This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/j_a_shackleton on 2023-10-06 22:29:37.

Those are quite normal, everyday words which are still in use in German today (e.g. the Roman Empire = “das Römische Reich”). English-speakers generally only know those words from their Nazi context, so some people find this surprising. However, I read in “Stasiland” by Anna Funder that in East Germany, for example, some parts of the country attempted to eliminate certain high-profile Nazi terms, even by awkward workarounds if necessary. Her given examples include the position of “tour guide” (“Reisegruppenführer”) being officially called “town plan explainer” (“Stadtbilderklärer”) in Leipzig in the mid-1980s.

Is there some truth to that? Did different parts of the German-speaking world feel the need to work around or reduce the use of those charged words in the aftermath of the war?