{"id":10997,"date":"2019-08-21T13:06:13","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T13:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=10997"},"modified":"2019-08-21T13:06:13","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T13:06:13","slug":"german-wiedergutmachung-reparations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/german-wiedergutmachung-reparations\/","title":{"rendered":"German Wiedergutmachung (Reparations)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guten Tag! Today we\u2019re looking at the word die Wiedergutmachung.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Image via Pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n

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 die Wiedergutmachung<\/strong> means: reparation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The word Wiedergutmachung is a bit of a handful, so let\u2019s break it down:<\/p>\n

wieder = again
\ngut = good
\nmachung = from the verb machen: \u2018to make\u2019<\/h4>\n

So Wiedergutmachung literally means \u2018again good make\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following the war, many Germans felt (and many still do feel) shame and guilt over the abhorrent actions of the Nazi party towards the Jewish people, and agreed that reparations should be paid to them. There is a term for this feeling of guilt: die Vergangenheitsbew\u00e4ltigung. <\/strong>You can read about it in this post here.<\/a><\/p>\n

However, it is worth noting that Wiedergutmachung<\/strong> does not just refer to reparations made in money, nor does it only<\/em> refer to the reparations made following WWII. In fact, there is a separate word for when talking specifically about money: das Wiedergutmachungsgeld<\/strong>! Literally \u2018the make good again money\u2019,<\/strong> where the word das Geld<\/strong> means money<\/strong> in German.<\/p>\n

So as it does not necessarily involve money, Wiedergutmachung can simply refer to a way of making things good again. For example:<\/p>\n

Zur Wiedergutmachung versprach er ihr, am n\u00e4chsten Tag den Rasen zu m\u00e4hen.<\/strong>
\nTo make it up to her, he promised to mow the lawn the following day.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although it is a multi-purpose word, the term Wiedergutmachung<\/strong> is so closely linked to the post-WWII reparations made to Nazi victims that this is often the first thing that springs to mind when people hear it (it\u2019s also the first description that comes up when you type \u2018Wiedergutmachung\u2019 into a search engine).<\/p>\n

There is an entire dictionary dedicated to words that have been \u2018tainted\u2019 by Nazism. The W\u00f6rterbuch der Vergangenheitsbew\u00e4ltigung<\/strong> \u2013 the ‘dictionary of coming to terms with the past’<\/em> – by Thorsten Eitz and Georg St\u00f6tzel is a publication examines around 1,000 German words and phrases with Nazi associations, and how they\u2019ve changed and developed since the end of WWII. You can read about a handful of these words in this post here!<\/a><\/p>\n

Bis bald! (See you soon!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Guten Tag! Today we\u2019re 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…<\/p>\n

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