trains terminating in West Berlin; and that international workings would avoid West Berlin by taking the “circle” lines around the city, and would serve East Berlin’s Ostbahnhof station. I was surprised to find that standard operational procedure, was that the train ran right through West Berlin, calling at the main through station therein (name, Friedrichstrasse? – memory failing me a bit); the whole carry-on involving document-checks-and-stamping by (very polite) green-uniformed GDR security personnel, first at the inter-German border some 150km. west of Berlin, then when entering West Berlin, and \* then\* when leaving West Berlin. Discovering that this particular – and avoidable – nonsense, must have gone on many times each day: prompted me to some conspiracy-theory-type speculation, to the effect that maybe the Cold War was largely a sham – with the Western and Eastern blocs hating and fearing each other a lot less than they feigned to do, and with the thing being used as a pretext to create jobs for those who might otherwise have none; and to give people a chance to enjoyably and elaborately play silly buggers… ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/152 "2014-08-20T15:24:41Z")
Most words that foreigners imagine being ruined by the Nazis in Germany, aren’t really, e.g. the words _Führer_ and _Anschluss_ both have a lot of uses not associated with Nazism _Führer_: a human guide (e.g. to a city or attractions), generally a person whose function is local knowledge as opposed to leadership (the leadership angle of the word has been killed off by Nazism) _Anschluss_: an electric, pneumatic connection etc., an interchange connection between trains at a station, social connection to a group sought by people. Three things that come to mind to me that _have_ been ruined or constrained: [ol] [li]We are very loth to schedule a festive or positive occasion on April 20 (Hitler’s birthday). For example, a premier (_Ministerpräsident_) of my state resigned effective 19 April 2005. His designated successor asked for the session of the state parliament electing his successor to be rescheduled from 20 April to 21 April. [/li][li]A selection of objects (e.g. for quality) can be a _Selektion_ (if you want to sound learned/technical), but a selection of people always is an _Auswahl_.[/li]Related by my SO who worked in a group home for people with a mild/midrange mental disability for a long time: It is very hard, ranging on impossible, to get doctors to do a vasectomy/sterilization procedure on mentally handicapped people, even on the explicit request of their parents/guardians and when it is clear they would be utterly incapable of caring for children. This is because of the forced sterilization policy of the Third Reich for the mentally handicapped - doctors are afraid of being associated with that. As mentally handicapped people do have sex with each other - apparently they are very matter-of-fact about it, much less of the baggage/drama we nonhandicapped people saddle sex with - the women get contraceptive drugs, the side effects of which would be unneccessary if sterilization were available. [/ol] ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/153 "2014-08-20T23:23:59Z")
> [@Doughbag](#): > > Sure, because people suddenly realized that it’s not a good thing, when you take this shit to far… like Hitler did. > > For example, it made it pretty impossible for the English to hold on to India and to keep the dirty Indian named Ghandi in prison, while freeing Germany from the racist NAZI’s. But that doesn’t apply to the IRISH, of course – that’s completely different. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/154 "2014-08-21T01:11:56Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > Discovering that this particular – and avoidable – nonsense, must have gone on many times each day: prompted me to some conspiracy-theory-type speculation, to the effect that maybe the Cold War was largely a sham – with the Western and Eastern blocs hating and fearing each other a lot less than they feigned to do, and with the thing being used as a pretext to create jobs for those who might otherwise have none; and to give people a chance to enjoyably and elaborately play silly buggers… Tell this to the families of the people who were shot for not getting into the spirit of the thing and trying to cross over from East Berlin to West Berlin. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/155 "2014-08-21T02:11:50Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > But that doesn’t apply to the IRISH, of course – that’s completely different. :rolleyes: Indeed, because most of Ireland, that part of that was not determined to fight to stay part of Britain, had already gained independence by 1922, long before the Nazis meant anything. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/156 "2014-08-21T02:17:00Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > I am not, and have never been, super-knowledgeable about my hobby: so when travelling for the first time through Berlin, in 1980 (by rail, heading further east) — I had hitherto imagined that traffic between the Federal Republic and West Berlin, would be taken care of by specific trains terminating in West Berlin; and that international workings would avoid West Berlin by taking the “circle” lines around the city, and would serve East Berlin’s Ostbahnhof station. I was surprised to find that standard operational procedure, was that the train ran right through West Berlin, calling at the main through station therein (name, Friedrichstrasse? – memory failing me a bit); the whole carry-on involving document-checks-and-stamping by (very polite) green-uniformed GDR security personnel, first at the inter-German border some 150km. west of Berlin, then when entering West Berlin, and \* then\* when leaving West Berlin. > > Discovering that this particular – and avoidable – nonsense, must have gone on many times each day: prompted me to some conspiracy-theory-type speculation . . . Never resort to conspiracy theory to explain things that can be explained without it. Your analysis overlooks one factor; West Berliners wishing to travel to points further East. They need a train which departs from West Berlin and proceeds to, say, Warsaw. So, you need a train from (say) Frankfurt to West Berlin, and you need a train from West Berlin to Warsaw. So you need all the border control infrasctructure/staff/paraphernalia on for trains going in and out of Berlin on both sides. So, while it would be possible to run a train from Frankfurt to Warsaw which skirted West Berlin, you wouldn’t avoid much expense by doing so. You would save time for the Frankfurt-Warsaw passengers, but you’d have the cost of runing a separate train for them, instead of carrying them in the same train as the Frankfurt-Berlin and the Berlin-Warsaw passengers. You can conclude that cost/benefit balance might favour a single Frankfurt-Berlin-Warsay service for all passengers without invoking a conspiracy theory. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/157 "2014-08-21T02:20:37Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > :rolleyes: > Indeed, because most of Ireland, that part of that was not determined to fight to stay part of Britain, had already gained independence by 1922, long before the Nazis meant anything. That’s t-bonham’s point. We don’t need to point to Hitler/WWII to explain why it was considered politically unfeasible to hold India against the wishes of its population by force and repression. It has already been established well before Hitler came along that it was politically unfeasible for the British to hold a country against the wishes of its population by force and repression. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/158 "2014-08-21T16:21:37Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Tell this to the families of the people who were shot for not getting into the spirit of the thing and trying to cross over from East Berlin to West Berlin. Unless most of the reports of such occurrences were propaganda, and part of the sham – telling of things which never really happened 😃 … No, seriously, point taken. I do have the impression, though, that many people perceived the whole business of four-zone Berlin as having – alongside the scary and tragic aspects – a fair number of farcical ones. > [@UDS](#): > > Never resort to conspiracy theory to explain things that can be explained without it. > > Your analysis overlooks one factor; West Berliners wishing to travel to points further East. They need a train which departs from West Berlin and proceeds to, say, Warsaw. > > So, you need a train from (say) Frankfurt to West Berlin, and you need a train from West Berlin to Warsaw. So you need all the border control infrasctructure/staff/paraphernalia on for trains going in and out of Berlin on both sides. > > So, while it would be possible to run a train from Frankfurt to Warsaw which skirted West Berlin, you wouldn’t avoid much expense by doing so. You would save time for the Frankfurt-Warsaw passengers, but you’d have the cost of runing a separate train for them, instead of carrying them in the same train as the Frankfurt-Berlin and the Berlin-Warsaw passengers. You can conclude that cost/benefit balance might favour a single Frankfurt-Berlin-Warsay service for all passengers without invoking a conspiracy theory. This all makes sound sense. I had initially imagined, though, that the political / tight security side of the whole situation, would be likely to trump any sort of convenience for the public, or attempt not to waste money. Had envisaged West Berliners who wanted to travel east; having to endure taking the standard permitted way(s) through the Wall – Checkpoint Charlie or whatever – to get to Ostbahnhof in East Berlin, and board their train there… ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/159 "2014-08-21T18:48:52Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > _Führer_: a human guide (e.g. to a city or attractions), generally a person whose function is local knowledge as opposed to leadership (the leadership angle of the word has been killed off by Nazism) > [/LIST] I remember from high school German our 1970s era textbook (still in use around the time of German unification) had a outdoorsy-themed chapter and one of the words presented without comment was \führer (_Wanderungsführer_ perhaps?). It created a bit of a titter through the class… enough that about all I remember of German from that chapter is that word that ended in führer. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2014, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395/160 "2014-08-22T03:22:15Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > In some ways almost anything German. I have German heritage but we have to be careful in showing any kind of honor to it so we dont seem like American Nazis. Then I suppose the little burg of Leavenworth, Washington gets some flack for the German heritage thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-ruined-in-germany-by-the-nazis/692395.md?page=9)