Tag Archives: World War 2
The German Word ‘Volk’ Posted by Constanze on Jun 9, 2021
Guten Tag! We have talked before on the blog about words with loaded meanings/stigma attached to them – such as this post, German words associated with Nazism. Today we’re going to look at another such word in more detail. It’s a very small, simple word, but sometimes even these words have a surprising amount of…
75 Years Ago: The Nuremberg Trials Posted by Sten on Nov 23, 2020
Last Friday was the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Nürnberger Prozesse (Nuremberg trials). It was a series of Strafprozesse (criminal trials) to bring Nazis to justice. The Prozesse are seen as the beginning of the Völkerstrafrecht (International Criminal Law) and were an important marker how justice can be served to people that have such severe crimes…
German History: The White Rose Movement Posted by Constanze on Oct 28, 2020
Guten Tag! It’s been a while since I’ve done a travel/history post, so that’s what today’s post will be about! Today we’re going to München, Germany to learn about Sophie Scholl and Weiße Rose (White Rose), a political movement from 1942. Weiße Rose was started by a group of students at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (Ludwig Maximilian University…
Germany’s Stolpersteine Posted by Constanze on Jul 8, 2020
Guten Tag! Today we’re travelling around Germany again, this time to look at Stolpersteine. In fact, the Stolpersteine will take us out of Germany, too, and all around Europe. Read on to find out more. In the early ‘90s, a German artist named Gunter Demnig came up with the idea of Stolpersteine, commemorative brass plaques…
Loaded German Words: Kraut Posted by Constanze on Oct 25, 2019
Guten Tag! Recently there was an uproar here in the UK when the official party for the pro-Brexit campaign put out a poster showing a photo of Angela Merkel, accompanied by the words ‘We did not win two world wars to be pushed around by a Kraut’. This was in reference to a phone call…
Die Stunde Null: Zero Hour Posted by Constanze on Aug 28, 2019
Guten Tag! Today we continue on the theme of words that tell us a great deal about periods of German history. Today we are looking at four words, but the main one is this: die Stunde Null. Die Stunde Null translates to ‘the zero hour’, wherein die Stunde means hour, and null is the word…
German Wiedergutmachung (Reparations) Posted by Constanze on Aug 21, 2019
Guten Tag! Today we’re looking at the word die Wiedergutmachung. In 1953, the German government agreed to pay reparations to Holocaust survivors following World War II. This included anyone who was directly victimised by the Nazis in any way (it did not, however, include relatives/descendants of those people, for example). That is what the word…