German words and phrases

thumb|The Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler (here pictured in 1938) titled himself [[Führer and ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945.]]

thumb|250px|upright|A kindergarten classroom

thumb|upright=1.5|Tanks and [[mechanised infantry of the 24th Panzer Division advancing through Ukraine, June 1942, typifying fast-moving combined arms forces of classic blitzkrieg]]

( , spelled Fuehrer when the umlaut is unavailable) is a German word meaning or . As a political title, it is strongly associated with Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945. Hitler officially called himself der Führer und Reichskanzler () after the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934, as well as the subsequent merging of the offices of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler.

alt=|thumb|A Friend in Need, a 1903 Dogs Playing Poker painting by [[Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, is a common example of kitsch.]] thumb|Puppy by Jeff Koons (2010) is a self-aware display of kitsch, specifically as a combination of opulence and cuteness.

thumb|Proposed supposed boundaries of the planned "Greater Germanic Reich," including planned post-war eastward expansions of Reichskommissariat|Reichskomissariats.

thumb|The Law, between Justice and State Power, allegory by [[Dominique Antoine Magaud (1899)]]Rechtsstaat (; lit. "state of law"; "legal state") is a doctrine in continental European legal thinking, originating in German jurisprudence. It can be translated into English as "rule of law", alternatively "legal state", state of law, "state of justice", or "state based on justice and integrity". It means that everyone is subjected to the law, especially governments.

thumb|160px|Image of a , the heraldic coronet of a titular thumb|160px|Heraldic headpiece of a mediatised houses|mediatised ' (; feminine: ' ) is a historical title of the German nobility and later also of the Russian nobility, usually translated as "count". Considered to be intermediate among noble ranks, the title is often treated as equivalent to the British title of "earl" (whose female version is "countess").

The '''''' (; ) was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both German-occupied Europe and unoccupied lands. With the start of World War II, tactical control was exercised by the (OKW, "High Command of the Armed Forces"), with some units being subordinated to the () directly under Heinrich Himmler's control. It was disbanded in May 1945.

The '''' ( , ; ) is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In his 1883 book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' (), Nietzsche has his character Zarathustra posit the as a goal for humanity to set for itself. The represents a shift from otherworldly Christian values and manifests the grounded human ideal. Zarathustra proclaims the will of the to give meaning to life on planet Earth, and admonishes his audience to ignore those who promise other-worldly fulfillment.

speech given by John F. Kennedy in West Berlin in June 1963

Realpolitik ( ) is the approach of conducting diplomatic or political policies based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than strictly following ideological, moral, or ethical premises. In this respect, it shares aspects of its philosophical approach with those of realism and pragmatism.

thumb|upright=1.4|alt=painting|Return to the Convent, by Eduardo Zamacois y Zabala, 1868. The painting depicts a group of [[monks laughing while a lone monk struggles with a donkey. ]]

thumb|300px|Leitmotif associated with Siegfried's horn call in Richard Wagner's 1876 opera, Siegfriedcenter

thumb|upright|Hermann Göring, the first Supreme Commander of the Luftwaffe (in office: 1935–1945) thumb|upright|Robert Ritter von Greim, the second and last Supreme Commander of the Luftwaffe (in office: April–May 1945) The Luftwaffe () was the aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Navy, had been disbanded in May 1920 in accordance with the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which banned Germany from having any air force.

''''' (, "Security Service"), full title ''' ("Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS"), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization and the Gestapo (formed in 1933) was considered its sister organization through the integration of SS members and operational procedures. The SD was administered as an independent SS office between 1933 and 1939. That year, the SD was transferred over to the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt''; RSHA), as one of its seven departments.

In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a Zeitgeist (; ; capitalized in German) is a way of referring to the intellectual, cultural, ethical and political climate of a given epoch in world history. It is often described as an invisible agent, force, or daemon that seems to dominate the characteristics of a particular period. The term is usually associated with Georg W. F. Hegel, contrasting with Hegel's use of Volksgeist ("national spirit") and Weltgeist ("world-spirit"), although the word itself predates Hegel and was popularized by Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

thumb|upright=0.80|Dante Gabriel Rossetti, How They Met Themselves, watercolour, 1864

slogan (“Work sets you free”) on the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps

'''''' ( , , ), from ('chapel') and ('master'), literally 'master of the chapel choir', is a word of German origin that designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term has evolved considerably in its meaning and is today used for denoting the leader of a musical ensemble, often smaller ones used for TV, radio, and theatre.

'''''' (, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS), and it was the highest rank of the SS. The longest-serving and most noteworthy office holder was Heinrich Himmler.

thumb|Stages of German eastern settlement in pink and three shades of green; the black line represents Holy Roman Empire borders in 1348 thumb|German language areas in 1910 in today's Poland, [[Kaliningrad Oblast (Russia), Lithuania, and Czech Republic before expulsion of Germans ]] '''' (, ) is the term for the early medieval and high medieval migration of Germanic peoples and Germanization of the areas populated by Slavic, Baltic and Uralic peoples; the most settled area is sometimes known today as . Germanization efforts included eastern parts of Francia, East Francia, and the Holy Roman Em

thumb|upright=1.7|Landsknechte, etching by [[Daniel Hopfer, c. 1530]]

Zugzwang (; ) is a situation found in chess and other turn-based games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage because of their obligation to make a move; a player is said to be "in zugzwang" when any legal move will worsen their position.

thumb|Gottlob Berger, chief of the [[SS Main Office, wearing the post-April-1942 version of the SS- rank insignia]] '''' (, ) was a paramilitary rank in Nazi Germany that was first created in 1932 as a rank of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and adopted by the Schutzstaffel (SS) one year later. Until April 1942, it was the highest commissioned SS rank after only . Translated as "senior group leader", the rank of was senior to Gruppenführer''. A similarly named rank of existed in the SA from 1929 to 1930 and as a title until 1933. In April 1942, the new rank of was created which was above and below .

thumb|250px|Willy Brandt (left) and [[Willi Stoph in Erfurt 1970, the first encounter of a Federal Chancellor with his East German counterpart, an early step in the de-escalation of the Cold War]] Neue Ostpolitik (German for "new eastern policy"), or Ostpolitik () for short, was the normalization of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany) and Eastern Europe, particularly the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) beginning in 1969. Influenced by Egon Bahr, who proposed "change through rapprochement" in a 1963 speech at the Evangelische Akademie Tutz

metaphony in which a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel

thumb|upright=0.95|Cover of the Nazi propaganda brochure "Der Untermensch" ("The Subhuman"), 1942. The SS booklet depicted the natives of Eastern Europe as "subhumans". Untermensch (; plural: Untermenschen) is a German language word literally meaning 'underman', 'sub-man', or 'subhuman', which was extensively used by Germany's Nazi Party to refer to their opponents and non-Aryan people they deemed as inferior. It was mainly used against "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians and Serbs).

The '''''' (; ) is a series of regulations limiting the ingredients in beer in Germany and the states of the former Holy Roman Empire. The best known version of the law was adopted in Bavaria in 1516 (by William IV), but similar regulations predate the Bavarian order, and modern regulations also significantly differ from the 1516 Bavarian version. Although today the is mentioned in various texts about the history of beer, historically it was only applied in the duchy, electorate, then Kingdom of Bavaria and from 1906 in Germany as a whole, and it had little or no effect in other countries or r

thumb|upright|Usual Crown (heraldry) of a Fürst in Crown (heraldry)#German-speaking countries|German-speaking countries

German Eastward expansionism, later associated with Nazi Germany

thumb|1938 Nuremberg rallies|Nuremberg Rally postcard, from the NSDAP Central Publishing House. A Nazi () towers over Germany and Austria.|upright=0.8

300px|thumb|The Volkswagen Beetle was an icon of post-war West German reconstruction. The pictured example is a one-off version manufactured to celebrate the production of a million cars of the type.

In Nazi German terminology, '''' () were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship." The term is the nominalised plural of volksdeutsch, with denoting a singular female, and , a singular male. The words Volk and völkisch'' conveyed the meanings of "folk".

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'''''' (; ) was an honorary military rank, specially created for Hermann Göring during World War II, and the highest rank in the . It was senior to the rank of (, equivalent to field marshal, which was previously the highest rank in the ), but was merely a ceremonial appointment to accentuate Göring's position as Hitler's designated successor. No actual subordination of the other field marshals or a superior position of the holder followed from it. It was equivalent to General of the Armies in the United States, or in other countries.

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thumb|GDR T-shirts, for sale in Berlin in 2004 thumb|right|Soviet and GDR Memorabilia for sale in Berlin in 2006 thumb|right|Jägerschnitzel, a popular East German cuisine item In German culture, Ostalgie () is nostalgia for aspects of life in Communist East Germany. It is a portmanteau of the German words Ost (east) and Nostalgie (nostalgia). Its anglicised equivalent, ostalgia (rhyming with "nostalgia"), is also sometimes used. Another term for the phenomenon is GDR nostalgia ().

' (SS-TV'; or 'SS Death's Head Battalions') was a major branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary (SS) organisation. It was responsible for administering the concentration camps and extermination camps of Nazi Germany, among similar duties. It was both the successor and expanded organisation to the (guard units) formed in 1933. While the was the universal cap badge of the SS, the SS-TV also wore this insignia on the right collar tab to distinguish itself from other SS formations.

alt=|thumb|upright=1.2|Engraving by Jusepe de Ribera depicting the melancholic and world-weary figure of a poet '''''' (; literally "world-pain") is a literary concept describing the feeling experienced by an individual who believes that reality can never satisfy the expectations of the mind, resulting in "a mood of weariness or sadness about life arising from the acute awareness of evil and suffering".

German term for a region within a country

thumb|Sepp Dietrich, ' and ' of the [[Waffen-SS]]

The ' (DVP; ), commonly known as the or VoPo', was the national uniformed police force of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1945 to 1990. The Volkspolizei was a highly-centralized agency responsible for most civilian law enforcement in East Germany, maintaining roughly 257,500 personnel at its peak. It worked closely with the Stasi to maintain public order and identify threats to the government.

organization in Nazi Germany

The ' often abbreviated as SiPo', is a German term meaning "security police". In the Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of the Gestapo (secret state police) and the Kriminalpolizei (criminal police; Kripo) between 1936 and 1939. As a formal agency, the SiPo was incorporated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939, but the term continued to be used informally until the end of World War II in Europe.

In German-speaking countries, the term Gastarbeiter (; both singular and plural) refers to foreign or migrant workers, particularly those who had moved to West Germany between 1955 and 1973, seeking work as part of a formal guest worker program ().

thumb|Caricature of a Privatdozent from German satirical periodical Fliegende Blätter (1848): "A German Privatdozent who, wrapped up in his hopes, turns into a mummy."

thumb|right|250px|Official poster from the Wochenspruch der NSDAP series, 16 February 1941. The inscription reads: "The Führer is always right".|alt=Blank poster with German-languge text.

region in which a proto-language was spoken

thumb|300px|The gegenschein appears in this image as a bright spot on the diagonal band (running top left to lower right) above the Very Large Telescope. (The [[Andromeda Galaxy and Pleiades are prominent in the lower half of the image.)]]

thumb|upright=1.35|Stairway of the Hôtel Tassel, an early example of Gesamtkunstwerk A Gesamtkunstwerk (, 'total work of art', 'ideal work of art', 'universal artwork', 'synthesis of the arts', 'comprehensive artwork', or 'all-embracing art form') is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so. The term is a German loanword accepted in English as a term in aesthetics.

light infantry

German motto which mean "God [is] with us"

Hinterland is the area under the influence of a particular human settlement.

'''''' ( ; ) is a German word whose meaning is analogous to the English word "realm". The terms and are respectively used in German in reference to empires and kingdoms. In English usage, the term " Reich" often refers to Nazi Germany, also called "the Third Reich".

Great association football rivalry un Germany

title of institutions in Austria-Hungary

Weltpolitik (, "world politics") was the imperialist foreign policy adopted by the German Empire during the reign of Emperor Wilhelm II. The aim of the policy was to transform Germany into a global power. Though considered a logical consequence of the German unification by a broad spectrum of Wilhelmine society, it marked a decisive break with the defensive Realpolitik of the Bismarckian era.

' (SS-VT', ) was formed in 1934 as combat troops for the Nazi Party (NSDAP). On 17 August 1938 Adolf Hitler decreed that the SS-VT was neither a part of the (order police) nor the , but military-trained men at the disposal of the . In time of war, the SS-VT were to be placed at the disposal of the army.

thumb|upright|Rittmeister in the Karabinier-Regiment Graf Hatzfeld, 1748 Rittmaster () is usually a commissioned officer military rank used in a few armies, usually equivalent to Captain. Historically it has been used in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Scandinavia, and some other countries.