Raffke
The colloquial expression Raffke with the diminutive ending -ke typical of the Berlin dialect (as in Steppke or Piefke ) describes a greedy person. It is a "term developed in Berlin around 1920, perhaps already in the early days of the company , which goes back to mhd. Shuffle , pluck, rush to grab hold of " ".
Raffke was and is used in a derogatory manner for a " nouveau riche ", someone who got too much money in a short time and who brags about it. In the period after the First World War , this particularly meant upstart people who had made it to prosperity as profiteers from war and crises. The film director Fritz Lang characterized the protagonist of his film Dr. Mabuse, the player from 1922 expressionistically exaggerated as the prototype of Raffke.
Today the expression also appears in the form of the compound term “Raffke mentality”. The term Raffzahn, which is also common in German for a greedy person, is only synonymous with Raffke to a limited extent, since it lacks the component of the nouveau riche bragging rights.
Web links
- Raffke . In: Duden online dictionary . Bibliographical Institute GmbH.
- Raffke in the Lexikon zum Berlinischen by Peter Schlobinski .
- Raffzahn . In: Duden online dictionary . Bibliographical Institute GmbH.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peter Schlobonski: Berliner dictionary. The current vocabulary of the Berliner . Arani, Berlin 1992, ISBN 978-3760586403 .