What does the term ‘Nazi’ usually connotate (mean, imply) in your native language?

11 comments

1. Nazi means that, nazist. Neonazi is referred to mostly some ideology that extreme football fans have. Altough regarding them fascist can also be used.
   Here in Croatia fascist is used for Croatian Ustashe, Italian regime in Istria and Dalmatia and Serbian Chetniks (but rarely for them).
   Here in Croatia and other south slavic nations we have a name for germans “Švabo” (from Schwabian) š is sch.
   I have german origin and last name and when people see my last name it goes so you are “švabo”. It’s also used as a nickname.

2. In Spain, mostly:

   1//

   a) Nazi = actual Nazi

   b) Nazi = intolerant (jokingly or hyperbolic use) e.g. “don’t be such a Nazi”

   2//

   We use the appropriate term irrespective of nationality, but very specific (Nazi party member, Wermacht officer, collaborator, etc).

   3//

   No, except for the aforementioned point 1.b, and see next:

   4//

   Nazis refer specifically to a German 1930’s political phenomenon. As you may know, Spain had its own, referred to as **Falangismo**, or broadly with the Italian movement, **Fascismo**. *Nazi* is used specifically for the first, while *Fascist* is used overall for far-right movements of any kind in the modern world. The derogatory term is “**facha**” (fascist).

   5//

   “Neonazi” is used to refer to any contemporary group who tries to imitate the theatrics of 1930’s Nazism, irrespective of nationality (they try to imitate a specific group from a specific country). Any other far-right xenophobic group that doesn’t share that German “posing” frenzy is just refer to as fascist (fascista). AfD is not classified as that, just far-right (ultraderecha).

   6//

   “Facha” is used commonly as an insult. This is much more serious in Spain, as it may be a common occurrence that “your grandfather shot my grandfather in the back of the head and left him in the side of the road”.[note that, unlike in other countries, the shooter in question enjoyed/enjoys a pretty nice life to this day].

3. Historically: Member of the political party NSDAP or their sympathiser.

   Acutely: Someone who abuses political power.

4. So there’s a “nazi”- nazista, used mainly to describe NSDAP members or Nazi Germany soldiers/militias etc. Some people are pushing others to call Wehrmacht soldiers just “Germans”. It’s not used as an “insult” to anyone living in modern times.

   And there’s a “nazi” -naziol either a hooligan/ football fan who just shouts racist in some way things, or someone who has chauvinistic views. but any actually fascist/neo-nazi parties are banned.

   “fascist” nowadays is a buzzword, and even though I feel it’s overused, it is “weaker”. fascism is not full totalitarism unlike nazism, the state has control over media, education, market, the people but it doesn’t necessarily carry out genocides. there are people in our parliament praising Franco, because he fought communists for example.

   it’s hard to ignore that Russia that’s already a dictatorship, is now rapidly turning into an actual fascist state.

5. My opinion, as there are many different, I would expect.. :

   “nazi” is rarely used outside of history classes and it was very strange when Russia attacked Ukraine, saying it is going to “denazify” it.. it took me about a week to figure out that they were actually saying there are real nazis there, etc. (I know there are far right groups there, but that is hardly a surprise given that they are constantly threatened by outside forces = Russia.)

   Nazi means someone who would say “Hitler was right”, would downplay holocaust, would put their own nation above all others while (and this is important) treating others as lower class humans. Nazi means national socialist, so against free trade and using people as an excuse to seize power and control everything while actively supporting fighting between people of different backgrounds. Some people are considered “true” and some are consider as the “enemy” and the source of all evil, with very little inbetween.

   Not all germans were nazis, during and before ww2, and not all nazis disappeared after ww2, ofcourse.

   Nazis are fascists with the addition of caring about ethnicity. You can be fascist and only care about a strong government and an “us vs. them” mentality, or “either with us, or against us”, sort of black and white world view.. with a weird obsession about a long lost, never actually happened, glorious past, with cherry picked facts.

   We don’t use the term “nazi” for far right groups as none are stupid enough to admit it publicly. There are some stupid nazis, but they are mostly poor and less educated, so it is almost understandable that they are nazis, feeling left behind and angry about it, etc.

   We do however describe some groups or even political parties as “fascist leaning”, but not as fully fascist. For example, the use of water canons to disperse protest groups on a street could be described as fascist by some. But it is not fully accepted that methods like that are fascist, the opinion on this varies. And it rarely happens, especially now and for the next few years, because our government is no longer right wing, so it is automatically impossible for them to be called fascist, since the term is mostly used on the left, as a critic.

   “neonazi” is very rarely used, mostly it’s just nazi. What is the difference anyway? They have the same values and the same cowardice, only feeling strong when in groups – which is pretty normal for radicals of any sort.

   “nazi” can be used to insult or mock, yes, but it is rarely meant honestly, because it is so extreme to actually believe in the core values of nazism – racial superiority, etc. We also had totalitarian socialism for 50 years, during which it was a big problem to even hint at not totally hating the nazis and fascists. Some of that propaganda still affects us today.

6. 1 and 2: The word “nazi” might be used to describe being really strict, like obsessed with doing everything by the rules but too much. While people practicing nazi ideology are called “nazist”. At the moment I can’t remember hearing “nazi” being used for this instead of “nazist” (though I believe they are technically synonyms), maybe someone else remember hearing/seeing that.

   3. I don’t think so

   4. I know they aren’t the exact same but can’t remember definition of fascism (but wouldn’t a nazi also be facist, just not the other way around, or am I remembering wrong?) However facist can sometimes be used for certain people that basically act like dictators/like they have all the authority without them actually liking facism.

   5. We have the word “nynazist” which means the same as neonazi. The thing is that I’m not sure if it’s technically only supposed to be used about people that believe in the nazism from ww2 or not or if it’s there a broader definition here. At least my impression is that there might be some difference while some main ideologies are the same.

   6. No (Or I guess it depends on what you mean)

7. 1. A Nazi is what most people would say, someone who was part of the political party NSDAP in Germany between 1939 and 1945
   2. No not really though sometimes we just say “The Germans” Which can be rude but come on
   3. No I do not and I don’t think i’ve heard anyone call Vlaams Belang that, though some might say that. Flemish nationalists did join the nazis because they believed they’d get their independence if Hitler would’ve won.
   4. Nazis are just people with a fascists ideology, All Nazis are fascists but not all fascists are nazis. I do not use them interchangably
   5. Yes NeoNazis do exist We just call them NeoNazis
   6. I do not, I believe calling a right winged person a Nazi just makes the whole conversation toxic and also decriminalizes Legitimate Nazis or NeoNazis.

8. 1. In historical context, Nazi is a member of administration or armed forces of the Nazi Germany, or a member of NSDAP; “Nazi occupation” means the whole state apparatus, while “He was a convinced Nazi” means the party membership. In the modern context, it means xenophobic person.
   2. Collaborators for the opportunists who helped Nazi state, or nazis/fascists for the ones with similar convictions.
   3. Yes.
   4. Yes and no. There’s a difference in the academical debate, but little difference in the public discourse. Not all people are historians with focus on the XX century.
   5. Yes. It denotes modern people who exactly or almost exactly copy the original Nazi ideas and symbols. So a Japanese-born extremely anti-immigrant xenophobe is sometimes called a “nazi”, but never “neonazi”, these are the skinheads with a red-black flag with something right in the center of it.
   6. No, unless they are either actual neonazis or hardcore xenophobes way beyond any tolerable threshold.

9. 1: nazi, or “nazist” in Danish, is generally limited to its historical context, so it means a member of the national-socialist party, a supporter of it, or more generally a German soldier or official in the period of the interwar and to the immediate aftermath. This is pretty universal regardless of generation

   2: for Germans nazist is the one used. For other nationalities (though mostly used for Danes), we have a rather colourful vocabulary. We have the pretty generic “kollaboratør” (collaborator) to the very negative ones like “forræder” (traitor) and “værnemager” (someone who works or acts for the Wehr, i.e. Germans). There were also some sexist ones directed at women who dated Germans, like “tyskertøs” (German’s girl) and “feltmadras” (field mattress, i.e. the woman being akin to a mattress on which the Germans would sleep while in the field). There were also more specific ones like “hippo” (a shortening of the German *Hilfspolizei*, meaning assistant police) used for collaborators working in a more official capacity for the occupiers

   3: no. We call them the far right or “neonazister” (but very rarely, as misuse of the term renders it less impactful)

   4: that is a topic that can fill books. In short, nazis are fascists, but not all fascists are nazis. I do not use these interchangeably

   5: it exists, and mentioned above, but used quite sparsely

   6: no, under no circumstances. I will only use it for people whom it actually describes. I refuse for two reasons. First, as stated earlier, it diminishes its gravity. Second, it is *very* insulting to call someone that

10. What does the term ‘Nazi’ usually connotate (mean, imply) in your native language? What does it mean to you? What does it mean to people older/younger than you? – Nazi, in a modern setting, means someone who openly admires Nazi Germany and agrees with many or most of the Nazi party’s ideas.

    Is there another term you use for Germans and people regardless of nationality, who contributed to Nazi Germany’s/Hitlers goals and crimes, and who practiced Nazi ideology between 1920 and 1945? We would say “Nazi”, “Nazi Party Member”, “Nazi collaborator”, “German” , or whatever is appropriate in context. A few (on the political right) may prefer “National Socialist” either just to be pedantic or because they want to make normal socialists guilty by association, but the standard four-letter abbreviation is used 100 times as much.

    Do you use the term ‘Nazi’ for people in your own country’s far-right?; We don’t have a very active far-right in my country. At one time “far-right” meant the National Front and British National Party – back in the 80s and 90s some of their opponents called these parties “Nazi” but generally the term was only applied to the more extreme factions within the parties. But these are now irrelevant micro-parties. Some people call UKIP “far-right”, and there are other tiny nationalist-populist parties who are called far-right by the media, but anyone who called them “Nazi” would be branded an idiot. There are also some very fringe (and by now illegal) far-right groups, like National Action who are terrorists or have links with terrorism. They use Nazi imagery and accept bits of the ideology, so it is acceptable to call them Nazi.

    Where is the difference between a ‘Nazi’ and a ‘Fascist’? Do you use the words interchangeably? Fascist is used in a much wider sense. Almost any kind of authoritarianism, across the political spectrum, and no matter how serious or how trivial, can be called “fascist”. But I don’t think it is used a lot in everyday speech, perhaps more in tabloid journalism and by some political activists.

    Does the term ‘Neonazi’ or something similar exist in your language? Is it used in common speech/writing? Neo-Nazi is often used to describe present-day Nazi supporters or apologists. “Neo-Nazi” is perhaps used more in formal contexts, like in newspapers, reports, or academic papers, plain “Nazi” in informal contexts. But I sometimes think the “neo-” part is an attempt at mockery. Usually, the “neo-” prefix implies reviving something from the past, like neo-paganism or neo-Classical architecture. Calling far-rightists “Neo-Nazi” is perhaps a way to make them seem silly, like they are motivated by nostalgia and are unable to cope with modern life, or they are only pretending to be Nazis because they like the uniforms.

    Do you use the term ‘Nazi’ to insult or degrade people? I don’t think many people would use it as a general, everyday insult, only where it is has a basis in fact – see my earlier answers

11. We called German soldiers in WWII just “de Duitsers” (the Germans). Nazi means an actual member of the Nazi party here.