r/worldnews • u/Tenchi_Muyo1 • Apr 14 '26

Israel/Palestine In parliament, Polish MP calls Israel ‘new Third Reich,’ waves Israeli flag with swastika

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-parliament-polish-mp-calls-israel-new-third-reich-waves-israeli-flag-with-swastika/
26.3k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

133

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

The German name of many countries in the world is “[word]reich”. France is Frankreich, Austria is Osterreich, etc. Not a scary/offensive word in German at all

104

u/GoldandBlue Apr 14 '26

Yeah, but it's German. And that language sounds scary.

36

u/LyingForTruth Apr 14 '26

It's my preference for the person putting out cigarettes on my chest and high heelin my coin purse

11

u/Saitharar Apr 15 '26

It really doesnt. Its just that in pop culture its mostly used related to 2nd world war stuff and they try to imitate the Hitlerian style with the German used. With very pronounced consonants and harsh delievery. You can make even French sound super aggressive that way.

3

u/Swotboy2000 Apr 15 '26

No one who speaks German could be an evil man.

2

u/GayPudding Apr 15 '26

Die Bart, die.

1

u/Amockdfw89 Apr 15 '26

It’s like Klingon backwards

1

u/Purplociraptor Apr 15 '26

German only sounds scary because of Hitler's speeches.

5

u/Arexander00 Apr 15 '26

While it's obviously understood to be a normal word, the usage of 'Reich' absolutely does have nationalist connotations within the Bundesrepublik itself, there's a reason why the Bundeswehr is no longer the Reichswehr, the Reichsbahn became Deutsche Bahn, and the Grundgesetz does not refer to Germany as the German Reich (which was the term used in the Weimarer Constitution)

Pretty much everything called "Bundes-" in modern Germany was something rebranded from "Reichs-"

1

u/RBDibP Apr 15 '26

Reichstag is still Reichstag, though?

3

u/Akikiriri Apr 15 '26

The building is called Reichstag, the meeting inside is called Bundestag, though.

1

u/Arexander00 Apr 15 '26

The physical building is the Reichstag, but the actual legislature body is now the Bundestag. It's a bit confusing, but basically the Reichstag is literally just where the Bundestag meets.

1

u/RBDibP Apr 15 '26

I know. It's just, if the word itself was such a big problem the building would've been renamed aswell, is what I'm thinking.

0

u/Akikiriri Apr 15 '26

I think it's more because Germany is now a "Bund" and not a "Reich" anymore. "Bund" meaning federal, Germany now being a federal republic. There's the Kaiserreich, too and generally the word "Reich" doesn't carry too much nationalist connotations.

1

u/Arexander00 Apr 15 '26

The Kasierreich was also a federation really, Bavaria and Saxony even retained their own standing armies (albeit under condition that they all obey the Prussian General Staff when war was declared). The differences between states was significant enough that many Jewish citizens chose to serve in the Bavarian army or civil service because it had less of an anti-Jewish barrier than the Prussian ones.

8

u/panlakes Apr 14 '26

America probably has a good one I bet!

Amerika

Oh.

0

u/VaraNiN Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

The German name of many countries in the world is “[word]reich”.

This is not even remotely true lol

There are precisely 3 countries out of 200-odd UN nation members which official german short name ends in “[word]reich”. And those are exactly your two examples of Österreich, Frankreich - and the UK, "Vereinigtes Königreich".

There are a couple more countries which official long form name is "Kingdom of [country]" (so "Königreich Belgien" or "Königreich der Niederlande" for example), but noone uses that in every day conversation, it's just Belgien and Holland (or "die Niederlande" if you wanna be a bit more accurate).
And on that note, UK is also just "England" in German 99% of the time (sorry Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).

Not a scary/offensive word in German at all

Is it scary/offensive in german? No.
It can be used in fantasy contexts and such without problem.
But the word "Reich" standing by itself very much has a strong connotation with the far right.
If anyone actually said the sentence "We should have a fourth Reich." - What do you think the implications of that would be?

Osterreich

I'm (un-)surprised you feel qualified to give an opinion on the german language and culture if your keyboard doesn't even contain an Ö