FRG

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BRD is an unofficial abbreviation for the Federal Republic of Germany , which is sometimes used in a scientific and especially political context, analogous to the abbreviation " GDR " during the period from 1949 to 1990 . Official pronouncements of the Federal Republic, however, no longer contain this abbreviation since the early 1970s.

Origin and use of the term

Abbreviation in the Federal Republic of Germany

After the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, the abbreviation BRD was initially used without value. The German Language Society (GfdS) established in 1988 as the oldest evidence of "BRD" the essay "The constitutional foundations of the Federal Republic of Germany" of the then Professor of Public Law and International Law at the University of Freiburg , Wilhelm Grewe , in the German legal journal from June 20, 1949. To a certain extent, the abbreviation BRD was already in use in the 1950s. The spelling dude - from 1956 to 1996 in West Germany authoritative for the official German spelling - used the abbreviation for the first time in its 16th edition in 1967. In July 1965, the then Federal Ministry for all-German issues under Erich Mende (FDP) laid down “Guidelines for the designation [I.] of Germany; [II.] Of the demarcation lines within Germany; [III.] Of the places within Germany (designation guidelines) ”. The following was described in the Joint Ministerial Gazette (GMBl. P. 227 f.):

"The Federal Republic of Germany is - notwithstanding the fact that their territorial sovereignty currently on the scope of the Basic Law is limited - the German Reich as a subject of international law while respecting its legal identity continues . Instead of the express designation “Federal Republic of Germany”, which was laid down in the Basic Law, the short form “Germany” should always be used when the full name is not required. […] The abbreviation 'BRD' or the designation 'Federal Republic' without the addition 'Germany' should not be used. […] The area of ​​Germany occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945 west of the Oder-Neisse Line, with the exception of Berlin , is known in political parlance as the “ Soviet Zone of Occupation in Germany ”, abbreviated to “SBZ”, or “Soviet Zone” for short. There is nothing wrong with the fact that the term ' Central Germany ' is also used. "

At the beginning of the 1970s, a controversy about the abbreviation began when its use was banned in some federal states because it was ostracized as a " communist invention" and " agitation formula" due to its frequent use in the GDR . By avoiding the abbreviation BRD , the West German side wanted to differentiate itself from the language used in the GDR and prevent West and East German states from being put on the same level by analogous abbreviations. Despite all the loosening of the German-German relationship, the Federal Republic of Germany always regarded itself as the only legitimate German state under international law (no recognition of the GDR under international law), since only the government of the Federal Republic of Germany emerged from democratic elections. She claimed the designation "Germany" for the whole of Germany and thus representative of herself. Through the continued use of this term, the existence of a German nation - Germany as a whole - should be kept in the public consciousness so as not to endanger the national goal of reunification . On May 31, 1974, the heads of government of the federal and state governments recommended “that the full term 'Federal Republic of Germany' should be used in official language”.

From June 1974, the Education Ministers' Conference no longer allowed school books with the abbreviation "BRD". In essays in West Berlin , the abbreviation could be crossed out as an error if the topic of Germany had been dealt with in class. Since October 4, 1976, there has been a circular issued by the Minister of Education of Schleswig-Holstein (NBl. KM. Schl.-HS 274), which declares the abbreviation FRG to be undesirable.

In 1977 the GfdS added the abbreviation to the list of words of the year .

Andreas von Schoeler , Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior , informed the German Bundestag on November 30, 1979 that the use of the acronym "BRD" should not be used. After the education ministries of individual countries had already pointed out in the 1970s that the full designation "Federal Republic of Germany" should be used in school lessons , the Conference of Education Ministers decided in its 202nd plenary session on February 12, 1981, to use the abbreviation FRG in school books and cartographic works for school lessons no longer to be used. This resolution was subsequently implemented in state law by individual states by means of an announcement in their official gazettes , for example in Baden-Württemberg on April 14, 1981 and in Schleswig-Holstein on August 4, 1981.

The official view on FRG is one of the few cases (see also orthography ) in which an attempt was made in this way to intervene directly in the use of the German language .

In the 1980s, in connection with the Flick affair of the “bought republic”, the abbreviation was also combined with the polemical political catchphrase “ Banana Republic of Germany”.

Abbreviation in the German Democratic Republic

In the German Democratic Republic , the Federal Republic was mostly called West Germany in the first two decades of the division of Germany . The SED leadership avoided the official designation Federal Republic of Germany . In official letters, the terms "West German Federal Republic" and "German Federal Republic" (DBR) were used at times. The analogy to the state name German Democratic Republic (GDR) came to the fore in order to emphasize the two-state theory postulated by the Soviet Union and to keep the term Germany open to an all-German nation. As a reaction to the fact that this designation was then also used in part by expellees politicians in the Federal Republic of Germany, in its designation guidelines of 1961 , the Federal Government identified “German Federal Republic” as the “terminological counterpart to the“ two-state theory ”, making the designation“ incorrect ”and "To be avoided in principle" was branded.

The East German literature also took up this designation. However, this changed in 1968 when the new GDR constitution came into force , with which the German Democratic Republic said goodbye to the goal of reunification. Since then, in the GDR , the abbreviation FRG has officially been increasingly used for the Federal Republic in addition to the official state name Federal Republic of Germany . This should express the equality of the two states ; the term also spread in common parlance.

Consent German abbreviations

Federal Republic of Germany : Team bus of the German national team at the 1974 World Cup
D sign

In the former West Germany were up to German reunification and partly after the abbreviations BR Germany (also BRep Germany ), BR Dt. , BR Dtl. , BRDt. , BRep.Dtschl. , BRep. Germany , B'Rep. German , B.Rep. Dtld. , BRep.D , BR Dtld. or occasionally - as far as context-related - simply BRep. and Dtld. prefers; the use of the abbreviation "BRD" was and is not officially desired ( see also section " Current use "). In the oral language, the short name Federal Republic for the Federal Republic of Germany is in use.

Vehicle nationality sign

The fact that both German states, the nationality code D used had 1971 on the same designation of the West German television magazine registration D out.

In order to emphasize their “independence”, the GDR replaced the D mark on January 1, 1974 with the GDR nationality mark . As a result, left-wing groups in the Federal Republic , especially the German Communist Party (DKP), called on their supporters to contact theirs Motor vehicles the "presumptuous" nationality code D , also called "D-Schild", to be replaced by a sign with the letters BRD . In such cases, fines were sometimes distributed in public road traffic , which was justified by the fact that the "BRD" sticker could be confused with a foreign nationality number. By contrast, brought in the course turn in autumn 1989 GDR citizens their pursuit of national unity with the conversion of their GDR shield in a D-sign by repayment of the first and last letter expressed.

International abbreviations

The corresponding abbreviations such as FRG (for Federal Republic of Germany ) in English and RFA (République Fédérale d'Allemagne) in French are common and in some cases are international . The Russian abbreviation ФРГ (for Федеративная Республика Германия, Federatiwnaja Respublika Germanija ) is still very common today.

Various abbreviations have become established for united Germany:

Usage today

Since the end of the Cold War at the end of the 20th century and with German reunification , the discussion about the abbreviation FRG has lost its explosiveness. Since the 1990s, the Duden has equated “FRG” with “Federal Republic of Germany”, while pointing out that it is an “unofficial abbreviation”. Since then, the Federal Agency for Civic Education , which is subordinate to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, has occasionally used the abbreviation BRD, which in the past was not undisputed, on its websites and when publishing scientific publications . The abbreviation is also used regularly in the media, e.g. B. in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , in the Süddeutsche Zeitung or in the world , even if it now refers to the united Germany.

The term “old FRG” appeared in the media from around the year 2000 as a reference to the Federal Republic of Germany before 1990 , which differs from the Federal Republic of the 21st century not only geographically, but also in the form of the social market economy . For example, many companies that serve to supply the population were not yet privatized , but rather federal, state or municipal property (e.g. Federal Post Office , Federal Railways , hospitals).

Right-wing use

Occasionally right-wing extremists such as Horst Mahler and nationalists use the abbreviation BRD today to show that, from their point of view, the Federal Republic of Germany only includes part of Germany (the one within the borders of 1937 ) - in revanchist circles one measures the German- Polish border treaty to the former German eastern territories of 1990 is of no significance - and on the other hand it is not a sovereign state, but merely an "organizational form of a modality of the enemy powers of the German Reich" (OMF-BRD) - based on the term coined by Carlo Schmid in 1948 the "organizational form of a modality of foreign rule ". In addition, the abbreviation is used in representations that view the Federal Republic of Germany as an illegitimate state, whose government is juxtaposed with so-called “ Commissary Reich Governments ”.

Similar dispute

There was a comparable ideological discussion about the terms Berlin (West) , West Berlin and West Berlin with the abbreviation WB . The bracket construction used in Berlin (West) and the Federal Republic of Germany ("West Germany") was intended to clarify the unity of the city of Berlin , which was divided into two parts. The GDR tried to create the impression of an independent geographical (such as West India ) and political area (“Independent political unit West Berlin”) and to delimit this from Berlin, the capital of the German Democratic Republic , by adding “West Berlin” .

There was also a political debate about the term “ West Germany ” or about the fact that the GDR could not be abroad to the Federal Republic, as well as about the abbreviation “GDR”, which z. B. in the Springer press before August 2, 1989 was only used in quotation marks.

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: BRD  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Georg Stötzel , Martin Wengeler , Karin Böke : Controversial terms. History of public language use in the Federal Republic of Germany . Walter de Gruyter, 1995, p. 317-322 .
  2. ↑ Helmut Berschin : Concept of Germany in linguistic change. In: Werner Weidenfeld , Karl-Rudolf Korte (ed.): Handbook on German Unity. 1949–1989–1999 , new edition, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, pp. 217–225, here pp. 222–224.
  3. ^ Wilhelm Grewe: The constitutional foundations of the Federal Republic of Germany , Part I: The occupation statute. In: Deutsche Rechts-Zeitschrift, JCB Mohr, Tübingen 1949, pp. 265–270. Reprinted in Der Sprachdienst , ed. Society for German Language, 1988, pp. 137 ff .; Critical Friedrich-Christian Schroeder , Wilhelm Grewe did not introduce the term "FRG". Strange competition by a society for the German language , Die Welt, September 2, 1989, p. 2.
  4. ↑ Record of the Ministerialdirigenten Lahn , in: AAPD 1970, II, p. 840 , note 2 to Doc. 225.
  5. ↑ See Helmut Berschin, Germany - a name in transition. The German question as reflected in the language. Munich 1979, p. 25 ff .; he assigns "BRD" for the GDR as a substitute for older battle names such as "West German Separate State", "Bonn Regime" and the like. Ä. from.
  6. ^ Georg Stötzel, Martin Wengeler, Karin Böke, Controversial Terms. History of public language use in the Federal Republic of Germany , de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1995, ISBN 3-11-014106-X , p. 320 .
  7. ↑ a b "Whoever says BRD causes harm" , Der Spiegel 39/1978 of September 25, 1978.
  8. ^ Designation "Federal Republic of Germany" in school lessons. October 4, 1976, archived from the original on December 18, 2005 ; Retrieved August 12, 2008 .
  9. ↑ German Bundestag - Scientific Services: The discussion about the use of the abbreviation "BRD" ( Memento of May 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), The Current Term No. 71/09 of September 4, 2009 (PDF; 44 kB)
  10. ^ Herbert Ernst Wiegand : Studies on New High German Lexicography. Georg Olms Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-487-07838-4 , p. 104.
  11. ↑ Werner Weidenfeld, Karl-Rudolf Korte (ed.): Handbook on German Unity 1949–1989–1999 . Campus, 1999, p. 222 .
  12. ^ Werner Besch et al .: History of Language. A handbook on the history of the German language and its research . 2nd Edition. 2nd subband. Walter de Gruyter, 1998.
  13. ↑ Georg Stötzel, Martin Wengeler, Karin Böke: Controversial terms. History of public language use in the Federal Republic of Germany . Walter de Gruyter, 1995, p. 317 ff .
  14. ↑ In the early years, the term “German Federal Republic” was also found outside the borders of Germany, for example in Austria , cf. z. B. Concave mirror , Der Spiegel 35/1955 of August 24, 1955.
  15. ↑ Guidelines for the spelling of names, the designation of areas and borders and the representation of the German borders in maps and texts from February 1, 1961; quote here. after Ernst Deubelli, Die Deutschlandpolitik in their political language - A study over the period from 1949 until the entry into force of the Basic Treaty in 1973. (Diss.) Munich 1982, p. 74.
  16. ↑ I. Agranowski, E. Rosental, M. Zunz et al. : USSR - questions and answers . Ed .: Press Agency Nowosti . Dietz Verlag , Berlin 1967, p. 612 ff .
  17. ↑ See e.g. B. the abbreviation used on dejure.org .
  18. ↑ See in VIZ 1997 issue 4 case law on beck-online (CH Beck).
  19. ↑ Buddendiek / Rutkowski: Criminal Law Incidental Laws , 31st edition 2007, chap. "Abbreviations" , in: Keyword Volume. Lexicon of secondary criminal law on beck-online (CH Beck).
  20. ↑ Christoph H. Werth: Politics of détente towards the outside, repression within - the German-German relations 1969–1989. In: Michael Berg, Knut Holtsträter, Albrecht von Massow (eds.): The unbearable lightness of art. Aesthetic and political action in the GDR. Böhlau, Cologne 2007, p. 7.
  21. ^ Otthein Rammstedt , Gert Schmidt : Goodbye BRD! Forty years of retrospective views from social and cultural scientists. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 978-3-518-11773-6 , p. 428.
  22. ^ Information from the LeMO , accessed on October 14, 2016.
  23. ↑ Duden editorial office (ed.): Duden online , Bibliographisches Institut GmbH , keyword “Federal Republic” . Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  24. ↑ Cf. Georg Stötzel, Martin Wengeler, Controversial Terms. History of public language use in the Federal Republic of Germany , de Gruyter, 1995, p. 318 ff.
  25. ↑ Tobias Wiethoff : Comparison of regions. In: FAZ.NET. March 21, 2005, archived from the original on October 24, 2008 ; Retrieved August 11, 2008 .
  26. ^ Süddeutsche.de : 60 years of the FRG - interactive journey through time ( memento from January 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 24, 2010.
  27. ↑ Dorothea Siems: Germany is facing a revolution on the labor market. Subtitle "The attractiveness of the FRG could become even less" , Welt Online from June 22, 2011.
  28. ^ Social Market Economy: Political Implementation, Erosion and Need for Action. In: Konrad Adenauer Foundation . Retrieved January 21, 2017 .
  29. ^ Constitutional Protection Report 2006 of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (PDF), s. a. List of abbreviations p. 288.
  30. ↑ Ministry of the Interior - Hamburg State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV): Anti-Semitism / Revisionism ( Memento of the original from April 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hamburg.de
  31. ↑ Frank Schmidt: The "KRR" FAQ. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 21, 2016 ; Retrieved on August 11, 2008 (private website of the lawyer Frank Schmidt, which deals with the so-called “Commissary Reich Governments”). Compare at this point the abbreviation "BRiD", which is increasingly used by "Reichsbürgern".
  32. ↑ See u. a. the signposts in front of the border inspection posts: Transit BRD - WB .
  33. ↑ Heiner Bröckermann, Sven Felix Kellerhoff : When the "GDR" became the GDR , Welt.de , August 1, 2009, accessed on April 15, 2018.